Is account-based selling about selling or the right relationships? In fact, there’s no definitive answer to that question. In reality, account-based selling is all about shifting the focus from inward to outward, and thus getting a deeper understanding of the businesses you operate with. We dived a little deeper into best practices on setting sales goals and how to be successful with key account management and account-based selling.
Are your goals genuinely representative? Sales orgs may try to do everything at once and instead of reaching their goals, they end up slowing sales velocity instead. Does that mean having too many accounts can actually result in a lack of focus? Is it even possible to build up and maintain speed when taking on a new sales org? Well – keep on reading as we go over the most crucial discussion points from the ARPEDIO LinkedIn Live session, where Michael Goldberg, VP of Sales at ConnectWise, and Robert Jablonski, Chief Revenue Officer, shared their experiences and best practices on:
- The mistake of “too many” accounts or metrics
- Taking on a new sales org and how to build momentum fast
- How to avoid goal scope creep
Michael Goldberg – VP of Sales ConnectWise
Goldberg has more than 15 years of IT channel experience and a strong track record of sales leadership. He is passionate about building partnerships that drive rapid growth.
Robert Jablonski – Chief Revenue Officer
With more than 27 years of Strategic and Operational Business Management, Robert has been working for small, mid-size and large international corporations in multiple industries with different products, services or software.
Account-based sales revolution
In order to truly understand why key account management programs are so crucial for organizations, it’s important to know this: at the bottom line, it’s not about selling, it’s about building a lasting relationship. It’s about making promises, and even more: delivering on those promises.
It can be argued that what has led to this point is the arc of sales motions companies; Michael refers to the times back in the day, where you would get handed a yellowpages and be told to make phone calls. There wasn’t much strategic thinking back then, and there wasn’t a whole lot of planning. The reality today is much different.
Less is in fact more
So many of us tend to over complicate things by nature. Let’s set the scene: you’re setting sales goals for your team. The twist is, that you actually set less goals. Yes, it may sound contradictory, but better sales results can in fact occur faster with LESS goals.
What gets lost sometimes when having too many accounts, is the ability to go deeper and wider with clients. That’s one of the beauties of how account-based selling and key account mapping enables you to get a deeper understanding. It’s actually less about what you’re selling and more about the businesses you operate with, for instance, what are the business outcomes that your clients are looking to achieve, and how can we drive that success through the platform we work with.
Look at it this way: if you’re not doing account-based selling, you’re actually narrowing your scope by not allowing that depth and breath and thus success with the clients that you work with. Softwares develops continuously and sure, there’s a lot of significant things that companies do, but more often than not it’s only the business outcome that wires these things for being driven. So, if you’re not focused on the outcome of it all, you’re actually selling yourself and the company short. Rob emphasizes the importance of making mistakes in order to learn, and has personally used his experience and learning to see what not to do. So don’t be afraid to try as you go, as long as you learn from the journey.
Be proactive to build momentum
Another important thing to bear in mind: key account management is one of the few strategies every company could (and perhaps should) take in order to become truly proactive. You need to be extremely sharp with your messaging, your marketing communication, and with what the sales people are going to say to clients. Too often, this messaging is very different from vertical to vertical although you may believe that you’re offering similar solutions.
Robert draws on his own experience, when contemplating that the key is consistency in the messaging. Having a message on point that is tied to the account and what you’re solving is generally really the most successful path.
A digital journey
In general, account-based marketing and account-based selling is getting more and more attention throughout all kinds of organizations and naturally, so are the tools that enable that. In order to have good key account management in place you need to be very selective. It’s extremely important to understand that there’s a big difference between true key accounts and potential key accounts and that you need to work differently with those.
Key takeaways and recommendations
One thing is important to bear in mind when setting sales goals: less is more! Measuring too many things and being overly ambitious only creates chaos. So stick to measuring what really matters, and don’t overcomplicate.
- Standardization is key! Regardless of sales methodology, a common language amongst sellers, leaders and executives is crucial – and another good reason for leveraging sales enablement tools in your KAM program.
- Be sharp with the messaging. The key is consistency. Team up with marketing and start co-orchestrating the account plan to leverage account based marketing air-cover!
- Finally, put your active listening skills to use. Robert kindly reminds us that we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. The best salespeople are the ones that are able to check their ego at the door and pay full attention to their customers’ needs.
Avoid goal scope creep
The tools we choose to enable the selling are critical because this is the whole essence of how we deliver the message. But how do you cut through all the digital noise? Possessing the right tools are critical in order to succeed in terms of delivering your message and making sure that it resonates and is heard. ARPEDIO’s tools enable you to do exactly that.
Ready to start taking advantage of sales enablement technologies like account-based selling? Ramp up with ARPEDIO’s account-based selling platform.
Every sales leader has a certain tool kit he brings into the company. The key is a common language among sellers, leaders and executives. It just makes it so much easier to isolate your targets, and thus know whether you’re gonna have success or not. The reality is, if you don’t know who you’re going to sell to, or what their profile looks like, you’re just going to end up spending too much time and effort trying to determine these things. Based on thorough account assessments directly in Salesforce, ARPEDIO’s Account Planning tool ensures a unique management overview of performance across all key accounts, while equipping strategic account managers with the best working environment to manage the complex journey of long-term account development.
If you want to know more about setting sales goals you can watch or re-watch our LinkedIn Live right here:
Maximilian Opp, Head of Sales International
+45 53 50 78 33
[email protected]
linkedin.com/in/maximilian-opp/
Follow us on LinkedIn to get all the newest perspectives and insights around strategic relationship management and sales innovation.
Maximilian Opp, Head of Sales International
+45 53 50 78 33
[email protected]
linkedin.com/in/maximilian-opp/
Follow us on LinkedIn to get all the newest perspectives and insights around strategic relationship management and sales innovation.
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