This eBook focuses on the importance of strategic accounts and how to make sure that you’re unlocking their full potential.

1. SPI INSIGHT:
THE ART AND SCIENCE
OF UNLOCKING THE
FULL POTENTIAL OF
STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS

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© Sales Performance International, Inc
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF
UNLOCKING THE FULL POTENTIAL
OF STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS
01: HOW TO SELL MORE IN KEY ACCOUNTS
The AnswerLies in the Whitespace
(Pages 3-4)
02: HOW TO PROTECT STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS FROM
COMPETITORS
Getting Higherand Strongeris the Best Defense
(Pages 5-6)
03: MODERN ACCOUNT PLANNING
Introducing Spi’s Total Enterprise Account Management (TEAM) Program
(Pages 7-8)

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© Sales Performance International, Inc
HOW TO SELL MORE IN KEY
ACCOUNTS
THE ANSWER LIES IN THE WHITESPACE
By David Stargel, VP and SeniorConsultant, Sales Performance International
Are your salespeople putting enough time, effort and thought into
developing and retaining business with your current customers, especially in
large key accounts? And even if they are, how do you know if they are doing this
effectively?
Our clients tell us that the cost of sale for acquiring a new customer
can be up to ten times more than for developing business in an existing account.
Increased profitability of business over the life of a retained customer is why most
organizations are allocating more resources to sharpen their customer retention
and growth strategies. But not all are doing this in a disciplined and systematic way.
Too many salespeople focus on chasing the next big deal. Many sellers
depend too much on inbound demand generation driven by marketing. This has
conditioned many salespeople to be reactive – whenever a “hot” lead surfaces, they
drop everything to chase it down.
Selling more to existing accounts means getting ahead of this reactionary
curve. Your salespeople must dedicate enough time and thought to strategically
analyze their customer, identify where the real growth opportunities exist, and
determine how to add value. To maximize sales in current accounts, this discipline
must be executed consistently by every seller with account management
responsibilities.
White Space Analysis is an approach to help account managers to systematically
understand:
• What’s happening in a customer organization
• The drivers and issues that are impacting the customer
• The initiatives that they are considering to execute their strategy
• How they can create value in the account by enabling the customer to
succeed
These insights enable sellers to identify a customer’s performance gaps or
problems, and where your solutions and capabilities align with those issues. Think of
this as a two-axis matrix, with the vertical axis listing the problems that a customer
is struggling to overcome, and the horizontal axis listing your solution set.
Our clients report that the White Space Analysis exercise, while simple to
execute, consistently increases the number of identified opportunities to create
value and generate new business by two to seven times.
Once an account manager identifies the highest-value solutions that
match up to a customer’s most critical business issues, they can then prioritize the
opportunities, assess their strength of relationship and access to decision makers,
and develop a practical plan to gain access, build support, and secure the business.
White Space Analysis is one element of SPI’s Total Enterprise Account
Management (TEAM) program for improved account sales planning and
relationship development. The discipline of White Space Analysis enables your
sales team to identify where they can create new value, for both the customers
and for your own organization, and thus, maximizes results in accounts. It changes
the reactive behavior of most sellers and helps them to develop a higher level of
relationship. This is especially important in large, key accounts, which represent the
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© Sales Performance International, Inc
most profitable customers.
If you sense that you should be getting more from your existing accounts, then start
by downloading our White Space Analysis template.

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© Sales Performance International, Inc
HOW TO PROTECT
STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS
FROM COMPETITORS
GETTING HIGHER AND STRONGER IS THE BEST
DEFENSE
By David Stargel, VP and SeniorConsultant, Sales Performance International
How much of your annual goal depends on growing revenue in strategic
accounts? Almost all of our clients tell us that a relatively small number of large
accounts generate a disproportionate amount of their revenue. Protecting and
growing revenue in strategic accounts are critical success factors for nearly every
sales leader.
So, how awful would it be if a strategic account “went silent” and you found
out later that a competitor displaced you?
Strategic accounts are among your organization’s most valuable assets.
Protecting them against competitors and growing business by creating and winning
new opportunities, depend heavily on the breadth and quality of relationships in
those accounts. Strategic accounts will always be at risk if your sales team is not
aligned with the right people—the ones with the influence or authority to launch or
sustain business initiatives.
Effectiveaccountmanagersdevelopandelevatetheirrelationshiplevelsinaccounts
by:
1. Assessing Organizational Power and Politics
It is common for account managers to get comfortable with a solitary
relationship in an account, and often with a contact at an operational
level. This is risky because buyers in accounts can leave and get replaced
by others with different loyalties. To guard against this eventuality, your
account managers must:
• Identify all of the key stakeholders in the account
• Assess each stakeholder’s power and influence
• Determine political standing with each
Your account managers must look beyond formal titles and reporting
relationshipsandalsoexamineeachcontact’sinformalauthorityandpower
to get things done. Good account managers generally have an intuitive
understanding of an organization’s political landscape, but it’s best to not
leave this to intuition alone. By establishing objective criteria to evaluate
stakeholders, account managers will have a more accurate understanding
of the people with whom they must align.
2. Gaining Access to New Stakeholders
Once an account manager identifies a stakeholder with whom they want
to build a relationship, the easiest way to gain access is to suggest ways to
solve a problem with significant organizational impact. Current contacts in
an account are much more likely to introduce sellers to other stakeholders,
if they believe that seller will bring value. By identifying the specific business
issues or potential missed opportunities of different stakeholders, account
managers can suggest potential solutions, leverage existing relationships,
and gain access to new stakeholders more easily.
3. Nurturing Existing Relationships
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While approaching new stakeholders in an account, either directly or
through an existing relationship, account managers must be sensitive
to how that will be perceived – they must be careful not to risk alienating
currentcontacts.Savvyaccountmanagersworktonurtureexistingcontact
relationships by collaborating actively with them, keeping them informed,
and showing how they can bring value to other parts of the organization –
and thereby reflect well on existing contacts’ reputations.
4. Getting Credit for Value
Nothing elevates an account relationship more than getting credit for
value delivered. This means not only regularly measuring and reporting
the business impact of solutions, but also in bringing new insight and
business savvy to every conversation in the account. Account manager
conversations must show understanding of stakeholder challenges – they
need to demonstrate situational fluency. Good account managers also
do their research and calculate the cost of the status quo and the value
of potential benefits. Each conversation in an account needs to be value-
based.
In modern account management, the best defense is a good offense. By using
these proactive methods to develop and elevate the level of relationships, account
managers will be able to better protect strategic accounts against competitive
encroachment.
Download our Levels of Account Relationship guide. It will help you and your team
to accurately assess the quality of relationships in accounts.

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© Sales Performance International, Inc
MODERN ACCOUNT
PLANNING
INTRODUCING SPI’S TOTAL ENTERPRISE ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT (TEAM) PROGRAM
By James Touchstone, Director, Sales Performance International
Your company’s most valuable assets are your enterprise accounts.
The impact of acquiring, growing, and retaining large enterprise accounts cannot
be understated. For many of our clients, a relatively small number of enterprise
accounts generate as much as 80 percent or more of total revenues.
In recognition of the ever-growing importance of enterprise accounts,
we are very pleased to introduce our new Total Enterprise Account Management
(TEAM) program.
WHAT IS TEAM?
TEAM is the culmination of two points of view on managing large
accounts: planning for both account sales maximization and for higher relationship
development. When SPI acquired The Complex Sale (TCS) last year, we were able
to bring together two different perspectives on successfully developing business
in large enterprise accounts and integrate them together to form a uniquely
holistic program – one that enables account managers to maximize sales while also
elevating their relationships, and thus, protects those accounts from competitive
encroachment.
To manage enterprise accounts successfully, account managers must be
adept at quantitative aspects of account planning to maximize revenue growth.
They must also develop higher levels of trust and credibility with individuals in the
account. The SPI and TCS teams recognized each of those essential abilities as
two halves of the same coin that needed to be brought together into one, unified
methodological approach. The new TEAM program is the unique synthesis of
effective methods for maximizing sales and building relationships in an enterprise
account.
ACCOUNT SALES PLANNING
First, TEAM helps account managers develop a solid, quantitative
understanding of an account’s potential. The methodology includes tools for
compiling an inventory of the recurring revenue and current opportunities, and then
identifies additional opportunities for creating new value in a white space exercise.
The white space exercise is very simple. It examines the key initiatives,
account-level business issues, and potential missed opportunities. Using a
specialized matrix, the exercise enables account managers to see all potential
opportunities within that account that can help them achieve or surpass their
revenueobjectives.Thissimpleexercisetypicallyincreasesthenumberofidentified
new business opportunities in an account by2-7 times.
Some tend to not know what to do with so many new opportunities, so
TEAMprovidesasimplemechanismforprioritizingthemandallocatingresourcesfor
execution. This helps account managers to identify and pursue those opportunities
with the highest mutual value for both the buying selling organizations.
ACCOUNT RELATIONSHIP PLANNING
Next,TEAMhelpsaccountmanagersplaneffectivestrategiesforimproving
their level of relationship with enterprise accounts. TEAM provides an assessment
tool to accurately determine the current level of relationship. Account managers
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tend to overstate this, because they generally think of relationships in terms of
interactions with only the individuals whom they know in an account. TEAM enables
account managers to see if they are trusted advisors to an enterprise account, or
merely vendors or credible sources. They can then apply the optimum strategies
and tactics to navigate organizational politics and elevate their true status over
time.
IMPLEMENTATION: PRACTICAL & SEAMLESSLY EMBEDDED WITHIN
CRM
The TEAM methodology generates a practical plan captured and shared
electronically, either stand-alone or integrated within a CRM system, such as
salesforce.com. The TEAM learning experience is entirely “hands on” by using
planning tools and technology in a workshop. When your account managers leave
the TEAM program, they do so with a live plan that they can use immediately.
The TEAM methodology is an integrated system of technology, planning
methods, and skills development that enables your account managers to secure
major accounts, identify new opportunities, build better relationships with buyers,
and ultimately, generate more business.
Please click here to download an overview of TEAM, the modern account planning
program.

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© Sales Performance International, Inc
WHERE TO DOWNLOAD ASSETS?
01: FREE WHITE SPACE ANALYSIS TEMPLATE
Download This Helpful Tool To Identify More Opportunites To Create
Value,And Secure More Business In Accounts.
http://global.spisales.com/white-space
02: FREE LEVELS OF ACCOUNT RELATIONSHIP GUIDE
Download This Useful Guide For Determining Your Team’s Level Of
Account Relationship.
http://global.spisales.com/account-relationships
03: FREE MODERN ACCOUNT PLANNING OVERVIEW
Download An Overview Of Our TEAM Account Planning Program.
http://global.spisales.com/TEAM
ABOUT SPI
Sales Performance International (SPI) is a global sales performance improvement
firm. We help the world’s leading companies drive predictable revenue and
profitability growth by optimizing sales organization performance.
Founded in 1988, SPI has been the leader in helping global companies apply process
and methodologies to transition from selling products to marketing and selling
high-value, customer-focused solutions.
Our extensive sales performance expertise, deep industry knowledge, global
resources, and verified results uniquely position SPI as the go-to firm for
organizations seeking to gain a competitive edge by how they sell.
SPI has assisted over 1,500,000 sales and management professionals in more
than 55 countries and 15 languages to achieve higher levels of sales effectiveness.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dave Stargel is a Vice President and Senior Consultant with SPI.
He is involved in SPI’s product development of key programs for
strategic planning solutions, and works with key client accounts to
drivesustainablerevenuegrowthbyaligningtheirsalestalentwith
their strategic business goals.
JamesN.TouchstoneisSPI’sDirectorofLearning&Development,
and is responsible for the creation and enhancement of advanced
sales methodology and skill enhancement programs. He is also
co-author of The Solution Selling Fieldbook.

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