Trusted Advisors Need Their Own Stories

I have been asked to help companies turn their Account Managers into revenue-generating Sales Machines. In the current environment, more and more companies find themselves in the situation where their Account Managers focus predominantly on their existing accounts rather than on Prospecting. They may do an excellent job as Trusted Advisors for their current customers, but the reality is that they have become “Farmers” and have forgotten how to “Hunt”.  If you want to drive market share, relying on Farmers is not a sustainable approach.

Turning Farmers into Hunters

So, if you are a business owner and find yourself in a similar challenge, read on to learn how to turn your Account Managers back into Hunting mode.

When I was a Sales Director in Indonesia, I had to do exactly that. Revenue per Day and Shipments per Day were flat, primarily due to the majority of calls being made to existing customers rather than prospects. Complacency was lurking around the corner.

We were up against three main competitors who our salespeople said offer very much the same services. In the events, they were talking to Prospects, their conversations turned quickly into price comparisons.

They didn’t feel confident and had no insights or stories to tell. No wonder they fell back to what they knew best: talking to customers they knew, trying to develop their accounts. Now the prospecting challenge became even bigger, because most of the sales force thought we were commoditised.

To differentiate value, you need to know what is valued.

I asked our Account Managers what they thought the big differentiators were between us and the competition. Nearly all answers were technical advantages. I found this rather strange. That can’t be what our Customers think of us, I thought. To make Account Managers confident in what they sell, they needed to rediscover what made customers choose us in the first place.

To differentiate value, you need to know what is valued.

So I got our Account Managers to do the following exercise:

Call your top 10 customers. Inform them that you are conducting research and ask if they are willing to answer a few questions. It will only take a maximum of 10 minutes per call. If you have a close relationship with these customers, I am sure the majority will cooperate. Try to talk to stakeholders at the Operational, Management, and Executive levels of the organisation:

Questions	Operational	Management	Executive
What challenges have we helped you to overcome?
What tactical or strategic benefits did you gain by choosing us as a partner?
Why do you prefer working with us over others?

With this information, you understand what value you and your company offer from a Customer’s point of view. These are the reasons they have chosen you over the competitors. And the best thing? With these insights, your Account Managers feel again credible and have their own story to tell. Trusted Advisors need their own stories. It doesn’t matter what industry you are operating in; customer feedback is gold, and salespeople need to hear that from their customers themselves.

An operational person may say: “I like how your system integrates with our CRM and our order applications. It was a smooth implementation process and is saving me every day tonnes of time”.

A manager may say: “With your help, we have been expanding to new markets we did not think were possible. It has been a real game-changer”.

And an Executive: “I only hear good news from my teams. Because of your service, we now have strategic advantages over others. It has been a worthwhile investment”.

Now your Account Managers know what is valued by their customers and can help them be confident on the phone with prospects. Combine this with a modern sales approach, such as the Selling with the Buyer’s Perspective methodology, and your account managers will become money-making machines.

It worked for me with numerous sales teams I have been helping.

Question: What did you do to turn Farmers into Hunters?

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