One misaligned team member can crash a multimillion-dollar Key Account.

One misaligned team member can crash a multimillion-dollar Key Account.

How well are your KAMs leading cross-functional teams they don’t manage?

We had about 10 people representing six different job functions working a $5M account across several regions. One associate followed a practice from our own sales training. It broke one rule in the client’s 30-page agreement.

The client’s Head of Contracts suspended our services and ordered a full audit. We lost 30% of our revenue with that client, about $1.5M. It took us three months to earn our way back in.

She did exactly what she was trained to do. Nobody had connected her work to what the client cared about.

That job belongs to the Key Account Manager. It’s one of the hardest skills in key account management: leading 5, 20 or even hundreds of people who don’t report to you toward expanding and protecting a large, complex customer.

On another account, I met a three-person team serving the world’s largest life sciences company. Revenue had been flat through several account executives.

We set one mission: become the client’s Supplier of the Year. I invited more than 60 people from departments, functions and experience levels across our company who touched the account to join, and made it optional. Everyone who chose to contribute tested their work against that one unifying objective.

Every quarter, we reviewed our results internally, then asked the client what was still missing. When a gap belonged to one function, the whole team owned it.

Picture being the conductor of a high-speed train that travels cross-country. Every car is coupled to the next, each carrying the function it serves, and the whole train runs on one track to one destination.

In two years, the account grew from $7.8M to $15.6M. We became the top-producing site serving the client, won Supplier of the Year, and became #1 of more than 80 suppliers. (Link to this case study in Comments)

An aligned cross-functional Key Account Team acts in the client’s best interest and yours, whether you’re in the room or not.

To turn your cross-functional team into an effective key account community, start here:

1. Map everyone in your company who touches the account.

2. Set one mission that brings them together, an objective that aligns with what the client cares about and celebrates.

3. Create space for them to generate ideas and solve problems.

4. Seek out opportunities to let their talents surface.

5. Review their progress every quarter, internally and with the client.

6. Ask for feedback on how well you’re doing as their leader, and prioritize ideas that benefit the client first, then the team, then you.

If you want help with this and the other 20 growth drivers that form Vital Partnerships that last, schedule a free 30-minute consultation and ask for a demo of the Vitality Index.