Stepping Up to Account Management - Combining Planning, Process and People Skills

Course details

Managing accounts is stepping up to a planned approach to lift sales results with existing clients. This two-day workshop will concentrate on the skills to deliver short, medium and long term growth plans to your clients.

Delegates will learn the value of developing sales with existing clients rather than prospecting for new clients. You will discover the processes, tools and techniques to be proactive in the way you manage accounts in order to develop business.

Is it right for me?

This programme has been designed for sales people who are taking on responsibility for expanding business with larger accounts.

This course focuses on the strategic management of accounts together with soft skills and rapport building techniques needed to maximise business. This is an account management course which assumes that sales skills are already in place.

What will I learn?

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Use a set of tools to get the maximum from your new accounts.
• Understand your clients’ business and marketplace that they operate within and forward plan using the ORBIT model.
• View your accounts from your customers’ perspective and adapt your approach to suit.
• Build a network of contacts with each account to sell more products/services.
• Understand and articulate the value your products/services bring to your clients’ business.
• Know how to develop short, medium and long term business plans for your accounts.
• Build a personal action plan of things to do differently.

Pre-course Activity

Please bring details of one client where business potential has been identified and client targeted for development over the next six months. These challenges will be discussed during the course.

What will it cover?

The Process

• Establishing a strategy
• Identifying needs
• Matching client needs to product range
• Selling within the relationship
• Up selling and cross selling
• Creating yardsticks against which to gauge your progress
• Knowing the client’s business and market place

You as an Account Manager

• Building relationships: consider the types of individual you will meet and their roles within their business so that you know who you must contact in order to expand your business
• Communication styles and how to adapt depending on who you are dealing with
• Becoming the trusted advisor: different influencing strategies you can use
• What motivates a buyer: identify the individual key drivers of the decision making units within your accounts
• Develop your networking skills
• Improving the power of the questions you use

Your personal development plan