Developing a Shared Vision with your Customer
An account plan is essentially a change management plan. Strategic account management is, after all, about creating a vision and inspiring buyers with that vision of what’s possible and the difference you can make for them, if they were to align more closely and deeply with you, and do things differently.
Your vision for the account is the account mission. Internally, it serves as a rallying cry to bring the vision alive for your team. Externally, it helps you to sell that vision–and how you can help–to the client.
It works like this:
• The Value Lab you run internally to figure out how you can create more value for and with your client allows you to identify the possibilities for how you can help them further. These should all weave together into a story. Once they do, you can articulate the mission you are on for them.
• Then, you bring that succinct and clear statement of what you’re trying to get done to your external value discovery sessions with the client, so you can inspire them with your vision for them and the new reality that you can help them achieve.
The account mission is a concise description of your strategic intent for the account. This brief statement summarizes what you want to do with a particular client. It should be specific and be explicitly linked to the client’s strategic agenda.
For example, imagine your account is a supply chain solutions provider. Your account mission for them might be:
Good Example
Help ACME Inc. become the most reliable supply chain solutions provider globally.
This account mission is straight-forward and easy to remember. You can imagine how it might be used in your internal Value Labs to motivate your account team, as well as to help to prioritize the possibilities, hypotheses, and solutions uncovered during value discovery.
Likewise, assuming that reliability relates to the client’s strategic agenda, the statement can pique their interest and open the door for a Value Lab session to learn how you can help them become the most reliable supply chain solutions provider globally.
Be ruthless when it comes to editing the account mission. Otherwise, you could end up with something like this one (which is too long and jargon filled to inspire or motivate):
Bad Example (too much marketing-speak)
Enable Eagle Supply and Logistics to realize the vision of connecting technologies to create a more competitive global company. Expand beyond the core business in offering security and threat monitoring to providing excellence in data storage, analysis, and sharing solutions.
Sure, you’ll get to these details, but keep the mission in plain and visionary language.
The Account Mission – When to Use It
From the early stages of your account management planning process, you should be thinking about your mission for the account. Once you’ve identified the client’s business strategy and agenda you can begin thinking about what you want to achieve in a way that takes the account’s agenda into consideration.
You’ll use the account mission both internally and externally.
Internally, it’s a stake in the ground so you’ll know what success looks like when you achieve it. Beyond that, the account mission is a tool to inspire your account team. By stating your overarching goal for the account from the very early stages of the planning process, you let the team become part of that big goal. It becomes a rallying cry to bring disparate roles, departments, and divisions together so each member of the team can be inspired to see the big picture and commit to making it happen. Otherwise, you risk team members focusing on discrete tasks instead of embracing a change effort.
Externally, by the time your plan is done and you’re ready to run an external Value Lab with the client, you can use the account mission to create an opening to have a value discovery session. You might say something like, “We believe you’re making important improvements but you’re not yet at the level you want to be. We met internally to take a look at what it would take for you to reach that level and we have some ideas that we believe would help you get there faster. Would you be willing to explore these further with us?”
So, the account mission serves double duty: as a rallying cry to inspire your internal team to uncover possibilities, and as a key to open the door with the client so you can explore how to achieve those possibilities.
Tips for Creating an Effective Account Mission
Here are some tips for creating an effective account mission.
Keep It Simple. The most effective account missions are straight-forward, conversational, and easy to remember. They are not written in marketing jargon and they don’t sound like you’re reading it off a script. It can be as simple as, “We’re going to help x be really good at y” or “We’re going to eliminate critical system downtime at Eagle Supply and Logistics.”
Collaborate. Anyone on your team can come up with it. You don’t need to be the person to articulate the account mission, although you can seed the ideas for it. It should come out of the work you’ve already captured on the strategic account planner and be the result of all the collaboration, research, and value discovery you’ve done.
Test it. Subject the account mission to internal discussion and scrutiny. Poke holes in it. Have the team react to it and shape it, in light of everything else in your account plan, to ensure it’s solid.
Keep it transparent and client-focused. If the client should see the account mission you’ve written down, you shouldn’t be embarrassed by it. Instead, you want them to think, “This is terrific!”
It’s not a one-time thing. Once you accomplish a mission, it can be changed to another one for you to achieve.
Tips for Using an Account Mission with the Customer
When you’ve settled on the account mission, use it to your best advantage with the client.
Lay The Groundwork. When you reach out to schedule a Value Lab session with the client, introduce the mission. You don’t want to take the client by surprise. Give them a chance to warm up to the idea and to be intrigued by how you might be able to help them, “Here’s what we’ve been talking about…Would you be willing to sit down with us to explore these ideas?”
Position it. Beginning a Value Lab session with a client, you can position the discussion like this, “Here’s a business plan of things we’ve been discussing internally that can help you be the most reliable supply chain solutions provider in the U.S. We’d like to share some ideas, but also want to get your reaction and input.” And then start facilitating the meeting using the PATHS framework.
Drive change. Strategic account management isn’t just about identifying opportunities and selling more, it’s also about driving change. Helping clients get from where they are now to a better place. You can do this by sharing a convincing story to take them on an emotional journey. If the place you bring them is better than the current state, they’ll be compelled to do something about it.
Stratwegic Account Management