IN THIS EPISODE...

Sales and Marketing is like stealing your neighbour’s cat…and in this episode, I talk to Bryony Thomas at Watertight Marketing to find out why.

Bryony is the creator of the Watertight Marketing methodology, captured in her best-selling book of the same name which acts as the hub to a suite of thinking tools that have been designed and refined over two decades and across over 2000 organisations.

- - -

𝗕𝗥𝗬𝗢𝗡𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗦 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

Bryony is an award-winning speaker, author, marketing strategist and the creator of the proven Watertight Marketing Methodology. She stops people from wasting money on marketing.

In 2008, she left her corporate role as Director of Marketing for Experian, a FTSE100 company, and set up her own consultancy. She believes that small businesses are a real lever of meaningful and sustainable change in the world, and she has built a proven methodology to help them to do just that.

Through her 12-month marketing transformation programme, book and speaking she reaches audiences far and wide, and today also has a team of licensed Watertight Marketing Practitioners.

𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗢:

David is the principal KAM Consultant & Managing Director at Front¢re, a specialist Key Account Management training and consultancy business, based in the UK.

David is a Speaker, Author and Performance Coach with more than a decade of hands-on and consultative experience in sales and management roles in the leisure, entertainment and telecoms industries.

IN THIS EPISODE

Do you tell your clients that you work in partnership?

What evidence do you have to reassure them that the statement is, in fact, true?

What are the qualities of a good partnership?

Does your team possess the skills required to forge strong win:win relationships, built on trust, transparency, transparency, comfort with change and interdependence and a focus on the future?

In this episode, I invite Fred Copestake, a sales consultant and trainer specialising in complex B2b sales environments, to get into this topic with me. He has spent the last 22 years travelling around the world to develop salespeople, in over 200 companies, to move from the transactional selling styles of yesteryear, into the collaborative selling styles of today and shaping the ‘business partners’ of the future.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE:

As you will by now know, here at Front¢re we are big believers in fostering a ‘valued partner’ relationship with your most important customers/clients. Partnering with your clients should be more than just a statement, more than something you simply ‘say’ on your website. It should be lived in the values, attitudes, behaviours, and skills within your teams and consistently demonstrated in your most important customer relationships.

In my discussion with Fred, we dig into his concept of ‘PQ – Partnering intelligence’. (He has even written a book on it). We talk about what the concept is, and what qualities we should be developing and demonstrating in our key account relationships.

You will hear us talk through:

• The three biggest challenges that senior leaders will see when they look at their sales teams. As Fred describes - are your teams:

1. Displaying ‘busy busy busy’ behaviours where busyness is getting in the way of business?
2. Are they thinking in the ‘olde worlde’ ways and struggling to see new, and change, as a force for good and opportunity?
3. Do they have a ‘muddled mindset’ where the focus switches as we get closer to month-end and the targets take over?

• How we need to get comfortable with serving the customer whilst working together as equals - with mutual trust and respect.
• How do you feel about the notion that the customer isn’t, in fact, king (despite the old saying) and that we should see them as respected peers who are there to work with us to deliver mutually beneficial win:win growth?
• What the future of selling could look like in this fast-moving and ever-changing marketplace we work in.

KILLER QUESTIONS SEGMENT

In each episode we ask you, our listener, a killer question that is designed to get you reflecting on your business, your KAM Culture and where changes in thinking and behaviour could lead to increased customer success. In this episode we asked Fred to give us his killer question which was:

“Why would you NOT use partnering intelligence to build relationships with your most important

customers?”

There you have it. It's logical to just naturally want to build PQ into your sales skills toolkit – isn’t it?

Quick ref to a link we mention in our discussion:

Fred mentioned his PQ (Partnering Intelligence) Self Audit which you can take. Find out your Sales PQ now using this diagnostic tool.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MY GUEST: FRED COPESTAKE

Fred is the founder of Brindis, a sales training consultancy...

IN THIS EPISODE

How ‘in tune’ are you with the qualities, traits and characteristics that make up your personality?

How does your personality affect the results you have with your key account relationships?

If you are in tune with who YOU are, let me ask: how well can you read other people?

Do you use your knowledge and reflection to change the way you behave to better your chances of success? Or…do you act the same in every interaction you have with your customer contacts?

In this episode, we take a dive into an important topic in the world of building customer relationships: how well do you adapt your communication style with different customers?

I am going to challenge you to consider, for a moment, that rather than thinking of yourself as a classically labelled sales person… what if you were called a sales practitioner. In that vein…you could say: rather than being an account manager you were an account management practitioner.

How does that sit with you? Can you see how the change in language brings a change in focus?

To be a practitioner, you must continue to practice. To practice indicates that growth, development and improvement is always possible and we cannot sit back and assume that perfection has been attained.

Think of this episode as a moment to pause, reflect and decide how you will practice this imperative skill ofshaping your communications style and personality preferences to elevate your results with your most important customers.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE:

This is a full episode in 30mins of pure notable and actionable takeaways – so get your pen and pad out (and be sure to look at the full show notes on the website - as I couldn't put all the graphics in here for you).

To be an effective Key Account Manager in today’s world means more than simply being a well-trained salesperson, adept with the skills to win more business and sustain relationships.

Whether you are a ‘hunter’ or, as with many Key Account Managers, a ‘farmer’, the playing field has changed, and we now work in an environment where it is less about ‘how you sell’ and more about ‘why the customer buys’

Some of the topics I share and discuss my views on in this episode cover:

• Evolving old ABC to new ABC

Consider updating Glengarry Glen Ross’ ABC - Always Be Closing, to a more modern KAM- related ABC of:

Analyse how the customer thinks and works

Build a bridge to their world and

Communicate in their language not yours

• The impact your FILTERS have on your brain’s processing of information (Through our five senses, the human body sends 11 million bits of information per second to the brain for processing, yet the conscious mind seems to be able to process only 50 bits per second!
• An account manager’s true roles is to influence with integrity and support the customer to CHOOSE the right solution for them.
• Using a psychometric tool to help you to assess and analyse how you “show up” (consciously / unconsciously) – does not give you a ‘free pass’ to behave in ‘stereotype’. Rather, they are designed to help you to (honestly) assess yourself and design your own results through adaptation and flexibility. (I share more below about how we use the Lumina Spark Model we use with clients here at Front¢re –...