Account Management Gold

WHAT IS ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT?

WHAT IS ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT? - Account Management Gold

Risk response checklist with a red ballpen setting a tick in the avoid checkbox 3D illustration

Account Management is best defined as enabling any supplier of people placements, consultancy, projects, services &/or products) to minimise risk in all that they do with particular focus on developing long-term revenue streams. In addition, there is an ongoing commitment to increasing productivity/profit/margin, client/people networks, trust/integrity, reputation/market standing & morale/pride.

So, as the new business world continues to evolve after Covid we speculate different scenarios as to what might eventually be. However, we already know that the pool of clients and prospects is smaller and that winning new business is much harder and more competitive. 

Hence the need to work with greater productivity, delivering on time to the required level of quality and performing risk management activities throughout. Failure to do so will be disastrous, resulting in clients lost to the competition; clients who have much greater ‘value’ post Covid.

However, although the new business environment continues to evolve, the basic principles & processes of business best practice will remain, being even more important than before.  

So, the first priority will clearly be for suppliers to retain existing clients and prospects even if they’ve been a pain to deal with in the past, damaged your profit margin or put you under unreasonable pressure – conversely, they may now be very pleased to hear from you, maybe they used to take the credit for your efforts and now feel vulnerable.

Also, as client organisations have become more and more knowledgeable about how and what their suppliers are delivering to them, the importance of the relationship between the two parties has become crucial in modern business. Strong and healthy business relationships and maximising financial performance & growth invariably result from adopting Account Management & Development best practice.

In order for suppliers and clients to develop compatible business relationships, it’s absolutely vital that the client’s culture & psyche, and the supplier’s values & ethos, are understood and accepted by both parties.

In addition, the need for consistency across all clients and prospects is particularly important regarding continuity of working practices when there are changes in personnel (especially if there is a change in Account Manager).

Account Management Goals

There are two levels for each of the 3 long-term objectives:

Level 1

Level 2

The Account File

The heart of your Account Management & Development process will be the Account File. This file accommodates all the information associated with your Company’s activities for a particular Account in addition to comprehensive information regarding the client. A summary of Account File components makes the scope easier to understand:

Critical Success Factors

Best Practice Quote 1 of 13:

as nothing is more important than the client relationship, everyone must understand, accept & comply with the client’s culture at all times”

NEXT BLOG: Understanding Your Clients (& vice versa!)

A complete set of account management components can be found at accountmanagementgold.com, all of which aim to significantly improve supplier performance and block the competition.

As an introduction to these components, I’m writing a series of blogs which I hope will be of value and appropriate for the type & size of your client, prospect and target organisations:

As these blogs will be geared to anyone engaged in developing new business with clients or prospects, and for ease of context, I’ll regard all readers as account managers as everyone has the same endgame, no offence!

I really hope you, your colleagues & business associates find value in these blogs; please let me know either way. Please also get in touch if you think there might be potential for our businesses to collaborate.

ASPIRE’s MISSION

– to enable suppliers to minimise risk in all that they do with particular focus on developing long-term revenue streams

– to increase productivity/profit/margin, client/people networks, trust/integrity, reputation/market standing & morale/pride

Richard Wright
Managing Director
ASPIRE Account Management
accountmanagementgold.com

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