KAMCast - Key Account Management Strategies for Business Leaders

How well have your client relationships faired against the almighty test that was 2020?

With research suggesting that 68% of customers citing ‘perceived indifference’ as their top reason for leaving a supplier - have you lost customers by not remaining close enough to them? Or, by not fully understanding what they really needed from you, during the stormy waters of the pandemic.

Perhaps you were led by political rhetoric and generalisations, which suggested that EVERYONE was facing financial ruin…leading you to discount and offer concessions through compassion? Did your strategy pay off or have you damaged the relationship - missing the customer’s need for confidence, clarity and clear leadership?

In this episode David speaks to Jermaine Edwards, a Blue-Chip KAM specialist, who spends much of his time creating unique customer growth and loyalty strategies for his clients which make them irreplaceable in their market. His client portfolio includes companies like: Gartner, Dell Technologies, London Business School and General Electric. To date Jermaine has helped his clients uncover more than $250 million in new and undiscovered revenue from existing customers.

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𝗝𝗘𝗥𝗠𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗘 𝗘𝗗𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗦 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

Jermaine is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of The Irreplaceable Advisory Group and a Key Customer Growth Specialist. With more than 10 years-experience in sales, sales leadership and customer growth management, he has developed the 'Customer Ripple System' and 'Customer Mastery Programme' to help his clients make the impact they always knew was possible with their most important customers.

Jermaine has been featured as a Customer Growth Author for Inc. Magazine and has personally trained and delivered talks to more than 4000 customer leaders, executives and teams for B2B businesses.

With a Degree in German and Economics, and a Masters in Behavioural Psychology, Jermaine is invited by blue chip companies around the world to create unique customer growth and loyalty strategies which make them irreplaceable in their market. He has worked with brands like Gartner, Dell Technologies, London Business School and GE.

𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

David is the principal KAM consultant & Managing Director at KAMGuru.com, a specialist Key Account Management training and consultancy business, based in the UK.

David is a Speaker, Author and Performance Coach with more than a decade of hands-on and consultative experience in sales and management roles in the leisure, entertainment and telecoms industries.

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In today’s world we could categorise organisations into two camps: those that add value, and those that add COST.

• Why type of organisation are you?

• What is your definition of value?

• How will you know when you are adding & creating value for your customers?

• Do your most important clients know the extra lengths you go to provide them with unexpected, relevant and personalised value that is ultimately useful to them?

With value being undefinable to many and different to each of your accounts, I wanted to peel back a few layers of this really big onion and explore value with our guest for this episode: Warwick Brown.

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𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐖𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐁𝐈𝐎:

Warwick Brown, a Key Account Consultant and Founder of thekamclub.com, has led business development and account management teams in Australia and Europe for more than 15 years. He has worked with some of the world's most prestigious firms including Merck & Co, Deutsche Bank, McKinsey & Company and Vodafone.

His mission is to support in-house KAM Professionals with the right advice, tools and learning resources to boost their results. He also spends time educating organisations about the importance of leveraging the power of key account management which in turn to accelerates higher performing KAM Professionals, improved client retention and increased revenue.

𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

David is the principal KAM consultant & Managing Director at KAMGuru.com, a specialist Key Account Management training and consultancy business, based in the UK.

David is a Speaker, Author and Performance Coach with more than a decade of hands-on and consultative experience in sales and management roles in the leisure, entertainment and telecoms industries.

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Picture the scene…

You’ve just asked one of your top account managers to meet you and walk you through their account plan for your most important customer.

You want to know: what we know, what we don’t know, what we are planning to do and how we are going to achieve it.

Sounds like a simple ask right?

And now you stand back and watch as your account manager battles with half a dozen spreadsheets, a PowerPoint slide deck, an underutilised CRM System and overwhelmed email inbox.

Where is the information? What is the intelligence? Do we have the right SYSTEMS in place?

The role of technology is to SUPPORT the business, to make the life of an account manager more productive, more effective and ultimately more successful.

The benefit of all of that for business leaders is clear – more visibility, more accountability and more control for the trajectory of where your top accounts are heading.

My guest on this episode is Alex Raymond, CEO and founder of KAPTA, one of the world’s leading KAM Enablement tools. Join us!

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𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗫 𝗥𝗔𝗬𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗗 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

Alex is the co-founder and CEO of Kapta.com, a customer experience mapping company based in Boulder, Colorado (US). Kapta is purpose-built for organisations who want to establish, expand, or improve their Key Account Management function. Their technology removes the busy guesswork from client services, so you can focus on the work that matters: building strong relationships.

With an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor’s Degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, Alex is a smart man, with 20 years-experience in the customer experience software sector.

𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

David is the principal KAM consultant & Managing Director at KAMGuru.com, a specialist Key Account Management training and consultancy business, based in the UK.

David is a Speaker, Author and Performance Coach with more than a decade of hands-on and consultative experience in sales and management roles in the leisure, entertainment and telecoms industries.

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“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

– Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

“By Failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.” – Thomas Edison, Inventor & businessman

Even the creative genius Pablo Picasso knew that planning was key when he said:

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

So, with so many quotes by smart people to remind us of the importance of proper preparation and planning to avoid poor performance…WHY do most account plans simply NOT WORK?

Perhaps the answer is simple and it is because most account plans are just too complicated!

Do you ever feel frustrated at the lack of consistency in the way your teams create account plans? Perhaps some team members don’t even bother.

Would it make your life easier to have a straightforward system and process for planning so that you can keep your eye on what is going on and retain visibility of your most important customers?

In this episode, David Ventura shares with you our KAMGuru approach to building a simple, easy-to-use and effective Key Account Plan. This short, stress-free plan will act as your guide, toolkit and roadmap to achieving success with your accounts. (We even give you free access to our template – no sign-up required).

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𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

David is the principal KAM consultant & Managing Director at KAMGuru.com, a specialist Key Account Management training and consultancy business, based in the UK.

David is a Speaker, Author and Performance Coach with more than a decade of hands-on and consultative experience in sales and management roles in the leisure, entertainment and telecoms industries.

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In a world where the vast majority of internet traffic is video content, how can we leverage the creation, production and value of video to maximise sales return?

In this episode I talk to Ed Lawrence - a professional video marketer and co-founder of Business Film Booth.

We discuss what returns salespeople can get from making video content; how business leaders can maintain brand image and professionalism through quality control; and the power and value of the video testimonial.

Be sure to listen to this episode, to get Ed’s top tips on strategy, process and the necessary technical kit to make great video content that yields massive returns from your most important customers.

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𝗘𝗗 𝗟𝗔𝗪𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

Ed Lawrence is a video marketer who has professionally produced more than 10,000 videos for UK-based businesses. He co-founded Business Film Booth with his business partner Dave Foulkes in 2015.

He set a goal in Jan 2019 to release 3 videos a week to the Business Film Booth YouTube channel to teach people how to write, produce, present, promote and edit videos so he can help more people take advantage of video. Today…he is still doing it!

Ed is a video marketing blogger for Social Media Examiner, the world’s largest social media marketing resource blog; and also presents and produces videos and courses for The Influencer Marketing hub, a leading social marketing resource for brands.

𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

David is the principal KAM consultant & Managing Director at KAMGuru.com, a specialist Key Account Management training and consultancy business, based in the UK.

David is a Speaker, Author and Performance Coach with more than a decade of hands-on and consultative experience in sales and management roles in the leisure, entertainment and telecoms industries.

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In many organisations, the divide between the sales and marketing teams cause real problems. Silo working, a blame culture and all while the business is missing the opportunity to close the gap and add more value for customers and prospects, ultimately increasing the chances of winning more business.

In this episode I talk to Grant Leboff from StickyMarketing.com, one the UK’s leading Sales and Marketing experts. He has just published is 5th book – ‘Myths of Marketing’ In January 2020.

KAM, for me, really is a team sport and with marketing departments challenged with ADDING VALUE through content and engagement, it’s so important that account managers and sales teams work collaboratively towards a shared goal – to grow the business with existing clients.

Sales people really are mini-marketeers who, in today’s world OWN their own media channels and therefore double up as media personalities. A media channel without content is useless.

With LinkedIn probably being the platform of choice for most business professionals – Grant shares his 3 top tips for leveraging LinkedIn, with an eye on key account managers.

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𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗧 𝗟𝗘𝗕𝗢𝗙𝗙 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

Grant Leboff, from StickyMarketing.com, is one of the U.K's leading Sales and Marketing experts. His fourth book, ‘Digital Selling’, debuted at #1 on the Amazon charts prior to being published in September 2016. His latest book, ‘Myths of Marketing’ was published in January 2020.

A thought leader in his field, Leboff's main focus is to address the massive changes that are taking place in a world that is constantly being introduced to new technologies and an evolving World Wide Web. He continually challenges Sales & Marketing conventions that become accepted wisdom, but don’t necessarily deliver results.

𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

David is the principal KAM consultant & Managing Director at KAMGuru.com, a specialist Key Account Management training and consultancy business, based in the UK.

David is a Speaker, Author and Performance Coach with more than a decade of hands-on and consultative experience in sales and management roles in the leisure, entertainment and telecoms industries.

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Relationship building has always been a key ingredient to becoming the trusted partner to your most important customers.

And an age-old question is whether a salesperson needs to be naturally good at it or whether relationship and rapport building is a skill that can be taught.

This episode’s guest is Master NLP Trainer, Performance Coach and Equine Learning Specialist - Lisa Brice. She’ll be sharing her insights on:

• how we can fine tune our rapport building across digital platforms,

• the role that our core beliefs play in generating success in sales and

• the importance of coaching to maximise performance.

In our continual pursuit of sales success with our key customers, it really is all about identifying the difference that makes the difference.

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𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗔 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

Lisa (lisabrice.co.uk) is a highly-acclaimed and qualified international trainer, personal performance and leadership coach, and business consultant, who specialises in enhancing people’s potential and leadership development. She has worked with small independent businesses to global franchise operations, large corporate companies and public sector organisations, including Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, Delancey, Phillips, Carlsberg, Chartered Institute of Insurers, XPO, Get Living London, Sky, Ernest Young, Greencore, Winkworth, Rentokil, Land Registry and many others.

She not only has incredible experience, she also holds an impressive list of qualifications – some of which are: CIPD Trainer, ANLP Master Trainer, NLP Trainer & Master Practitioner, Dip CMI Strategic Business Coaching, Licensed HeartMath® Trainer and Coach, and Systemic Coaching and Constellations Practitioner.

𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

David is the principal KAM consultant & Managing Director at KAMGuru.com, a specialist Key Account Management training and consultancy business, based in the UK.

David is a Speaker, Author and Performance Coach with more than a decade of hands-on and consultative experience in sales and management roles in the leisure, entertainment and telecoms industries.

Many of the business leaders we’ve been talking to have been telling us that they are:

(a) Worried about the impact of the current climate on their most important customer relationships

(b) Concerned that they are so reliant on the revenue from a small number of accounts

(c) Stressed that new business and customer growth strategies have become frantic and lack systematic, scalable and repeatable activities and processes

(d) Frustrated at the lack of visibility of what is going on with important clients – what do we know, what are we trying to achieve and how do we plan to do it?

(e) Too heavily reliant on individuals on the team who manage key customers – the intel is in their heads and the ‘relationship’ is between the people not the brands

If you are hearing that and thinking, yes, that sounds familiar this is the podcast for you.