Whatever your business venture, if you are in the B2B market your account managers are the people who will bring in the vast majority of your business and also ensure that your clients are kept happy and given the opportunity to upgrade to new products or services you offer. Account managers are among the most important functions for a B2B company, and as the people most often seen by your clients or prospects, they are also the outward human face of your brand. It is, therefore, important to ensure you get the very best talent you can on board when you are building your sales team.
Good communication skills and a good track record in sales are things that, it goes without saying, will be top of your shopping list when looking for new hires, but that doesn’t tend to narrow down the field of applicants very much, as people without these attributes tend not to stay in sales for long! Here are some of the less obvious things you should look for in account managers:
Fitting Your Brand
Different salespeople have different styles that work for them, and they are all valid. However, having people whose style matches your brand’s identity will give a more cohesive experience for your clients. If your business intends to be seen as fresh, innovative and at the cutting edge, younger account managers who sell with a lot of energy can be a better choice than people with more serious, business-like styles. Vice versa, if your reputation is based on years of heritage, quality, and trust, someone who gives off a traditional feel in their approach to sales may represent you better than someone with a very casual, modern style.
Organization Skills
Most salespeople are great at actually presenting what they want to sell and following up on leads, but an underrated skillset in account managers is good organizational and admin skills. People who have these keep track of their communications with their contacts better and put in place schedules for contacting people they are trying to win business from or upsell to at the optimal times. They will also be the best at making sure any promises they make to close a sale are actually kept and keeping track of what they need to provide to keep their customers happy.
Click here to learn more about a career as an account manager.
Teamwork Skills
Salespeople are often seen as people whose main function is to work alone, and even though they are usually notionally part of a team, they are more used to that being an organizational thing than a functional team structure where they work closely with other salespeople. However, account managers do still need to be able to coordinate well with people from other units, for instance, when they need pre-sales things done or even to bring in someone from a more technical division to help them understand or explain something.
These are three of the less obvious traits and skills to consider when recruiting new account managers.