Building and Sustaining Key Accounts

Key Accounts are just that – key , to your success. How can you help your Sales Reps increase business in their Key Accounts, and increase success in opening new accounts?

Just being very good at what they do isn't enough. Your competitors are very good too. They have read the same marketing books, attended the same sales training programs– and they are constantly trying to persuade your customers to buy their products instead of yours. How can you deal with this constant competitive attack? How can you ensure that your customers will always be more inclined to buy from your Account Reps over theirs?

From time to time there will be technical breakthroughs that make a particular product appear superior. But the business world knows that technical differentiation is temporary; most products and their accompanying services and prices balance out. So how can your company's offering of product/service/pricing be distinguished from your competition?

Sales Success Through Relationships

This dilemma has been successfully addressed by Tony Putman, an international marketing consultant who has helped hundreds of organizations in most every industry for over 20 years. Putman's approach has been to help Account Reps raise their business relationships with clients to the highest level, what he calls: “The Ally Relationship.”

At that level, your Account Reps will always have an inside track with your customers to offer them alternatives to whatever your competitors propose. And your customers will be more inclined to remain loyal to your Company. Of course your competitors are well aware of the importance of relationships in making sales and will always try to establish the closest relationship possible with your customers. So how is the Ally Relationship concept different from the relationship building techniques most sales people apply?

A Professional Approach to Relationship Building

The truth, as Putman discovered, is that most sales people don't follow specific techniques to build relationships with their customers other than whatever lunches, golf games, sporting events or other social amenities their customers are willing to accept. But the business world has become too busy to participate in these practices as in the past. So sales people are often reduced to simply trying to be affable, hoping this leads to a closer relationship with their customers. Few customers can afford to be loyal simply in response to “warm personalities”. Customers require more value to remain a customer.

Ally Relationships meets this need because ally relationships evolve through the nature of the conversations that your Sales Reps have with their customers. Features and benefits is base information easily available in our web-connected world. The ally conversations revolve around the customer's strategic issues, topics where your Sales Reps will learn how to add value for their customers…. consistently ! Ally Relationship techniques are based on specific principles and techniques which can be learned and perfected.

Putman validated his concepts with dozens of organizations including a 5 year project with 400+ partners of a Big 4 US Accounting/Consulting Firm. According to the partner responsible for Development, Putman's concepts achieved the “ highest level of acceptance in the history of the Firm .”

Business results have been equally impressive . They include:

• Firms typically sustained and increased business with over 90% of current clients.

• One formerly “marginal performer” developed over $2,000,000 of business with new clients in one year, over $5,000,000 the next.

• A prospect targeting team went from minimal business to “preferred provider” with over 50% of prospects in less than half the expected time.

Some Testimonials:

“This is not the same old sales training with a new glossy package. It's a powerful and practical way to build and sustain success. Following the Ally Relationships model will surely give you an unfair advantage over your competitors.”

Gordon Hecker
V.P., Chief Marketing Officer
Nationwide Financial

“Building Ally Relationships across multiple industries has enabled me to create strong coalitions in the areas of corporate responsibility and sustainability, and to affect positive, systemic industry change.”

Heidi McCloskey
Global Sustainability Director
Nike

“…… for professionals who want to operate at the top of their game. It focuses on developing Ally Relationships – one of the most important skills a professional can learn. Bottom line: it's the difference between being engaged or just responding to RFPs.”

Jack Russi
Vice Chairman and Regional Managing Partner
Deloitte & Touche LLP USA

“I not only felt eager to use his techniques, I had written down my plans for two new clients, five prospects and three old clients.”

Steffie Allen
Board Chair, Women's Vision Foundation
President, The Athena Group , LLC

“It is fast – I've seen it happen in 10 minutes.  It is empowering – you become embedded in the Client's internal Rolodex for discussions of value on issues of primary importance.  It is differentiating – very few people are doing it, mostly because they don't know they can.”

Charles S. Stuart
Author of Essence Marketing

"With an Ally Relationship You Don't Sell -They Buy"

Building and Sustaining Professional Success

How can professionals build and sustain success for their business?

Just being really good at what you do isn't enough. Your competitors are good, too. They have read the same marketing books, attended the same sales training programs you've been to – and they are constantly trying to persuade your clients and prospective clients to hire them instead of you. How can you deal with this constant competitive attack? How can you ensure that, when a client decides to buy a professional service, you are who they think of first?

This dilemma has been successfully addressed by Tony Putman, an international marketing consultant who has helped service professionals – accountants, lawyers, bankers, financial advisors, consultants, engineers etc. – for over 20 years. Putman's approach has been to help professionals raise their business relationships with their clients to the highest level, what he calls: “The Ally Relationship.”

At that level, the professional is in the room and in the conversation when the client recognizes their need for professional service. The professional doesn't need to initiate the selling cycle. “As a result,” Putman reports, “you've protected your most valuable asset: the inclination of your market to buy from you instead of your equally-qualified competitors.”

Putman validated his concepts with dozens of client firms, including a 5 year project with 400+ partners of a Big 4 US Accounting/Consulting Firm. According to the partner responsible for Development, Putman's concepts achieved “ the highest level of acceptance in the history of the Firm ”.

Business results have been equally impressive . They include:

• Firms typically sustained and increased business with over 90% of current clients.

• One formerly “marginal performer” developed over $2,000,000 of business with new clients in one year, over $5,000,000 the next.

• A prospect targeting team went from minimal business to “preferred provider” with over 50% of prospects in less than half the expected time.

Some Testimonials :

“…… for professionals who want to operate at the top of their game. It focuses on developing Ally Relationships – one of the most important skills a professional can learn. Bottom line: it's the difference between being engaged or just responding to RFPs.”

Jack Russi
Vice Chairman and Regional Managing Partner
Deloitte & Touche LLP USA

“This is not the same old sales training with a new glossy package. It's a

powerful and practical way to build and sustain success. Following the Ally Relationships model will surely give you an unfair advantage over your competitors.”

Gordon Hecker
V.P., Chief Marketing Officer
Nationwide Financial

“Building Ally Relationships across multiple industries has enabled me to create strong coalitions in the areas of corporate responsibility and sustainability, and to affect positive, systemic industry change.”

Heidi McCloskey
Global Sustainability Director
Nike

“I not only felt eager to use his techniques, I had written down my plans for two new clients, five prospects and three old clients.”

Steffie Allen
Board Chair, Women's Vision Foundation
President, The Athena Group , LLC

“It is fast – I've seen it happen in 10 minutes.  It is empowering – you become embedded in the Client's internal Rolodex for discussions of value on issues of primary importance.  It is differentiating – very few people are doing it, mostly because they don't know they can.”

Charles S. Stuart
Author of Essence Marketing

"With an Ally Relationship You Don't Sell -They Buy"

Anthony O. Putman Biographical Sketch

Tony Putman helps business leaders achieve and sustain success in their markets.

Tony is an internationally known consultant and coach with over thirty years of experience. Chairman of The Putman Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he has personally worked with over 1000 leaders, in hundreds of client organizations, ranging from giants among the Fortune 100 to one-person firms; their businesses include high technology, manufacturing, health care, higher education, retail, financial services, accounting, consulting, and many other kinds of professional service firms.

Some specific organizations he has served include IBM, Deloitte & Touche, Ford Motor Company, Nike, Bell Labs, Health Partners of Minneapolis, The University of Michigan, Detroit Edison, AT&T, and the United States Department of Defense.

Tony is the widely acknowledged world authority on creating Ally Relationships between service providers and clients. Among the many issues Tony has helped his clients address are:

• Moving an entire firm's relationship with its customers from service source to Ally
• Transforming a global consumer products enterprise into a “sustainable business”
• Merging two historical competitors into a single high-performing firm
• Taking a global high-tech consulting firm from opportunity-constrained to demand-driven growth, constrained only by their capacity to find qualified employees
• Taking vision and mission that exist mainly on paper and making them real .

Dr. Putman is an internationally known author, speaker and workshop leader. His classic book, Marketing Your Services: A Step-by-Step Guide for Small Businesses and Professionals , was published by John Wiley & Sons in 1990 and is in its eighteenth printing; the book is recommended on more than 100 websites, and has also been published in Italian, German, and Spanish. Ally Relationships: The Key to Sustained Success for Your Service Business is scheduled for publication in May 2006. He has been an invited speaker and workshop leader at numerous national conferences, and at several universities, including The Georgetown University, the University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Putman received his Ph.D. degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado in 1973. He was a founding member of the Society for Descriptive Psychology, which he has served as President, as Editor of its Bulletin, and as Editor of Advances in Descriptive Psychology , Volume 5. He is Founder and Director of the Society's publishing wing, Descriptive Psychology Press.

"With an Ally Relationship You Don't Sell -They Buy"