In this Expert Insight Interview, Brent Keltner discusses landing and expanding key accounts faster. Brent Keltner created the Winalytics value-driven growth methodology and has positioned the company as the market leader for repeatable revenue solutions.
This Expert Insight Interview discusses:
- The definition of key accounts and how to take full advantage of them
- How to think in terms of value playbooks
- Thinking in terms of value created for each buyer
Key Accounts
Often companies don’t even have a clear definition of what a ‘key account’ is or a strategy around them. Brent Keltner defines a key account as one where there are multiple pockets of budget around the client. Your job is often to connect value across those so that you can tap into the different budgets.
However, sometimes when salespeople land a new account, they are reluctant to start fishing around them. It is as if they are intimidated by the prospect of ‘rocking the boat,’ so they don’t look at it as an expansion or growth opportunity.
Value Playbooks
One of the things Brent advocates is starting with ‘value playbooks.’ These deal with how your product or service drives value for your buyer rather than the product itself.
Once you start presenting your products in terms of value playbooks, your clients will begin to think about adding value to their previous purchases through your products. This allows you to present your products and services as opportunities to deepen the relationship with your B2B customer around a new area of value.
Creating Value for Each Customer
We live in an increasingly networked world, and to understand your buyer, you need to understand their network and their ‘personal universe.’ When you start to think about account planning and growing accounts, it is very easy to look at things in terms of your product — expanding and improving it. It is much more challenging to look at the ‘white space’ and think about where you can create opportunity and value.
Instead of thinking about which products you still haven’t sold your customers, try thinking in terms of the value you can create for each new buyer. This can allow you to connect technical value and business value.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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