1. Leading the field in Key Account Management. Key Account Planning – curse
or saviour? I have yet to meet a salesperson that likes writing KA Plans. That's in
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Key Account Planning – curse or saviour? I have yet to meet a salesperson that likes writing KA Plans. That’s in over twenty years of helping people design and create such plans. I suspect it is in the genes. I will list a few of the more obvious dislikes, some more understandable than others: I have to complete a template that is not relevant to my own customer... Nobody reads it once it’s done... It’s only used as part of the big-brother management style – they like to catch us out... Once it’s written, pretty much half of it has changed already... It’s just numbers (head office is obsessed with numbers) but the real plan is about relationships – and you can’t write plans about that stuff! I fully sympathise with complaints 1, 2 and 3. If you have these problems, it’s your bosses we need to speaking with - though if complaint number 1 is the case, there’s nothing stopping you writing your own plan separately, is there?. What bosses hate more than anything is a complaint about a business process that comes with no suggested alternatives – so why not write your own plan and give that to them as an alternative – they might just surprise you! Complaint number 4 misunderstands the purpose of planning: nothing stands still, least of all the dynamic relationship between supplier and key customer. A key purpose of planning is in the ambition to take control of what are obviously fluid situations, and avoid the sin of ‘wait and see, because right now it’s not clear’. The current uncertainty about the future look of the NHS is a case in point – many suppliers (who should know better) have almost ‘frozen’, arguing that now is not the time to be doing anything new. But now is precisely the time to be doing the most important thing of all – talking with the people involved in the changes – and that’s eminently plannable. This takes us to complaint number 5: Complaint number 5 is half right (yes, they are obsessed with numbers at head office) but quite wrong about the matter of relationships. For me, over 75% of a good KA Plan is about the relationship: who do we need to see, who needs to see them, and what’s the purpose of that relationship? To answer those questions we must make an in depth study of how the customer makes their decisions – aiming to get under the skin of their various DMUs (decision making units). There are plenty of tools and methodologies that claim to help with such studies – the best are those that encourage the KA team to come together to talk about their customer. Some people call it gossip – make it ‘managed gossip’ and you have the beginnings of a good planning process. I have long since come to terms with the fact that salespeople will never enjoy writing KA plans, and have realised instead that the task isn’t to ‘make them fun’, but to make them relevant.
KAM planning - curse or saviour
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Leading the field in Key Account Management
If salespeople can see a genuine return from the effort of planning, they’ll get on with it. Plans full of numbers don’t promise much in the way of return, Now, numbers are part of it, and many would say they’re the whole point of it. They may be the final objective, but they are not the whole point. A plan is about how to achieve something, not a bald statement of the final goal. And when it comes to the how, it comes to the people. We are back to the following simple questions: How does the customer make their decision? Who is involved in that decision and in relationship with whom? What ‘turns them on?’, and just as importantly, ‘what turns them off?’. How can we help them make their decision faster, and, of course, in our favour? Who from our side needs to be involved – who sees whom, and why? Nobody is saying that it’s easy answering these questions, the hardest task being getting to grips with what happens inside the customer, often behind closed doors, and not always with the greatest of efficiency! Here is another reason for planning, and perhaps the most important of the lot: if your planning process results in a more efficient customer, then its a good planning process. Which brings us to a final thought: might you be able to share your KA plan with the customer? It’s a great ambition, and a mark of a true partner, and of a key supplier, but if you do head in that direction be even more certain that your own planning process is relevant – don’t expect the customer to appreciate ‘templates’ and ‘bald numbers’ any more than you do! The secret is to be found in a planning process that involves them – and a good start is to find a way to involve your own people in that planning process. Why not start by talking about the people in the customer... Peter Cheverton INSIGHT Marketing And People Ltd
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KAM planning - curse or saviour
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Leading the field in Key Account Management
