How to Avoid the Deadly Sins of Key Account Management

Thou shall not jump into key account management either too early or too late, lest you waste both time and money or risk a competitor squeezing you out.

When is the optimal time to implement a key account program? As John Staples notes in a recent post for Sales Benchmark Index’s Sales Force Effectiveness Blog, while there may be no blanket answer, if you can avoid certain errors you’ll be much more likely to stay on the path to key account enlightenment.

Inspired by a list of deadly sins to avoid that Peter Cheverton provides in his book Global Account Management, Staples hones in and expands on the sins that most often lead key account management astray. Disorganization and clear lack of communication, resources, and research can be found at the center of all of these mistakes, and preparation and planning can go a long way toward avoiding failure. The most deadly sin? Failure to measure impact. Establishing goals and measuring both progress and results is crucial to managing any account, but especially major ones. Are you ready to get started? To download a Key Account Readiness form and for more on how to avoid the sins of key account management read the full post by Staples.

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Once you’ve successfully launched a key account program, your work has just begun. For troubleshooting advice on how to handle key account management, see this post. Thinking about launching a lead qual team, as well? OpenView has you covered. Check out this infographic for six tough questions to answer before getting started.