Account Management Strategies in B2B Sales: Generating Customer Value and Building Sustainable Business Relationships - Methodology, Processes, Tools

Description

This book provides employees and managers in sales with a clearly defined process for building sustainable business relationships along the account journey. Using a structured method, you will learn how to set yourself up for success right from the start, increase your competitiveness, increase market share and generate more sales. In B2B sales today, it's no longer primarily about just solving the customer's problems and winning as much of the customer's budget as possible. The decisive factor for success is that you ask your customer the right questions, understand his strategy in all facets and help him to achieve his goals with your offer - this is the only way to create a fruitful and long-term partnership at eye level. If you align your messages with these goals, you will generate tailored customer value, and the customer will have no choice but to accept your offer. This paradigm shift should make it easier for customers to buy, and it can be instrumental in helping account managers in B2B increase their sales over the long term. The book provides practical tools and a blueprint for salespeople to succeed and for managers to lead their teams with purpose.  Foreword Acknowledgments Contents About the Author 1 Introduction 1.1 The AccountJourney® 1.2 The Concept of Customer Value 1.3 A Uniform Sales Process 2 Sales Process and AccountJourney® 2.1 Account Selection 2.2 Strategy Comparison 2.3 Core Messages 2.4 Voice of the Customer (VoC) 2.4.1 Generating Value for the Customer 2.4.2 Highlights and Important Information 2.4.3 Challenges and Negative Experiences 2.4.4 Important Won and Lost Deals 2.4.5 Voice of the Market (VoM) 2.5 Customer Value 2.6 Account Status 2.6.1 SWOT Analysis 2.6.2 White-Space Analysis 2.6.3 Performance and Business Outlook 2.7 Analysis of the stakeholders 2.7.1 Power Interest Matrix 2.7.2 Fan Principle 2.7.3 Role Analysis 2.7.4 Four-Color Model 2.8 Top Executive Relationship Program (TERP) 2.9 Marketing/Activities Plan References 3 Leading Employees in B2B Sales 3.1 Account Management Processes as Leadership Tools 3.2 Leading with the Account Plan 3.3 Sales for Non-Sales References 4 Technology in Sales 4.1 CRM 4.2 Digitalization in Sales (Sales 4.0) 4.2.1 Look-Alike Models: The Next Best Customer 4.2.2 Digital Lead Generation (DLG): Recognizing Buying Signals 4.2.3 Understanding Website Visitors: Identifying Needs and Time Frames 4.2.4 Recognize and Visualize Referral Bridges 4.2.5 Predictive Selling—Predicting Customer Behavior 4.2.6 Overview of Different Providers 4.2.7 Custom Audiences 4.3 The Importance of Social Selling 4.4 Digital Listening 4.5 Conducting Interactions with the Customer 4.5.1 Customer Conversation Management (CCM) 4.5.2 Automated Sales Bots References 5 Organizational Changes for the Successful Digitization in Sales 5.1 Personnel Development for Success in Sales 5.2 Status and Development Paths in Sales and Digitalization 5.3 Sales Method and Digital Tools 5.4 Digital Tools at a Glance 5.4.1 Overview of Tools and Their Use 5.4.2 Digital Tools in Interaction 5.5 Referral Networks for Sales References Final Remark