Strategic Account Management  

What is “Strategic Account Management”?  It is an art underpinned by a scientific approach.  It aims to focus your business development and customer relationship management resources where they can be most successful.  The outcome is to save time and avoid wasting effort and money.  Effective Strategic Account Management can also help to avoid the “profitless prosperity” trap, where there is good business flow but no profit. 

Participants will learn how to: 

• Identify objectively client firms with which they can do business most effectively  
• Identify with which of those client firms there is a real potential “business fit”  at present or in the future (based on a combination of industry and firm-specific business issues, challenges for the client and the unique expertise and benefits brought by the participant and his/ her firm) 
• Identify the key buying decision takers within each firm and their respective Roles 
• Identify the key Personal and Business Needs of those decision takers and  
• Build Long-Term Consultative Partnerships, (“LTCPs”) with them (see separate page) 

The Benefits of this approach include: 

• Focusing business development work so that the amount of time wasted in nugatory effort is minimised and “hit rate” is maximised 
• Moving client relationships “up the food chain” as rapidly as possible from gatekeepers and technical / user buyers to the real decision makers or “economic buyers” who have ultimate authority to “sign a cheque” 
• Reducing (ultimately eliminating) competition in your chosen field with a given client 
• Maximising both your share of the client’s available spending in your field (“share of wallet”) and also your profitability from that spending, (because price is minimised as an issue in the buying decision) 
• Minimising (or eliminating where possible) the need to respond to Requests For Proposals (“RFPs”) because you engage with the client far earlier in the process 
• (Where legally possible) fast-tracking the procurement process.   

Topics covered include: 

• How Buying Decisions are (Really) Taken 
• Understanding “Value” (as seen by clients) and how to leverage this 
• Strategic Selling vs. Strategic Account Management plus key differentiators/ Benefits 
• Account Planning: Processes and Tools 
• Qualifying the Clients (i.e. selecting and prioritising targets) 
• Account team allocation 
• Business Fit and Targeting 
• Tools and Systems 
• Executive Sales Skills Sets 

What is this programme?         A Half-Day seminar 

Who should attend? 

• Business Development and Sales professionals,  
• Client Relationship Managers,  
• Partners and Associates in Law, Accountancy or other Professional Services firms who seek to build and grow their practices and become recognised as “rainmakers” 

Minimum group size:  20 people for a public seminar, 10 people for an in house seminar.