Keeping Your Hands on the Helm

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by Miller Heiman

In most cases, the erosion of a large account can be stated simply as the "problem behind the problem." At every level of the selling organization, the people supposedly in charge of the account aren't. Having no established system for managing account information, they muddle, ticking off monthly quotas and hoping for the best, while their accounts drift out of control.

This seat-of-the-pants approach to account management is extremely common in modern businesses. For an idea of how effective it is, listen to some definitions of the word "muddle". Associating it with the noun "mud," our Oxford Dictionary gives us the following: "to mismanage"; "to render unintelligible by lack of method"; "to busy oneself aimlessly." Most pointed of all for our purposes: "to waste time or money without clearly knowing how."

The best account managers never "muddle". They are successful precisely because of their method and because they always know the "aims" of their management. In nautical terms, they keep their hands on the helm. Like a ship captain who must constantly check and adjust the course in shifting seas, they keep in touch, on a regular basis, with account activity, so that "minor" problems never get a chance to grow into major ones. They keep on top of changing data because they know they have to.

When we make this point in our Large Account Management Process workshops, occasionally someone objects that certain accounts don't really need constant management. They're so solid that they "almost take care of themselves".

There's a world of lost revenues in that "almost." As we point out to our clients, the nautical analogy would be to say that the sea ahead is so placid that you can flip on the auto-pilot and go to sleep. As the fate of the Exxon Valdez made clear, when you're responsible for a craft on the high seas, that attitude can be reckless to the point of tragedy. It can also lead to shipwreck in business.

The reason has much to do with psychology as it does with today's "rough sea" markets.

When a company thinks a large account doesn't need management, the assumption is that it's already under control -- in other words, that it's a "sure thing." The attitude implicit in such a claim is the most dangerous one any supplier can ever have. Time and again we have seen it illustrate the biblical adage about pride going before a fall.

The problem is not just "bad attitude." It's that, from the customer's point of view, such confidence always translates into cockiness. If I think good old Jim's account does not require my attention, I will inevitably project that feeling to him. And once Jim realizes that I don't think I have to work for his business, he will start looking for other suppliers. In today's competitive environment, they won't be hard to find.

We make this point by asking this loaded question: "How would you feel if, as a customer, you knew a supplier considered your business a sure thing?" We very often get a very perceptive answer: "I'd exchange jobs."

Since exchanging jobs with your sure-thing customers is probably not a realistic option, our advice is to take nothing and no one for granted. If Jim's account is important to your business, give it the attention it deserves.

By "attention" we mean attention to the present. We stress this because most managers don't. With all the good will in the world, they try to understand what's happening in their large accounts, but they fail because they're looking backward rather than ahead.

Take the typical "account plan". It's generally an accumulation of data, including such supposedly useful pieces of information as sample proposals and the latest sales figures. The data are meant to provide the selling organization with an overview of what's happening in the account, but all too often they don't. Why? Because the information is yesterday's news.

We've all seen those twenty-pound account plans that, on close inspection, turn out to be reviews rather than previews of what's happening. That's typical of account plans. Almost by definition they compile "instantly obsolete" information: last year's revenues and brilliant coups and grand mistakes. Trying to bring control into a large account by relying on such dated information is like trying to find out where you're going by peering intently into your car's rearview mirror.

Even in those situations where an account plan does address the future -- by projecting revenues for the next accounting period -- the forecasts tend to be mere extrapolations of what has happened in the past: "We sold them 500 cartons last year; let's go for 550 this year." Such projections from outmoded figures are, not surprisingly, seldom accurate. Because they don't take into consideration today's and tomorrow's dynamic realities -- including your customer's needs -- they cannot help you manage your large accounts in an atmosphere of constant change. The only thing that can help you do that is a methodology that is itself dynamic_.

Where others sift through haystacks of static data, searching for elusive needles of success, you should apply a process of information analysis, designed for infinite flexibility in the roughest seas. And where others take the past as a guide to the present, you should take the present -- in all its challenging mutability -- as the starting line for managing tomorrow's business. That's the way to get beyond "muddling through."