Programme overview
Technical depth: Practitioner · Practical mode: Role-play
Introduction
Large customers generate a disproportionate share of revenue, yet many are managed reactively: relationships depend on a single contact, conversations centre on price, and growth opportunities go unnoticed until a competitor finds them. This Core Concept course equips account and sales managers to manage key accounts strategically and to sell consultatively, using recognised account planning, buying influence and questioning models. Participants rehearse real customer conversations through role-play with structured feedback and leave with a Key Account Plan for one of their own strategic accounts.
Course Objectives
- Segment an account portfolio and assess account attractiveness, profitability and relationship stage
- Map buying influences and decision processes inside complex customer organisations
- Conduct consultative discovery conversations using SPIN questioning and insight-led commercial teaching
- Build quantified value propositions and business cases that connect the offer to the customer's own objectives
- Protect and grow key accounts through renewal negotiation, risk monitoring and whitespace analysis
- Produce a Key Account Plan that aligns the internal account team and the customer around shared goals
Target Audience
- Key and strategic account managers responsible for major customer relationships
- Sales managers leading teams that serve large or complex accounts
- Business development managers converting large opportunities into long-term relationships
- Technical and solution sales managers supporting complex B2B deals
- Client relationship managers in professional services, banking and industrial sectors
- Channel and distributor managers responsible for strategic partners
Course Outline
Day 1: Key Account Management Foundations and Portfolio Assessment
- KAM Relationship Development Stages: Exploratory to Integrated
- Account Portfolio Segmentation with the Directional Policy Matrix
- Account Profitability and Cost-to-Serve Analysis
- Customer Business Analysis Using Value Chain and Annual Report Review
- Current-State Account Health Check Scorecard
Day 2: Consultative Selling and Account Management Models
- Buying Influences Mapping: Economic, User and Technical Buyers and Coaches
- SPIN Questioning Model: Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-Payoff
- Challenger Commercial Teaching and Insight Development
- MEDDICC Opportunity Qualification
- ISO 44001 Collaborative Business Relationship Principles
Day 3: Running the Consultative Conversation
- Discovery Meeting Preparation Plan and Question Bank
- Value Proposition and Quantified Business Case Build
- Solution Presentation Using the Problem-Implication-Solution Structure
- Mutual Action Plan with Customer Stakeholders
- Quarterly Business Review Agenda and Scorecard
Day 4: Complex Accounts, Risk and Growth
- Procurement-Led Buying: Tender Constraints and Supplier Evaluation Criteria
- Principled Negotiation and BATNA Preparation for Renewals
- Account Risk Register: Churn Signals, Single-Threading and Competitor Displacement
- Cross-Sell and Upsell Whitespace Analysis
- Internal Account Team Alignment Using a RACI Matrix
Day 5: Role-Play Practice and the Key Account Plan
- Discovery Meeting Role-Play with a Sceptical Economic Buyer
- Renewal Negotiation Role-Play Under Price Pressure
- Relationship Map and Stakeholder Coverage Plan for an Own Account
- Key Account Plan Drafting
- Account Plan Review Panel and Feedback
Skills You Will Gain
- Account Portfolio Analysis
- Stakeholder Relationship Mapping
- Consultative Questioning
- Value Quantification
- Opportunity Qualification
- Renewal Negotiation
- Account Risk Management
- Account Team Leadership
Why Attend This Course
- Return with a Key Account Plan for one of your own strategic accounts, reviewed by peers and facilitators
- Rehearse difficult discovery and renewal conversations and receive structured feedback before facing real customers
- Stop relying on a single contact by building coverage across the whole buying group
- Learn how account managers in other sectors and countries protect margin under procurement pressure
Conclusion
Key accounts are kept and grown by understanding the customer's business better than competitors do and by turning that understanding into value the customer can measure. This course moves from portfolio and profitability analysis, through buying influence, questioning and qualification models, to value propositions, negotiation and account risk. The final day rehearses the conversations that matter most and turns the material into a Key Account Plan that participants take back to their teams and their customers.