#024 Perfect Your Communication Style with Practice

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 of shaping 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 KAMguru – scroll down).
• If Key Account Management was a little like speed dating, we would need to get pretty good at speed reading someone else’s personality if we are to stand a