By Kevin Vaughan-Smith, MD of Haylin Associates and Stuart Maister, Chief Storyteller, Strategic Narrative.
Over the years many clients have told us the same thing: we struggle to move away from a transactional relationship with our key accounts. We end up bidding for projects, competing on price, struggling to differentiate.
We’re launching a new programme to help tackle this. Read on to find out more.
Clients say: we would love to be seen as true partners, trusted and consulted as part of a deeper relationship. This is how we can be more certain of retaining and growing those critical accounts and doing the same with others that are currently not as significant as they might be.
The challenge is this: our people aren’t well equipped to build these more strategic relationships. Either it’s because they are technical experts who are uncomfortable in a discussion broader than their area of expertise (such as a professional expert or a technology leader) or because they are driven by short term numbers and behave like salespeople. Sometimes it's because they don't want to share 'their' accounts.
Everyone wants to do the same: be more focused on the business outcomes of the client. But the reality is these behaviours can be a huge barrier.
The two key dimensions to trust
Hitting the numbers is critical. Technical expertise is vital. Front line support helps, and many firms have implemented expensive and sophisticated sales methodologies and systems that provide the very best support structure (the take-up isn’t always what it is meant to be but that’s another story).
So what’s standing in the way of this deeper, trusted relationship? We believe the key to this is to look at the two key dimensions of professional trust: capability and character (Stephen Covey set this out in his book ‘The Speed of Trust’).
Most firms and most bids focus on capability – the competence, skills and capabilities on offer, matched to the needs of the client.
However, lots of research shows it’s character – the intent which your teams have towards their clients, and the integrity to demonstrate and hold to that intent – that makes the difference in appointing a company and deepening the relationship. Particularly in markets where the actual service is not highly differentiated, it’s the dimension of character that makes the difference.
Put another way, it’s the ‘why’ and ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’. It’s the culture and approach, the way the team works collaboratively and cohesively, as well as the specifics of the solution.
If properly articulated and well defined, this is the Strategic Narrative of the way the firm approaches key accounts, and the way this manifests itself is the actual behaviour of the key account leaders.
No to selling, yes to being highly commercial