Recently we at Professional Capital had a chance to train 10 European Account Managers from different nations in France. It was a great experience, we met very intelligent and successful account managers and we were once again able to learn from interactions and discussions with them. In the end we felt that most of our ideas were validated, on this blog I'd like to share some of them with you.

1)    Back to fundamentals: there is an important need to go back to the basics of selling; what sales people basically do is help people at a client company to get things done in such a way that their projects thrive, this of course helps their company. To do so requires a lot of creativity but most important humility, taking responsibility and entrepreneurship.

2)    Making ideas versus falsely taking credit: Many account managers realize that most of the ideas come from customers and they take these initial ideas inside the firm (that is their task or duty). But then they realize that most of their colleagues grasp their ideas only to scream that they invented them using Blue Ocean Strategy language.  It frustrates many account managers.

3)    Selfish desires versus rationalizations: Many account managers are baffled by the rationalizations people at business schools teach; some speak about work life balance while in fact they notice that people working at a client firm live in a  selfish way. Account managers are at times intimidated by this language.

4)    Conversations with customers is key: Many account managers know that many of the ideas they get from customers come from  them carefully watching what people say and do. These observations are made during conversations which mostly take place in private. Therefore account managers know that they have to become trusted advisors and keep working with the customer.

5)    Winning by choosing and bending the rules: Many account managers know that the key to success is selection of accounts. Yet they cannot make choices as they are pushed by CRM systems to fill the pipeline. Therefore they have to bend the rules gently.

6)    Knowledge is an endogenous part of key account management: Many account managers have no clue some accounts are key accounts. They are key accounts because the company learns from those accounts and more importantly they gain expertise in the field and customers then come to them. Being an expert allows them to selectively sift through what is important and what is not.

7)    Business School language is poisoning: Most account managers are baffled by the business school language that some teachers preach after stealing it opportunistically from others. This language makes people blind and dumb. Again business is about basics and instinct.

8)    Neuroscience leads the way: Many account managers are interested in neuroscience: they like to know some basic ideas, they especially like to learn how they can use it. Others hate to be confronted with these new ideas. We however believe that some insights in neuroscience can help you be a better account manager.

9)    Account manages do not change the firm; they help the firm to change slightly: firms consist of silos of people. This is a natural thing because people have identities and are proud of themselves. So we should not abolish this natural structure but use it to our advantage. Account managers make projects possible and act as entrepreneurs, operating in and between silos.

10)    Selling inside is more difficult than outside, although many account managers find selling outside more difficult than inside. Indeed colleagues see account mangers as strangers but that is exactly the key to their business; they ought to work that way. Thus the most important skill account managers should practice is networking.

11)    Successful account managers bend the rules: Many account managers are confronted with many rules but they like to change these rules.

12)    Not the managers with the loudest voice in class are the best in practice: what we see during courses is that managers who speak the loudest are not always the strongest. Those that pick up what they can use thrive.

All this points to one important thing: in a training one meets people who already have been working for a long time but they realize that they have probably been doing some things the wrong way for a long time as well as doing things right.

Reactions: verbeke@professionalcapital.nl