By Todd Burner

If you asked 10 of your best customers why they would want to be in your key account program, would you get the same answer from each customer?

And would you get an answer that included any reason other than “access to a bigger discount?”

What seems like a question that should produce a single, consistent, non-discount-focused answer can, in reality, generate a wide range of answers from customers (this helps explain why key account programs get torn down and rebuilt every 3 to 5 years due to underperformance).

The problem with most key account programs comes down to this: suppliers can’t say what’s in it for their customers beyond a bigger discount, and therefore neither can their customers.

When building a key account program, most companies make the mistake of thinking about what they want to get out of the key account program as opposed to thinking about what’s in it for the customer. 

The benefit for the sales organization is clear: more revenue.  Organizations then go looking for customers where “we should be able to sell them a lot more stuff,” and leave it to the customer to figure out what’s in it for them.

The key to building a successful key account program is communicating to the customer a clear and compelling value proposition as to why they would want to be in your key account program. Read More »

Last week, Boeing scored a major coup when Northrop Grumman withdrew from a contest to provide the U.S. Air Force with a new fleet of tankers after the Pentagon refused to revise elaborate rules that appeared to favor Boeing’s smaller, 767-based tanker over the larger Airbus A330 that Northrop planned to bid.

Turns out that Boeing managed to get the US Air Force to rewrite the bid to take into account the life-time expenses of operating the aircraft, as well as the cost to retrofit Air Force runways and hangars to accommodate the new tankers, potentially penalizing Northrop since the larger A330 would burn more fuel and wouldn’t fit into current parking spaces.

Although most of us aren’t bidding on decade-long, $35 Billion tanker orders, we’re likely facing many of the same challenges as Boeing and Northrop: customers with a limited view of their needs, multiple decision makers and influencers, buyers who try to commoditize our offer, and internal politics.  Read More »