Breaking the Walls around You

In an organization, when people operate as teams, they are unconsciously building a wall around their team, an impregnable wall. Every attempt at collaboration by a person not belonging to that team is seen as a threat from that person whose agenda is suspected either as reconnaissance or as an ambitious foray – “Guilty until proven innocent”.

This attitude and fierce team loyalty can be detrimental to the organization, festering hostility and acting as barriers in creating a really transparent, energetic and positive company. The vision of any company should be to come together to achieve more than what we will individually – the more the merrier. Often, in real world, when the size of the organization increases, the ‘achieving more’ per person becomes less and less until it fades away completely and some teams pull the weight of other non-performing teams. This creates further disharmony and the quality of output declines. Market share goes south, profitability gets hit, customers see your company as just another company and the worst part, the part that happened to giants like Nokia, your company or brand fades out of the consideration set of your target group of customers.

To enjoy the benefits of “being young at heart always,” a company should encourage people to open up and talk about what they are doing and what more they want to do, in the form of periodic informal gatherings moderated by someone from the senior management. The only rule is that the tone should be positive. Even problems should be conveyed as challenges. And the cardinal rule is: no comparisons. Let’s talk about how we will do things better than comparing ourselves with our colleagues or comparing our company with a competitor. Delighting a customer will only happen when a company’s employees feel good about themselves and the place they are at.

There is a clear business case not to sacrifice harmony in the altar of unbridled ambition. Designations, promotions, recognition and rewards will only fill the void left by the absence of “excitement in coming to work every day.”

The Most Efficient Way to Engage Clients - The SAM way

My job designation is "Business Development". So I am bound to spend time reflecting on more efficient ways to develop business.

I understand that relationship is the key. But how do you get yourself out of the transactional selling space and move into that of a trusted solutions provider?

I learnt the answer by studying how a global leader in consulting operates. They don't have a function called "Business Development". Rather they pioneer the concept of "Strategic Account Managers (SAMs)"

So what does a SAM Do?
A SAM has, say, 10 key client accounts to handle. He develops a 15-page word document called Strategic Account Plan (SAP) for each of his key account. And once this SAP is approved by his boss, it becomes his Bible for the year ahead.

What goes inside a SAP?

1. A SAP starts off with an client organogram where all the key stakeholders are mapped. When I say key stakeholders, I mean those who will decide and use the services that SAM has to offer in addition to the Contracts & Procurement guys.
2. Budget and Trend Analysis - Answers the question on how much the client has spent on similar services in the past few years. 
3. Competitor Analysis - How many competitors have worked with this account last year? What was their share of the total budget pie? 
4. Penetration Strategy - Define Focus Areas of what services to sell to this account this year based on recent market maneuvers of the company. 
5. Communication Plan - Define number of meetings to be had every quarter and with who. Find out about the events for the year ahead which this account is most likely to participate and plan to be there. 
6. Revenue Target - Isn't this self-explanatory?

It is always better to have annual renewable contracts than piecemeal work orders.

At the end of the year, If a SAM does not generate the revenue planned from a client, then the client account is reassigned. And a SAM is replaced if he loses more than 30% of accounts originally assigned. However, SAM has the liberty to get an account reassigned anytime and instead add a new account to his list IF the new account is not already someone else's within his company.

So far, this is the most efficient way to engage clients and develop business.