Strategic accounts present significant opportunities but high risks. A SAM Commercial Reconnaissance will give you a clear picture about where you stand today and how you might capitalise on your SAM strengths.

1. Commercial Reconnaissance
Strategic Account Management
You may be a business owner or investor. You may
be responsible for overall revenue or specifically
for strategic accounts, sales performance or sales
enablement. You recognise the pivotal importance
that strategic accounts play in the business result
and in managing business risk and value.
There is strong data which underlines the
importance of managing strategic accounts.
Many of our clients say their client base adheres to
the Pareto principle of 80% of revenue from 20% of
customers but it is often even more focussed than
that. We surveyed 84 businesses and on average
they derived 49% of their income from the top 10%
of their customer.
When it comes to Customer Lifetime Value, the
indicators are compelling. Kumar and Shah
identified over 90% of CLV coming from the top
two deciles.
Decile CLV %
1 68.17%
2 21.89%
3 3.49%
4 2.07%
5 1.61%
6 0.97%
7 0.71%
8 0.58%
9 0.19%
10 0.32%
68.17%
21.89%
3.49% 2.07% 1.61% 0.97% 0.71% 0.58% 0.19% 0.32%
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
CLV%
Decile
CLV % vs. Decile
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Strategic accounts can also drive market-beating
growth. Dr. Hajo Rapp of One Siemens analysed
customer growth over a ten year period and showed
that strategic accounts generated 2.4 times more
growth than “standard” accounts.
Strategic account management can also ensure
wider and deeper relationships with clients. One
firm we were involved with saw the number of clients
taking multiple service lines (>3) rise from 9% to 40%
over the first five years of their SAM programme.
Inanincreasinglyvolatileanduncertainworld,market
conditions are constantly changing – increasing
decision-making risk and making the return on your
SAM activities harder to predict. The rewards and
risks make this a critically important topic.
1 / 4
Our way of working
Working with SalesLevers delivers increased growth
and improved risk management.
We apply five vital “advances” for sales performance.
We start by diagnosing the current strengths and
weaknesses of your approach to strategic account
management. We can then support you as required
in formulating improved approaches, developing
people and processes, reinforcing change and
then re-calibrating for a changing world.
These advances centre on three “levers” of sales
success.
Activity - asks the questions “are we doing enough?”
Concentration of effort - asks the questions “are we
doing the right things with the right contacts in the
right organisations”?
Effectiveness - asks the questions “are we doing
these things in the right way?”
Activity
Concentration
Effectiveness
Diagnose
Formulate
Develop
Reinforce
Re-calibrate
Source Kumar V. & Shah D 2009 “Expanding the role of
marketing; from customer equity to market capitalisation”
Journal of Marketing 73(6) 119-136

2. 4
3
x
1hrinitialvirtualw
orkshops
for3
live
accounts
2
hrSAM
toolkit&
planning
virtualw
orkshop
2
Week 2Week 1 Week 3 Week 6Week 4
6
M
gm
t
Review
3
2
hracctteam
virtual
w
orkshop
1
2
hrSAM
Balance
Check
virtualw
orkshop
5
3
x
1hrim
plem
entation
virtual
w
orkshops
for
3
live
accounts
Week
8
Commercial Reconnaissance
Strategic Account Management
Commercial Reconnaissance
Our diagnostic starting point is a “Commercial Reconnaissance” focussed on Strategic Account
Management.
We open with a 30 minute minute kick-off meeting with leaders to agree on the best ways of working.
2 / 4
Step 1:
Work through SalesLevers “SAM Balance
Check” to validate strengths and weaknesses
in the current approach and prioritise actions
using the “Customer Gyroscope” model.
(2 hours)
Step 2:
Review outputs (2 hours) from the Balance
Check focussing on areas such as:
> Segmentation & Selection
> Strategies
> Structures & Coverage
> Tools & Processes including account
planning & measurement
> Activity, levels, Concentration of Effort and
Effectiveness (ACE)
> Leadership of the SAM Programme
Step 3:
Meeting with three selected account
teams addressing critical success factors
in SAM and introducing SalesLevers
resources. (2 hours)
Step 4:
Individual account planning sessions
with three account teams to identify
opportunities for growth and/or risks to
be managed in the selected account.
Account teams work on account plans.
Step 5:
Individual account planning sessions
with three account teams to review and
refine account plans and agree next
actions.
Step 6:
Report and Management Review
Meeting
1
2
3
4
5
6

3. Commercial Reconnaissance
Strategic Account Management
Your Return on Investment
Before you engage a firm like SalesLevers you need
to be confident that your investment will generate
a serious return. This may involve:-
Clarifying and validating the current situation via
the SAM Balance Check.
Prioritising areas for improvement likely to drive
Return on Investment.
Covering initial costs and create a Proof of Concept
through immediate improvement in 3 selected
accounts:
Take the example of a company with sales of
£150Mn and 100 customers. The top 10 customers
deliver £75Mn of sales and of these the top 3 deliver
£20Mn.
A 1% improvement in sales to the top 3 accounts
would deliver £200k of revenue. If we assume a
30% GP Margin then that 1% contribution would
deliver £60K Return on Investment.
The examples below of projects carried out by
members of the SalesLevers team should give you a
solid sense of reassurance that SalesLevers can and
does deliver.
Of course it takes work on both sides and one can not
always prove cause and effect. But the cases below
indicate that it is possible to measure significant
change. The numbers also speak volumes about
profit, payback and Return on Investment.
Example projects
Driving organic growth
Twelve key account teams went through a
developmentcampaignbasedaroundliveaccounts.
The sales from the accounts were measured for the
six months before the training. After a 12 month
gap the same accounts were measured again. The
group we worked with outperformed the control
group by 4:1.
New business development
Forty-one professionals engaged in an account
development programme of training supported
by external coaching. In 3 months these 41
professionals identified £1.92Mn of additional sales
which they attributed to the programme.
Hitting ambitious goals
“We had stated ambitious goals but achieved 142%
plan fulfilment during the whole project period
and doubled sales in one of the three months of
the project. Our team gained a valuable tool for
the future that they can use when leading sales of
other products and reaching similar results during
sales campaigns.”
“We have written more business in the quarter
following the project than in the previous four
quarters combined. Of course this is partly due to
the many things we have been doing ourselves, but
there is no doubt in my mind that this project has
contributed to this success”
Sales acceleration and EBIT growth
The sales result of this engineering business had
been static and with very high fixed costs, the
business was seriously under-performing. A “sales
accelerator” project commissioned by a Private
Equity house generated an incremental £1.67Mn of
contribution and “our best quarter in seven years”.
This represented a 29% increase in sales. Sales that
year rose from £45Mn to £51Mn with much of this
dropping straight to EBIT with a corresponding
significant change in valuation.
Providing structure to the sales function
Working with an Internet payment provider over
3 years we provided the sales direction that gave
structure to the sales function to:-
Grow sales revenue
Increase merchant engagement
Reduce merchant churn
Implement a robust and lasting structure in the
sales resource
This resulted in a business sale to a global Internet
payment services provider for 3 times the original
offer.
3 / 4

4. Our SAM methodology is
based on the SalesLevers
Customer Gyroscope
model which has
proved to be a clear,
simple and flexible way
of understanding SAM
concepts and applying
them to different
organisations ranging from
Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI) to plant hire to
process automation.
1 Centre everything
on the customer 2 Dynamic
relationship
management
3 Stabilise with
structures &
strategies
5 Energise with
effective SAM
leadership
4 Strengthen with
robust processes
and tools
Conclusion
These examples should give you strong grounds
for real confidence in working with the SalesLevers
team.
If you would like to explore how a Commercial
Reconnaissance could work in your business we
propose a short virtual meeting to explain the
process in more detail. We can indicate likely short,
medium and longer term outcomes and outline
the next steps.
For more details please contact
Charlie Newby
charlie.newby@saleslevers.com | 07768 975460
Richard Higham
richard.higham@saleslevers.com | 07712 588757
Martin Allison
martin.allison@saleslevers.com | 07547 154107
www.saleslevers.com
Commercial Reconnaissance
Strategic Account Management
4 / 4
Charlie Newby Martin AllisonRichard Higham
Saleslevers drives sales performance improvement through its five advances
using our in-company resources and those of our subsidiaries and partners.
About Sales Ltd T/A SalesLevers 3 Startforth Road,
Middlesbrough TS2 1PT and 100 Pall Mall London SW1Y 5NQ
SALESLEVERS CUSTOMER GYROSCOPE MODEL