Imagine paying someone to sell you their products not just once but every month, they come to your office, drink your coffee and tell you tailored stories to get you to buy more products. This is an outrage you cry, well welcome to the world of Account Management or to be more accurate Commercial Account Management.

Commercial Account Managers carry new business growth targets within your account and on average they are paid 5% commission of the Gross Profit based on how good they are at getting you to spend.

So if you think that is an outrage how about the sales person also having their snout in the trough by convincing you that their product or service will solve all your problems? Also being paid around 5% of total contact gross profit to tell you what they want you to hear. So if I do the maths you are paying 10% of Gross profit added to the cost of your service just to get people to sell you product so they can make commission.

Are you feeling angry yet, well you should!

There is an expression in Business Development, “you can only sell what is on the truck”. Very few sales people can actually give you unbiased advice because, you guessed it that can only sell what’s on the truck. For example if in “IT” I tell you that public cloud is not right for your workloads and that you need to be with a private cloud vendor what does that mean. Option one is I just gave you some great advice to help your business or option two is I just gave you some great advice to help my business. The reality is the foundations of Business Development and Account Management is you get advice to help their business not yours.

There is an answer to how do you get off this merry go round of being played, it’s called a consultant. Now don’t get me wrong there are good consultants and not so good consultants but a good one will tell you what you need to hear without bias. They will understand your business needs and match that with products or services that suit. They can even help you choose the right company to support you and even more they can get you a better deal by demanding you do not pay sales costs or Commercial Account Management fees.

A new type of consultant is emerging a consultant that enlightens you, helps you find the vendor. Helps you manage that vendor and all for a disclosed fee of roughly half that you current pay to be sold what is on the truck.

Dealing directly with the supplier of the service may not be getting you the advice you need.

The world of buying product and services is changing, intermediaries will grow and grow and grow as companies refuse to pay for the costs of sales people and Commercial Account Managers being added to their monthly accounts.

Mark Hood

CEO

Australian IT Market Place