Over on one of the LinkedIn discussion groups, a question came up about the steps of strategic account management. One approach I’ve been using this year with clients has a 5 step, project-driven cycle that can be done again and again:
1. Increase account knowledge and connections by calling more widely.
2. Do account planning with the customer from a collaborative vision.
3. Discover, diagnose and design projects that advance the vision; pre-establish the project’s value to the customer before starting.
4. Coordinate customer and internal teams to deliver project and achieve goals.
5. Present and validate project’s value to customer through executive level.

There’s a lot more to be said, but if you practice these five steps, you’ll be listening more to find out what the customer’s business problems are. Your solutions will include more than just product. As you deliver, you’ll build trust and credibility that will encourage the customer to tell you more, because they’ll know you care about them and their business goals.

This is not a short-term fix, and it won’t work with every customer. Some companies with really strong purchasing organizations won’t accept the value of projects when negotiating the terms of the next deal. Qualify the customer (and your own management!) before initiating this approach:

• Are other vendors treated as strategic partners, even if your company is not yet?
• Are the people you deal with capable of influencing purchasing to make this type of selling worthwhile? Do they give you signals before you start that project that it’s worth doing vs. other places you could put resources?
• Does your organization have expertise beyond product that will help you deliver value, and will it be made available to you?
• Are you calling high enough in the account that you’ve reached people who care about strategic business results, as opposed to product attributes?
• Will you be in the account long enough that this approach bears fruit vs. traditional selling?
• Is your account large enough that it will yield a return from the amount of time that this selling approach takes?

I’ve put off blogging.  With the best of intentions, I asked my web person to put the capability in place last year, but this is the first entry.  I got remotivated after seeing the ABC special on the last lecture of Randy Pausch, the inspired ideas of a Carnegie Mellon professor battling pancreatic cancer.

Why the delay?  Life happened:  surgery to repair a mitral valve, and then recovery; an exceptionally busy time with teenage children; the demands of my consulting practice; and most recently, taxes.  And then there were the self-judgements:  will I have enough to say?  Will it attract readers?  Will it have meaning for me and for them?  Couldn’t this as easily occur within the pages of an offline diary?

We’ll see.  Expect short, weekly postings on my passions:  the vagaries of our behavior and how we analyze and organize ourselves in families, businesses, teams, churches, political parties, et al; the books and other media we use to communicate and clarify our values; and the news.  My work involves helping people and organizations to answer vexing questions and to make meaning and connections, to gain courage to change their strategies when needed, and to effectively influence others.  It’s an inexact science.  I’ll muse about it, provide what I hope will be interesting links and, if Encouragetalk draws some readers, invite you to dialogue.  The tone will be idiosyncratically personal with occasional infomercials.  Caveat lector!