How do LSP salespeople and account managers differ?
The simple answer is: salespeople find and win new customers while account managers optimize and grow existing (usually strategic) customers. Salespeople are often-times referred to as hunters and account managers are referred to as farmers.
There are certain skills, such as recognizing business opportunities, conveying LSP value across different stakeholders and negotiating prices, for example, that are common to both roles. However, there are significant differences and this is what we’ll explore here in the first in a series of posts on the account manager role.
Salespeople
Let’s take a look at the purpose, role and the associated risks of being an outbound or hunter salesperson:
A salesperson’s primary purpose is to find, develop and close new customers. Each fiscal year they are expected to achieve new business revenue targets for the customers/target markets they serve, usually in a very competitive environment.
The skills LSP salespeople should possess are many in today’s market. They should have a deep understanding of the target industry and the specific needs of various translation buyers within it and then using this knowledge to quickly establish visibility, credibility and trust. Hunters must build a convincing value proposition that solves the prospect’s problems or helps them achieve an important business objective and then convince the customer that her LSP is the best choice to accomplish this. Salespeople need to be good educators for customers who oversimplify translation services or are completely price driven. It’s also become crucial for salespeople to liaise closely with production and delivery teams for smooth handovers and to help ensure the first and seemingly small, unimportant project is successful in order to win the larger, more strategic work.
Salespeoples’ biggest challenges lie in filling the pipeline with good leads (and enough of them) that can ultimately be closed in order to achieve their ever-increasing revenue targets. Salespeople face many competitors, some of whom will buy the business by undercutting on price. They can never rest in their quest to find new business.
Account Managers
Let’s now turn to the purpose, role and the associated challenges of being a language services account manager:
An account manager’s primary purpose is to manage and grow one or a few existing customers, usually of strategic or high value, for the long term. AMs “ring-fence” the LSP’s most important clients against the competition and secure that revenue stream well into the future. The role has become increasingly important in the language services industry in recent years as competition has increased to protect this lucrative and more predictable revenue stream.
The skills that are crucial for excellent account management diverge from outbound sales in several important ways. Account managers must develop an exceptionally deep understanding of their client’s business and build strong relationships across various buyers within the business. Based on this knowledge, account managers build an over-arching strategy for managing the account at the enterprise level, supported by department and role-specific strategies. Account managers will connect various buyers when appropriate, serving as a point of centralized contact, as well as connect various buyers to senior management and technical experts within the LSP. They will orchestrate strategic client meetings such as quarterly business reviews (QBRs) involving the right people to, for example, discuss process optimization, recommend tools, resolve problems, as well as solicit information from the client about future requirements for joint planning purposes.
Account managers have revenue and sometimes difficult profitability targets to achieve. Fending off competitive forces, which are often-times invisible, is probably the biggest challenge account managers face. Fostering strong, open, multi-level communication channels with the client are crucial. It goes without saying that losing a large, strategic account has serious consequences for both the account manager and LSP.
