I may have a radically different view to the excellent Sanjay’s post, based on personal experience as a Key Account Manager, selling IT solutions to my then favorite client.
Once you can reach a trusted relationship with your client, you may actually dedicate your full energy to business people, almost ignoring IT, Procurement and Finance (the3 of them would be the gatekeepers, let me elaborate on this at a later stage).
What if you know that the VP of Sales has a project that will help him grow business by few million dollars (if not hundreds) over the next12 months, taking the lead in the market? This is Key Account Management. And what if you know that he is missing the IT components to make it happen, before he would even discuss this with the CIO? Design your solution, submit your plan to the VP of Sales, you are his right arm to support his business.
Now, what’s up with IT, Procurement and Finance? Your offer will land on their desk at one point in time, no question. They might challenge your project, your budget, they may want to go for a formal tender that will take another three months … Your ‘sponsor’ (the Sales VP) will make it happen, his business expansion is worth few millions a month, he committed himself to the CEO, no way to wait for another few weeks or months. Done.
IT, Procurement, Finance might hate you, but do you mind? My personal answer was “no”, and I still wanted them to respect me. Actually, there is a way to gain respect from these departments while you freely go around: you don’t want to ask them permission for meeting with the business managers, but you can commit to keep them posted about your contacts and projects within the organization, making sure that they don’t look fooled by an outsider.
As a Key Account Manager, your duty is to consult your client, helping grow their business. As a Key Account Manager, you want to discuss business with business managers, turn their needs into opportunities (which might mean IT infrastructure, solutions …) and deliver on these opportunities. IT, Procurement and Finance are critical support functions, you may need their support. Still, the decision maker is not there, but in the business units.
All the best, KAM is a great experience
Incase of selling IT infrastructure, the main people involved in the sales cycle are:1) The highest authority in the organisation who looks after the technology aspects and who will Vet the technical compatibility of your solutions with his organisation. Normally they are,
(i) IT Head (influencer)
(ii) Chief Technology Officer (Decision Maker)2) The authority responsible for operations and finance,
(i) Operations Head
(ii) Finance Head / CFO (To Vet the financial feasiblity of the budgets, cost involved to implement or buy such a solution, negotiation etc.)
A plan for Key Account Management should be to approach and discuss requirements etc with the IT People first. The IT Head should be the first point of contact and later on CTO should be involved too. Once, The IT Head Vet the solution then they do get involved the Operations Head and Finance Head into the Sales Cycle too.
Btw, While you are mapping the organisation, and as when each Heads get engaged, take that as a BUYING SIGNAL that the organisation is showing inclination towards investing in your solution/services.
Operational Tactic: If on sales call you think that the IT people are not showing interest you can interchange by interacting with Operations to break the Ice.
Sales Cycle from Opporunity Creation to Closure will depend upon how big the investment is and the duration of implementation.
However, do remember in IT Infrastructure selling, order of priority in Buying Decision for the buyer is:1) Technical Vetting and then followed by2) Financial Vetting
Hope this will be of some help to you. I am sure there will be improvised methods of approach too. This is how I have been experiencing it.
This reminds me of MAN.
IT infrastructure solutions are high value proposals and has a big financial impact on the client. Such high value proposals draws the attention of the TOP PERSON/AUTHORITY of the defined ACCOUNT who is empowered to take final decision. Need may arise from any levels below the authority. Levels below the authority are generally very cost conscious and have many difficult questions in mind to justify their requirements to higher ups. If the person at this level does not open up while prospecting then you are stuck up with limited information.
Therefore in my opinion it is always wise to take a top to bottom approach. Seek the permission from the top person to study the present infrastructure and to revert with feedback as to how your product/solutions can add value. If one is hesitant to approach the authority then position some one senior from your end to make an opening. In this meeting with the top person make sure that a message goes down the line about your approach.
The top to bottom approach is effective as the contacts below the authority will be attentive/opened and free to provide information to you. You will experience minimal hurdles and objections at all levels irrespective of the functional areas.
Thereafter HAPPY SELLING ...........
