Do you have a clear understanding of what strategy is?

Does your team have a clear understanding of what strategy is?

It’s fair to say that the S word - strategy - gets bandied around a lot in business - we even talk about it as one of our guiding pillars for success in KAM.

And with words that get so heavily used, it’s common for the waters to get muddied and the definition to become overcomplicated, leading to overthinking activities and behaviours.

Shelley works with subject matter experts to clarify their brand purpose and value by leveraging a blend of brand archetypes, belief systems, customer insights & core product refining.

With Shelley having strategic conversations on a daily basis with her clients, I was keen to hear her thoughts and dig deep on this topic.

With our clients, at Front&Centre®, we work heavily on developing teams to have more strategic conversations with their most important customers, ultimately forging the trusted partnerships they desire, and developing long term profitability.

In this episode we asked Shelley to give us her killer question. She has posed one for a KAM Pro to ask him/herself - which is:

“What does your desired future state look like in your ideal future relationship with this client?”

The idea is that you then have to describe in in vivid (visual/kinaesthetic/auditory) detail how you think, feel, act, and behave. Once you have that in mind and can almost physically experience what that feels like: you can work backwards to the present day and work on how to engineer having that kind of relationship?”

  • How to define strategy, in a business context
  • The value of having strategic conversations with clients, and how to have them Shelley shares some top tips on how to set yourself up for a strategic conversation:
  • When is the right time to start a strategic, value-based conversation with your clients?
  • How to handle the entrepreneurial personality types when having focussed discussions?

With strategy being such an important component to understanding our customers, it’s so important that, as KAM professionals, we are able to get a firm grip on the strategic skillset - empowering us to truly become the expert in the customer’s world.

I love the way Shelley describes her definition of strategy as being “the path that links vision to action.” And the notion that the how and the what become clear when you know your why.

Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat when it comes to trusted partnerships and it’s time to hone the skills to be curious with our clients. Remember that, as account managers, we don’t need to have all the answers - we just need the right questions and the enthusiasm to learn more.

I hope after listening to this episode it will leave you reflecting on your team and business. Perhaps you will think that your team talks ‘strategy’ but don’t really see it fully through (to the ‘value add’ bit).

Perhaps the very idea of the team having more strategic conversations with clients worries them, or you? Is there potentially a skill deficit when it comes to carrying out ‘value-based’ conversations? Or maybe you have all this nailed and that true strategic conversations are the way you are already differentiating from your competition?

Either way….Take a moment to pause and reflect about this topic and decide what, if anything you would like to do as a result.

Remember that it’s less about the 45 minutes we share together on this podcast and more about the next 45 days in your business as you discuss and implement positive change.

Find out more about my guest: Shelley Röstlund