Integrating the sales pipeline and client relationship management

At the “Towards KAM – helping fee-earners with relationship management” session last week one of things generating most interest and discussion was the issue that while most firms had identified the stages in the sales or new business development process in their firms, few had achieved the same level of sophistication for their relationship management or KAM programmes. There was clearly a need to do more in integrating the sales pipeline and client relationship management. The diagram above shows a simplified version.

Other key points of interest include:

• Criteria for selecting key clients
• Service line propositions
• Use of blogs and social media in KAM
• Setting fee-earner objectives for relationship development
• Coaching skills
• Client perception ladder
• Gaining fee-earner engagement
• Building client teams
• Building a business case for KAM

Further details of the training sessions at PM Forum are shown here: http://www.pmforum.co.uk/training/