Building Client Relationships

Webinar presented by John MacDonald-Gaunt (18 May, 2023)

Summarised by Richard Vincent CEng MIET FF.ISP

"This will be a very open and honest assessment of where companies are with their client relationships versus where they would like to be".

Key Account Managers are often asked questions such as:

1. What is the quality of the client relationships you have today? What would you like it to be?
2. How do you go about building that desired relationship?
3. Who do you focus on in your client organisation?
4. How do you create a meaningful client relationship-building strategy?

There is a huge amount of talk and many myths around the depth of relationships some people claim to have. Others strive to achieve customer relationships supposedly so close that go beyond business relationships and enter the personal sphere, such as spending time in joint holidays. Many people new to the field and some very experienced people feel that, as they have not achieved this level of relationship, they are "behind the curve". But all of these myths should be taken with a pinch of salt. There are much better ways to improve your customer relationships for both the supplier and the customer.

There are many reasons why client relationships underperform. The first is that client excellence is not a one-off activity, it is an ongoing process. For example, one great session with a customer can give the impression that the relationship has been moved forward, but the reality is that you have just set a tone which will be lost quickly if there is not a regular "heartbeat" or rhythm of activity to be building the relationship over time. Another issue is lack of focus which is often caused by trying to support too many clients and not being able to give any of them the close attention they would like or require. The third issue, probably the most common one, is complacency, where you believe you are in a good place with a client and so ease off your effort and focus, creating a window for a competitor to get in.

This diagram, which is sometimes called the "wheel of 8", is helpful in allowing you to analyse your customer relationships. It looks at relationships from 4 different perspectives creating four opposites.

Peer-to-peer is diametrically opposed to master-slave. Trusted Advisor is opposed to Subject-Matter-Expert and so on.

There is quite an array of techniques and methods that salespeople use when they engage with their clients. Some can be very strong, some can be arrogant, and some very timid, but quite often, there is a tendency for an element of subjugation to come across as "Please, Mr/Ms client, buy my product. I really need to sell this month." Doing this immediately puts you on the back foot because you no longer have a peer-to-peer relationship. Remember, you are selling something of value; they are buying something of value. It is an exchange between peers. If you lose your position as a peer, the relationship is lost. At that point, the best thing to do is to change the team and swap someone else into the role.

The next element to think about is strategic vs technical relationships. For example, suppose you are selling a product that has become commoditised. In that case, you will be seen as part of the "Expense agenda" of your client rather than as part of the "Growth agenda", and being part of the expense agenda makes it much more likely that you will be cut. Ideas for ensuring you stay on the growth agenda include keeping a holistic business perspective, having regular "Big ideas" sessions, looking at what the industry is doing, what their competition is doing, what other sectors are doing that might be relevant and even what is going on within their own organisation that they may be struggling to keep up with.

The next element is the extent to which you are seen as a trusted advisor or just as a subject-matter-expert (SME). key to this is to always be bringing meaningful value. Once you have established that you are bringing value, you can ask power questions. You need to be really careful about clichéd questions such as "What keeps you awake at night?" or "Tell me about your strategy?". These questions show no thought and will switch off clients instantly. Instead, try and think of a few powerful questions that will make the client reflect and consider new perspectives on their business. This will ensure the use of different brain on their part and that will in turn elicit different and much more helpful responses from them.

The last element is thoughtful vs reactive. If you are trying to support too many accounts, you may struggle to be successful here. There is so much information available now that you can find out just about anything about your account. Using this information, you can start to build a picture and work out their strategic priorities and what is relevant to them. Have an informed opinion to help them shape their thinking and then really robust account planning underpinning that. This can't be a one-off activity it has to be built with frequent face time. Great relationships come from great conversations". The next question is, who in the organisation do you start to build that relationship with? And then how do you build that relationship? What are the practical steps of building that client relationship?

Figure 2 show a model that IBM created which is very relevant to help develop strategic client relationships.

This model talks about five dimensions for deepening an relationship with key individuals in customer organizations.

1)?????Deliver for me. Bring me meaningful value at every step of the way.?An essential part of this may be communicating the value that has been created.

2)?????Inspire me. Bring me innovation that has a meaningful impact on my business.

3)?????Champion me. Advocate for my company and enhance my brand. Remember that your client is an individual too and needs to be valued within their organisation, so helping with that will be incredibly valuable to them.

4)?????Advise me. Be the trusted advisor whom I turn to for an expert opinion on any business issues. This is about really shaping their thinking. You can only do this with a thoughtful, relevant value from thorough research into their company and industry and know their situation inside out.

5)?????Know me. Know my industry. Know my business. Know me personally. It is not just about what sports do they do? how many kids do they have? What are their work patterns etc? Know me is about getting to understand them deeply and then use that understanding to build the business relationship.

Figure 3 shows another tool that is an effective way of visualising all of the key people within the clients' organisations and helping you decide where you need to focus your efforts.

This is a matrix which you could build in Excel. The Y-axis shows influence, and the X-axis shows disposition towards your company. The size of the bubbles relates to the degree of the relationship.

For example, if you've got anything in the top left, you are in trouble. You've got somebody with a negative disposition but is highly influential. However, in the top right, that's good. You've got some strong, influential players who are positive towards you. So for each of these, you should look at a red, amber or green status and then neutralise your reds, get ambers to green and keep greens healthy.

Bear in mind that implementation of all of these things will have to go beyond yourself. This has to be a culture which you set as the account lead. To make this possible, you will need to make enough space in your teams for learning, which will take both bandwidth and headspace. You will need to reward and recognise the right behaviours, not just sales efficacy in the short term, and finally, don't expect change overnight. This is a worthwhile journey, but it won't be a short one.

John MacDonald-Gaunt

A Vice President in IBM's Consulting and Application Services business, with over 20 years of experience. Currently leading a large global team for Royal Dutch Shell, delivering services ranging from digital transformation to new energies. Prior to this, John led a team of circa 8,000 professionals (2,000 locally and a further 6,000 worldwide) delivering our UK&I Clo ud Application Innovation business.

John also speaks fluent Japanese, trains regularly in weightlifting and boxing, and holds five black belts across several martial arts.

Cranfield School of Management.?Key Account Management Forum.

Upcoming KAM Forum online events:

29th June 2023, 2-3pm BST:?'Cranfield KAM Masterclass No3: Negotiating with Key Customers: How can suppliers design negotiation processes for better creating and capturing value?' with Javier Marcos - Professor of Strategic Sales Management & Negotiation?

13th July 2023, 2-3pm BST: 'How do value propositions power the world’s strongest brands?' with Brand Finance.

14th September 2-3pm BST:?How do the worlds most successful organisations compete on value not price? with Todd Snelgrove, Vistage Trusted Advisor, and CSL - Senior Director; Value Advisory, SAP.

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