Hey team, it's Warwick here from Account Manager Tips and listen,
I'm a glass half full kind of guy. Normally I talk about what to do,
how to do it and what you should be doing with your clients.
But today I'm going to talk about 5 things every account manager needs to
stop doing immediately and what to do instead. Want to know what they are?
Buckle up cause we're gonna get right into it.
Number one on the list of things of what not to do is
stop giving it away. Stop discounting.
Have the confidence
the solution you're providing,
the service that you're giving and the impact that you're making is worth the
price you're pitching at. Simple as that.
Now if you do need to start to negotiate on price,
make sure you get some concessions. It needs to be a negotiation.
So if you are having to discount frequently used services,
maybe you have to raise a price on less frequently used services.
If you are looking at maybe a standard one year contract,
maybe in exchange for lowering your prices,
you ask for a three year contract or exclusivity as a supplier.
There's lots of different ways that you can make concessions,
make the contract still profitable, protect your margins and still
offer your clients some concessions around pricing. So think about that.
Never just be a one-way , "yeah sure I'll drop my pricing."
Number two on the list of things not
to do is to stop modifying your terms.
It becomes so complex if you have client by client, different KPIs,
different SLAs, different terms, different termination agreements,
different rollover agreements,
different penalties and clauses.
It becomes a minefield and actually really impossible for you to manage
effectively the contracts. So where possible, make sure
you have very standard and consistent terms across all of your
client agreements. If you must modify them, make sure you're very,
very clear on the ones that you do not touch. Things like liability,
things like term and termination.
You want to make sure that they're there and lots of other things as well.
Talk to your legal team obviously but make sure that you're really,
clear that contracts are there for a reason and they need to be
as standard as possible.
Number three on the list of things not
to do is to modify your invoicing terms.
Make sure that if your invoicing terms are +14 +30 +45 whatever they might be,
make sure they're standard and that you don't compromise those because it
becomes a nightmare for your accounts receivable team, for your cashflow,
for all sorts of things that can be impacted by modifying invoice terms.
And I'll give you a real example.
I had a client that wanted to pay for their account management fees in arrears
rather than in advance, which was the default that we set up in the system.
So of course I said yes,
I did a reminder for an annual manual invoice of their account management fees
and of course one year I forgot and they owed us £20,000.
That went on for a couple of years.
Luckily they were a client of mine still when I realised the error and I was able
to get the money back. But if they had fled and gone to another competitor,
I'd be having a tough time chasing that money. Some very big and real
mistakes can be made if you mess around with your invoice terms.
So number four on the list is stop giving
your clients multiple equally viable
options and then letting them decide.
Why?
Because that eliminates you as the expert.
All you're doing is presenting them a smorgasbord of options and then saying,
"You pick." You're deferring your expertise to them, right?
So what you should be doing is having a very clear point of view.
Give them two options along with a recommendation. And that's it.
So stop the multiple options. It might seem like, you know,
you're being very flexible and very amenable and making their life easier,
but what you're in fact doing is undermining your own expertise and
removing you as somebody that's integral to the decision of what choice they're
going to make. Okay. Simple. And number five, lucky last.
More of a difficult one, but stop
letting your clients figure out
all the problems for themselves and
just come to you for the boring transactional stuff.
You want to be part of the problem discovery.
You want to go to them with things that they haven't considered themselves
because that is again re-affirming your expertise,
making you an integral part of their decision making cycle and their business
processes rather than them figuring it all out for themselves and then just
barking orders at you. Alright?
So make sure you muscle in on that action as well.
Number one. Don't discount.
if you do, see what you can
get in return for doing that.
Number 2. Don't muck around with your terms. They're there for a reason.
Consistency is going to help you manage your clients so much better.
Number three, don't mess around with your invoicing.
You'll cause so many problems for accounts receivable and yourself and
potentially, you know, lose cash along the way.
Number four, don't present to your client multiple options and
let them decide because you're the expert.
So have a point of view and get them one or two options
and then make your recommendations.
Number five, don't let your client figure it all out for themselves.
Muscle on that problem solving action and make sure they're
clear that your part of this process as well, not just the
person that runs reports and sorts out issues and they can
just crack the whip and bark the orders at. Okay? What'd I miss?
Must be something else you think that account managers need to stop doing.
I'd love to hear what they are.
Let me know in the comments and if you want to stay in touch,
you can find me over at AccountManager.tips
You can find me @warwickabrown on the social media platform of your choice
or just hit me up on the #AMTIPS, I'll find you. All right, bye for now.