National / Major Account Management and Consultative Selling Skills

At the conclusion of this national account sales training course participants will be able to:

• Use personality behavior tendencies to profile and adapt to national account client contact personnel
• Use business acumen skills to support the client's business objectives
• Manage the virtual team to focus all company resources in support of the client
• Describe how a little "paranoia" helps neutralize competitive thrusts into the national account
• Nurture a sustainable, trusted advisor position in the national account
• Help national accounts discover and acknowledge the value-added that supports your price premium
• Distinguish the client's formal and informal decision making process
• Nurture and leverage the inside advocate
• Use successful business negotiating strategies, tactics and gambits to achieve positive outcomes while maintaining good relationships with global account personnel
• Manage contract and vendor personnel to support your position and the national account position
• Use executive bridging to maintain sustainability
• Use non-business and family oriented entertaining to solidify the relationship

The global market is getting more competitive with Chinese firms focused on volume and putting significant pressure on price points and margins of existing national account suppliers. The pricing pressure is severe and incumbent suppliers need to use sustainability techniques to remind and confirm the added value they bring to the national account relationship. A ton of effort is placed on winning a major deal, the same effort must be made to maintain sustainability of a national / major account. Selling and managing a national / major account is a complex activity involving the whole team. National account selling complexity is compounded by the fact that the client knows they are a major customer and will flex their economic muscle if they think they are not getting the most favored deal. In addition, supplier reduction programs have made it imperative to enhance national account team sustainability using all supplier resources. And as the pivotal contact point between the national account and the supplier, the account executive must:

1. Manage the sustainability of the national account virtual team (in some cases outmaneuvering other executives for internal resources)
2. Be the voice of the client to internal business teams all the while growing the depth and width of product and services provided to the client

As this national / major account selling and managing system has been been adapted globally, the one common denominator with clients is value. Value is a key whether the client is in: North America, South America, Europe, Mideast or Asia.