VALKRE | Value Creation

SAM Enablement™ versus Sales Enablement

Filling a Market Gap: SAM (Strategic Account Manager) Enablement fills a gap in the marketplace. The gap exists with the 3 million Account Managers who are not served by Sales Enablement, CRM or any of the enabling technologies built for Sales.

Value Creation is the Difference: The fundamental difference between Account Managers and Field Sales is Value Creation. Field Sales tend to go after deals with existing products and services. Account Managers do this too, but they also get deeply engaged as the quarterback of Value Creation. They quarterback the activities of figuring out customer challenges, convincing their companies to dedicate resources to solve challenges and collaborate with customers to execute solutions and achieve outcomes. In Account Management these activities lead to lifelong relationships and business growth between companies and their customers. Account Managers serve the largest, most strategic customers who set the tone for an entire company.  In this role the dramatic difference is Value Creation.

Value Creation is a Process not a Box:  Account Managers know that the work of Value Creation is not a box that gets typed into once a year but is constant, everyday work. Work that follows a continuous process of understanding customer challenges, decisions on challenges to pursue and execution. Account Managers do this work in collaboration with teams of people within their companies, within their customers, across business units and across continents. So, when the Account Manager opens up CRM or Sales Enablement and finds a box to type in a few paragraphs, they are in no way being enabled to get the work done. There is no workflow, there is no place to quantify and track the value delivered, and there is nothing to share with their customer to collaborate on the Value Creation work. The work of Value Creation ends up a hodge-podge of PowerPoint and spreadsheets that wastes the account manager’s time and severely limits Value Creation and growth.

Enough is Enough! Time for SAM Enablement: The Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) and its large community of Account Managers understand all of this. SAMA has been the center of gravity for training and best practice sharing for over 50 years with leading companies all over the world. The community has risen up and said enough is enough; we need our own form of enablement, SAM Enablement.

SAM Enablement: SAM Enablement includes the critical elements necessary to achieve world class Account Management.

• Training: a SAMA specified and controlled set of training modules, resulting from 50+ years of learning, are targeted at developing the skills most important to the SAM community.
• Technology: Purpose built technology that reinforces training and enables the account manager’s work to bring Structure, Speed, Sustainability and Scale to the practice of account management.
• Coaching: With Training and Technology in place the ability to provide real time coaching is dramatically improved. This is the lynch pin to ensuring accountability, continued improvement and results.

SAMA Amsterdam Conference March 14^th thru 16^th: As for Valkre, we have been collaborating on the technology piece within the SAMA community to bring SAM Enablement into the world.

We are excited to introduce and present SAM Enablement at the upcoming Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) conferences:

• Amsterdam March 14^th thru 17^th  Learn More
• Chicago May 23^rd thru 26^th Learn More

Hope to see you there!

 

From Best Practice to Next Practice: My SAMA Conference Takeaways

I recently returned from attending the SAMA Annual Conference in Orlando.  The theme of this year’s conference was “Excellence in SAM Execution: The Journey from Best Practice to Next Practice.” SAMA did an excellent job with the conference, organizing relevant content and fostering great engagement amongst the attendees. 

As I reflect on both the conference sessions and my discussions with colleagues throughout, several consistent themes emerged from the week:

The Journey towards Excellence is Ongoing

There are many companies and SAM teams doing great work, developing robust programs, and creating significant value for both customers and their own organizations.  Several of these organizations were on hand sharing their stories, and many are seeing impressive results.

But it is also abundantly clear that there are many more companies, teams and individuals still early in their journeys with much work ahead.  Strategic Account Programs require significant commitment, effort and focus to deliver better customer engagement and growth.  Companies are getting much smarter about this work, but there is still much to do. 

So if you are early in your own SAM/KAM journey or feel you still haven’t achieved the full potential, don’t feel alone.  You have company with many other organizations out there.  And there is a vast and valuable network of resources and colleagues working on these challenges every day and helping one another in the journey.

Desperately Seeking Supplier Collaboration

In the words of SAMA themselves, “The customer ecosystem is changing: customers ACTUALLY want to collaborate with suppliers.”  This emerging trend was echoed throughout the conference – more frequently customers are initiating the collaboration efforts with suppliers.  Customers also expect more from suppliers.  They are seeking partners that challenge their thinking and bring new and innovative ideas and solutions that can help them be more successful in the market.  In some cases, organizations are even driving competing vendors to collaborate amongst themselves to better align and work together for a common cause – solving customer challenges.

One Procurement Manager captured a critical point here, “Products themselves do not deliver value. It is only once they are implemented, in place, and working that value can be created and realized.”  This is a critical component of collaboration.  Concepts like co-creation and joint innovation are invaluable or identifying value opportunities.  But collaboration must persist all the way through execution to ensure the value is realized.  Customers know this all too well and increasingly prefer to do business with suppliers that they believe are committed to reliable, ongoing alignment and execution.

At Valkre we see this same dynamic playing out daily as we work with our own customers helping them improve customer collaboration.  Customers across all industries are yearning for suppliers that listen, understand and then proactively collaborate to solve problems.  And they are delighted when it happens.  This is the new norm in B2B relationships.

Consider the implications of this for your own business for a moment.  The door is open to engage customers, but are you ready?  Others are embracing this trend and moving aggressively to seize upon the opportunity.  Those who don’t will quickly be left behind.

SAMs have incredibly tough jobs!

So much of the burden of success of SAM Programs still falls squarely onto the shoulders of the individual SAM.  Success or failure often comes down to the capabilities of a single individual.  SAMs are expected to manage a variety of complex activities…often without much help from their organizations.  This complexity emerged throughout the conference along the three pillars of customer engagement:

• Defining, Measuring and Articulating Value

Communicating value to customers is a necessity today.  This is not a new concept, yet it is still elusive and challenging for most!  Customers want to understand how your solutions address specific challenges and see the corresponding value expressed in terms of their business.  Most SAMs still need help here.  Companies need to do a better job of helping SAMs put the company’s solutions into the ‘context’ of their customers business so SAMs can have the value conversations customers demand. 

• Understanding Customer Needs

SAM’s must understand customer priorities and strategies and ensure those are relayed back into the organization.  As one presenter noted, “We have gaps in our understanding of the health of the relationship all the time. But customers don't come tell you. They just start doing business with someone else.”  This is true…and so frightening.  If your SAM doesn’t have their hand on the pulse of the customer you are blind.  The results in this area are still mixed due to the reliance on the acumen and skills of individuals. There is much attention and focus here…and still much more room for improvement. 

• Coordinating and Managing Complexity

Unfortunately, SAMs still spend the majority of their time coordinating internal teams and navigating across silos to build consensus, alignment and ensure the organization executes.  “I spend more time internally trying to get internal buy-in than I do with my customers!” was a common refrain throughout the conference.  The challenge of complexity is unavoidable.  But organizations have got to figure out how to empower SAMs with better tools and internal processes so they can minimize this internal tactical time and shift more time to customer-facing strategic activities.

When you think about these activities, it is not unreasonable to consider SAMs as modern day heroes carrying the hopes and dreams of their organization into the market.  But as with any other hero embarking upon The Hero’s Journey, it continues to be evident that they cannot succeed alone…we must arm our SAMs with the right tools to navigate the complex world that awaits them.

Technology is a Critical Enabler

This is an area of growing focus within SAMA…and of course a topic near and dear to our hearts here at Valkre.  The discussion on technology enablement focused on two key stakeholders:

• SAMs. As I said above, SAMs have complex jobs!  And they won’t be able to keep up for much longer without the right technology tools.  CRM can support sales activities, but it falls short on execution and value creation – two activities essential to SAM success.  SAMs need tools that help them in their daily jobs.  And they need help to bridge their organizations and customer organizations to enable more seamless, efficient, and value-oriented collaboration between both sides. 

• SAM Program Leaders.  While SAMs need help with their individual account activities, their Program Leaders need even more help to maintain visibility across entire account portfolios.  SAM Program Leaders must be empowered with tools that give them broad visibility and faster and deeper insights.  Many critical activities are still managed with Excel and PowerPoint, fundamentally limiting visibility, accountability and follow through.

SAMA has indicated that technology will be a larger area of focus at next year’s conference.  We applaud SAMA for their leadership here and we look forward to being a part of that ongoing journey.

Are you a SAM or SAM Leader dealing with these issues?  Tell us what you think…we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences as well.

Recalling More than the 10%: My BMA Recap

Another great BMA conference is in the rearview mirror. It was an honor to be a sponsor and connect with some amazing marketers influencing where B2B is going.

But after every conference, I always feel a little bit of information overload. After all, there were 41 keynotes, fire starters, and panels that filled 36 hours of sessions and networking. And it was all compressed into 3 days.

One of the tidbits I did retain is that people recall only 10% of what was said 2 days afterwards. (Thanks, @TRiesterer, for imparting that knowledge). So to that end, I’ve combed through my notes and distilled all the brain fodder down to my top 5 insights from BMA14:

1. Run your business in 2014 and not from 1980's. Start using the tools of the year we live in: Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. Put out stuff that people want. Give first, don’t ask.
   
   As a corollary to the above, you have to be a certain kind of guy to get away with using 64 F bombs as an effective tool in a presentation. @garyvee is one of those guys.
2. Download the Run Pee app. If you help a customer, you can create a customer for life. We don’t need more tools, conversation or data. We need a prism through which to look at marketing and decide what makes sense.
   
3. Marketing’s NPS score with CEOs is a –6 (just to be clear, that’s a MINUS six).  Expectations are not being met. 61% of CEOs think their marketing organizations are as innovative as squirrels.  CEOs want to get involved with customer engagement and they want marketing to drive it.
   
4. A speech about electrical currents is way more marketable when set to musical tunes. While industrial musicals faded in the 1980s, creativity is always going to be in style. So reach customers and employees in ways that will inspire them.
5. Finally, avoid the hammock. Customers will remember very little of what happens in the middle of a presentation. You need to open HOT, close HOT, and figure out ways to spike engagement in the middle of a presentation by telling customers about an opportunity they didn't know they have. And associate your story with the right visual so that it will be 6 times more recallable.

 

What were other highlights of the BMA14 conference that you think are missing from this list? Let me know in the comments below. Otherwise, looking forward to engaging with you at your nearest BMA Connect2 conference in the Fall.

Five Years of Valkre

On this day five years ago we launched Valkre. Since that day I’ve been asked and explained many, many times why we chose the name. Here’s the story:

When we launched the company we were building our SaaS platform around a methodology we called Customer Value Creation. Right out of the gate, C.O.O. Brian Kiep thought we should name the company ValCre. But when we searched on the domain name, it was not available...dang!

Disappointed, we then went off the deep end and brainstormed a bunch of other names. One of those names was B-da-B, which was a play on the idea that we served business-to-business customers, but as a tribute to our Chicago origins, replacing the "to" with how a good Chicago Bears fan might pronounce B2B.

 

Yeah, that name was out there. we were obviously grasping at straws, until a moment of brilliance  and we came up with ValKre. 

For those who don’t know Norse mythology, Valkyries are the maidens who determine winners and losers of battle. The Valkyries bring the winners to Valhalla where the soldiers eat their fill of beast and drink mead. We liked the analogy that our company empowers B2B businesses to win with their customers through Value Creation. 

The deciding factor for us was the tie to The Ride of the Valkyries, the well-known opera by Richard Wagner (though probably better known in the Air Cavalry scene of Apocalypse Now). So we were sold. Plus the domain was available! 

Fast forward five years later and the name Valkre has represented us well.

Today, the speed and structure driven by RENDER is helping companies stay ahead of competitive offerings by aligning on customer value and innovation needs. Thanks to all who work at Valkre and to our customers, I believe we have at least another five years of innovation to contribute in the battle of creating value for customers.  

It's Spring! Time for a Newsletter!

Spring is here and so is RENDER 3.0!                

I love this time of year in Chicago! Everything is in alignment. The Cubs are in last, the Bears are going to win the Super Bowl, the Bulls are still trying to find their post MJ groove, the Hawks are the best team in town, and the Sox win games that nobody knows about. Everything is green, flowers are blooming, birds are back, and every road of consequence is under construction. Late Spring in Chicago is perfect.