What is really important to know about your account?

Often in today’s selling environment, overwhelming amounts of information about an account can be accessed via the internet. Don’t default to trying to know everything. Instead, know what is really important to know about your account.

As you know from our knowledge continuum, insight and wisdom derived from data and information is much more useful in understanding your accounts. So, how do you navigate through the realms and realms of information to find what is really important to know? Check off the list below, or watch Matt Martin explain it here.

Holden has identified 7 dimensions of an account that are absolutely critical to know and thoroughly understand.

Understand the organizational structure. Is the company you are calling on structured by business unit? Functional area?
Understand the revenue and profit contributions that each of those business units are contributing to the parent company, along with what the year over year growth looks like.
Understand who the key corporate, business unit, and functional unit executives are.
Understand what key products and services each of the respective business units are manufacturing and going to market with. Many companies have thousands of SKUs—don’t worry about that. Just center on the key products and services that they’re counting on for growth.
Understand who the target customers of each of these business units are. Particularly, who are they key products and services that they’re counting on for growth being marketed to?
Understand wallet share. You need to have a clear idea of what competitive spend you have versus all of your key competitors in each business unit.
Understand the critical business issues that your company is looking to address. What are they key goals, challenges, and initiatives your company is looking to address?

This list is in no way exhaustive, but by thoroughly understanding each of these seven dimensions, you will have a much deeper insight into your accounts. What do you think? Do you have other "critical" dimensions to know?

Tags: 7, about, account, dimensions, holden, important, is, know, martin, matt, More…really, to, what, your

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Comment by Jenae Meader - Community Manager on February 14, 2011 at 4:36pm: Great additions, Gary-- Thanks for sharing!

Comment by Gary Summy on February 14, 2011 at 4:33pm: This is a great list and taking a little license with #4, there could be thousands of knowledge areas, but the secret is to first know what is important to the customer and then find a way to deliver associated value. The key is to understand these first from the perspective of the customer. How does the customer define each of these areas, not how you think it’s done. The first look is external to understand the opportunity space the customer is looking to impact and how will impact be measured. Then look internally to identify what you bring to the engagement that will help the customer address their opportunity space. Your opportunity is created only when it addresses the customer’s opportunity space. My only addition might be to expand most of the areas to clearly define the metrics and success parameters of the customer. Some examples: #2 is it pure revenue or targeted revenue and what is the role of market share; #3 how are these executives measured and what are the metrics associated with their bonuses; #4 what are the various product/service line metrics such as share, pull through, recurring revenue, etc.; #5 what makes a customer or a market a target and how is growth measured (units, share, mix, etc,); #7 if goals are achieve and challenges addressed how is success measured and by whom? If you help your customer get where they want to go, it can be a great ride, and a mutually profitable journey that ensures your seat on future journeys.