We all know the phrase about working smarter and not harder don’t we?
Well, that’s what key account mapping allows you to do. Key account mapping is all about identifying those customers that you love to do business with, that make you the most profit and that by being seen to work with them, raises your business profile as well.
Key accounts are unique to each company but once identified, if you can identify more of the same then it can lead to more profitable business and a boost to your client portfolio.
Key accounts are those accounts that are most attractive to your business and that play most to your businesses strengths. How you decide what is attractive to your business will be unique in each case with considerations such as how easy a client is to work with and the prestige of working for them being important factors.
The Ideal Customer
The ideal customer is going to look different for every business depending on the size of your organisation and the nature of your current clients. It may be that your ideal client is a large blue chip company or a SME. You may want accounts where you can nurture important one to one relationships or you may already have the infrastructure to work with more complex organisations. Whatever a key account means to you, it’s about finding more just like them and putting together a process to make it happen.
In order to do this you need to gather intelligence about your current key accounts and look at their profiling characteristics. This includes information about the size of their operation, their financial situation, their infrastructure, their business strategy and the supplier relationships they have. Don’t just look at the positives, also consider what characteristics make a nightmare client (we all have a few!)
By determining the attractive qualities of the key accounts you have, you will start to see the pattern of the types of ideal prospects you need to target.
Remember to not only think about what makes a prospect attractive but also about your own strength of position and how different types of prospects fit better with how you work as a business e.g. are you really set up to deal with extremely large complex multinationals (regardless of the potential revenue!).
Driving a Profitable Sales Pipeline
Some of the required information will be accessible via a bit of internet research however much of it will not be publicly available so you may need to carry out primary and secondary research to complete the gaps in your knowledge. Once you have captured all the information you need this will allow you to identify other similar companies that should become target accounts.
Once identified these target accounts can then be nurtured and developed via a combination of Data, Insight and Dialogue into profitable key accounts that will result in a mutually profitable relationship.
In the B2B environment we all know that the sales function is becoming increasingly process driven. The key to driving a profitable sales pipeline is not just a numbers game. It’s about targeting the right accounts, appropriate channel mapping, having an effective sales funnel and ensuring that you have the right processes in place to convert them into happy, profitable customers. That’s what working smarter is all about!
