IBM
0165 IBM ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
Most sales professionals make the assumption that their customer accounts are in good health, unless they are told about specific problems. On the other hand, I deliberately took the pessimistic view that I had to prove to myself that my customers were in good health. This meant that I never lost a customer due to major problems. Indeed I never lost a major customer!
My main effort, for prospects but especially for customers, was directed at managing their account as near perfectly as I could. I spent far more time on this than did my colleagues, but it paid dividends. I typically visited my customers at least once a week, usually to talk to the operators and lower level staff. In this way I nipped any emerging problems in the bud. I was also able to capitalise on any new business opportunities immediately – well before my competitors got a sniff of them.
In the case of my prospects I used to do extensive surveys, ostensibly as a basis for the proposal I was preparing. Of course, these offered me an invaluable insight into the situation. But the real reason for them was that they offered me the opportunity for an extended sales campaign, meeting everyone who might influence the decision. It was a brave DP manager who would place his business elsewhere when everyone else in the company told him to place it with me!
In particular, tight control is essential on large projects. In another context I was project manager for the first phase of IBM's relocation of its UK marketing headquarters to Basingstoke. The total project included the commissioning of an extra half a million square feet of space, bringing an extra 1500 employees on to the resulting `campus', and providing something like 2500 terminals linked by literally thousands of miles of cable. Its cost ran into tens of millions of pounds, and it took the best part of 18 months to complete.
The only way I could exercise any degree of control of this first phase was to run a day-long coordination meeting, at which the 20 or so appointed representatives (typically the managers) of all the departments involved reported progress. Even then, to complete all the coordination work in a day, these managers were only required to report significant changes, together with any problems that had emerged. If they simply reported that they were on target, their part of the meeting would be brief, but they were still committed to achieving these targets. As they could attend in `shifts' (only attending the parts that affected them) the amount of time that some of the participants needed to contribute was minimised but, even so, a small core - of half a dozen of us - had to be present all day.
One golden rule, though, was that there were no recriminations. If there were problems, and there often were which was why the meeting lasted a whole day, nobody was allowed even to mention whose fault it was; although, of course, everyone already knew! The only discussion was about how to resolve the problem.
This process worked remarkably well, and the phase came in just two weeks late against my own target; but, of course, well ahead of that promised to senior management, despite running into major difficulties in terms of installing what was then just about the most sophisticated computer network in the world.
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