Business Coach
Damon Jones
Managing Director of Strategic Accounts
Miller Heiman
Ever felt the aggravation that comes when the “check engine” light in your car pops on? It may be frustrating, but at least it’s a tangible warning. Although not as obvious, there are warning signs within the sales organization that can indicate when focus is being diverted away from customers.
“When an organization gets too focused around their internal issues, when it is thinking too much about its own objectives, revenue or pricing rather than speaking to the customers to inform and drive those decisions, then it can definitely get off track,” says Damon Jones, managing director of strategic accounts at Miller Heiman. “At that point you’re creating strategies and making decisions with limited customer input. You’re operating in a vacuum.”
Watching for warning signs can help companies ensure they retain a competitive advantage. As Jones says, there’s never any good reason for not being close to customers, but it takes orchestration and discipline. “It takes the whole organization,” says Jones.
Organizations can’t expect to operate flawlessly all of the time, but the mission should be to become a problem solver and stay on top of customer issues by making sure the right activities are enabling proper interaction with the customer. As Jones observes, a differentiating factor that sets top-performing companies apart is their ability to listen to customers and adapt practices accordingly.
Warning Sign #1: Silos
Silos between divisions and departments have an adverse effect on a company’s ability to devote attention to the customer’s needs and objectives. Disconnects between sales and marketing departments, marketing and product, sales and accounting, or any other departmental coupling, divert energy internally instead of where it should be: on the customer. Remaining alert for signs that departments are in discord is a wise investment of time.
“More organizations are trying to figure out how to get their product or service line divisions working more effectively together to present a more united approach to the customer,” says Jones. “One of the reasons behind this is that more and more organizations are trying to cross sell across product or service lines to optimize the potential with the customer.” At that point, the question of how to get better account penetration surfaces and companies realize they need to create a more united face to the customer to avoid making account pursuit disorganized. “Without an aligned approach, customers can say ‘you’re complicated to deal with since you have so many reps coming out to see us.’”
“What I see a lot of organizations doing, particularly around their strategic accounts, is some form of reorganization so they are aligned more around the customer rather than their internal product or service line,” says Jones, though he notes it can be difficult for organizations to depart completely from being centered on product or service lines. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, as Jones comments that some of the value provided to the customer is the expertise.
There needs to be a balance between product and customer focus, asserts Jones. “Organizations that excel in this goal have people who are well versed in products and services, but also in cultivating the customer relationship,” says Jones. “It isn’t a choice or a sequence; time spent learning these areas needs to be balanced.” any product-focused, technical people haven’t come up through sales roles, but Jones says he’s seen companies putting those employees through sales and customer skills training, as they tend to spend ample time interacting
with customers.
Many organizations use a team selling approach. There is always a lead salesperson or account manager but they are supported by several others in the organization who are not in pure sales roles. In this regard, anyone who comes in contact with the customer - marketing representatives, product experts, accounting contacts - has the potential to be considered a salesperson. They are integral to the sales process and have an important role to play. Everyone has a responsibility to the customer and a responsibility toward collaborating with others in the organization.
Warning Sign #2: Surprise
“If a loss of a deal or customer is a surprise, clearly the company wasn’t keeping tabs on what the customer was doing,” says Jones. “Surprises can happen overnight, but typically happen more gradually. The customer was probably thinking about this for a while but didn’t share that with the company that lost out.” Companies that have been surprised by the loss of a customer recently should re-emphasize the importance of a strategy around key customers.
“Top organizations have clear strategies for managing key accounts,” says Jones. “They dedicate resources and have programmed approaches for doing reviews internally with the account support team and externally with the customer.” The lack of evidence for formalized strategies around key customers is a big red flag. When there is no real discipline around performing regular account reviews or win/loss reviews, it means there isn’t an effort to learn why customers work with the buying organization.
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