Account Management Cycle

One of my customers derives a large chunk of their revenue from continually churning their kit in situ around their client base.  The idea is that they sign people up on lease agreements, then before the lease completes, they’ll have a superb new innovation to swap-in, renew the agreement, and lock out competition.

I was at one of their offices where someone talked me through the way they ensure the boat to the farmyard isn’t missed, written up on a whiteboard.  The cycle is a perpetual circle with six stages.  I’ll list them starting from 11 o’clock-ish, then moving round to 1ish, and so on:

• Changes Over Time
• Recognition Of Needs
• Evaluation Of Options
• Resolution Of Concerns
• Decision
• Implementation

It struck me that with the research so well-known (that it’s anywhere between 4 and 20 times easier to sell to existing customers than convince new ones) many sales teams must have a similar view of their process.