Account Management can be linked to pareto principle. 80% of future business rule would come from 20% of your existing customer. So, focus on your existing clients to scale the business.

If you are small business or startup generating a few leads per day, than I recommend you to hire Account Managers and not Account Executives. Sounds weird? Let me explain why I recommended AM and not AE’s.

The Experience

Before I partnered with a small business, they hired an Account Executive who was able to play the Account Executive role with ease. The AE was was happy networking, generated leads, fostering customer relationship, proactively followed up for sales closure and achieved targets. After conversion, they moved on after handing it over project team.

During the implementation phase, there was no account ownership and the PM had to ensure that all was smooth. When something went wrong there was no accountability. As a result, client had a poor customer experience.

Even after the project was successfully handed over, the customer was never followed up to understand whether they were happy with our services or not. There was no relationship built with them to understand the usage of the product delivered. So, when the time for renewals came, customer turned their back. Hence, they leaked a lot of money in renewals and most importantly, their brand took dent resulting in poor reviews which in turn led to less lead count.

The Tweak

When I partnered with them, I noticed this flaw in their sales strategy. So, I recommended to make the Account executive play the role of Account Manager. And, that turned the tide. Instead of being transactional, the route they took was relational. Ideally, it is not good for one person to play both roles. Hence, one more person was hired to handle Account Management while the other person continued to be a Account Executive.

This approach helped improve the customer experience as well as customer retention. It didnt stop there as they got more organic leads via referrals. Also, they were able to publish testimonials which helped build their brand again.

For a business to be successful and profitable, focus on Account Management.

So, what is account management?

Account management focuses on nurturing client relationships to retain clients’ business, grow those opportunities and build brands. Account Managers accomplish these objectives by learning what their clients’ goals are and helping their clients achieve them.