Experience Counts
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Brian Harrison Smith WHITE PAPERS
Brian Harrison Smith writes white papers and articles based on his decades of experience in senior level sales and the development of sales strategy. Please contact him for permission to reprint, or to request custom-written articles for your sales-related publications.		 March 2007
Strategic sales and account management

By Brian Harrison Smith.

Failing to quantify the value of strategic account planning is a significant problem.  Unless there is a clear definition of cause and effect, when budget cuts arrive, resource uses that cannot justify their existence are the first to go ... and they should be!  If this means that strategic account planning gets cut, it's a problem.

Every company activity must justify its committed resources. Strategic account planning is a critical long-term growth activity that must justify itself.  To establish whether strategic account planning is contributing to your company's bottom-line, assess its value from four viewpoints with the following questions:

Strategic Account's Viewpoint

  1. How is the strategic planning process received by your strategic accounts? Is the process endorsed across all functions, or is the acceptance lukewarm?

  2. Do the strategic accounts actively participate in review meetings as a means of building the company/account relationship?

  3. Can you link strategic account satisfaction and loyalty to the planning process?

  4. Do your strategic accounts wish to develop and/or continue partnership status? Does this result from the additional value the planning process identified and your firm subsequently delivered?

Company's Viewpoint

  1. Has the strategic planning process delivered account plans that produced profitable revenue growth and improved customer loyalty?

  2. Has the business with your strategic accounts benefited from investment in the strategic planning process?

  3. Has your company been successful in securing a greater share of strategic accounts' spending? Or have you reached a plateau?

  4. Have your strategic account managers identified new untapped opportunities where your company can bring extra value to strategic accounts?

  5. Has the planning process moved customer relationships to a higher level?

  6. Has strategic account team productivity improved and the cost of sales declined?

Strategic Account Team's Viewpoint

  1. Do strategic account team members take ownership of the plan resulting from their inclusion in the planning process?

  2. Do team members believe the planning process adds to their knowledge of the strategic account and its industry?

  3. Do team members believe the planning process adds to their understanding of individual roles and responsibilities in successfully managing the account?

  4. Has the planning process helped team members close more business in less time?

  5. Is there a greater feeling of team unity and successful cooperation, practices sharing, and learning as the result of the planning process?

Strategic Account Manager's (SAM) Viewpoint

  1. Does the planning process improve the SAMs' ability to do their jobs?

  2. Has the strategic planning process enabled SAMs to develop and achieve their goals at the account more effectively and efficiently?

  3. Does the planning process assist SAMs in developing, motivating, and managing their strategic account teams?

"Strategies are indeed plans for achieving and sustaining success. But they are not just any ideas for how to make a product or service and sell it profitably to customers. Rather, strategies are those plans that specifically focus on the actions and responses of competitors."

Greenwald and Kahn, writing in Fast Company. Read the article here.