6 Questions Every Leader Needs To Ask Their Key Account Team

Hey, it's Jermaine Edwards, your customer growth guide. If you're old, welcome back. If you're new, welcome to the fold. In this video, we're gonna be speaking about the 6 most important questions I believe a customer leader with a team or a key account manager needs to ask themselves every single week. So in our businesses today, we're always interacting with change. Our customers are moving, they're always changing, And so the quality of questions we ask ourselves every single week really matters to really help us think about things differently and approach things with much more impact and intention. So these 6 questions I'm about to share are ones you can ask every single week that, although they are very similar questions, actually challenge us to think very proactively about the work that we do with our customers. So let's go through those 6 questions together. The first is a problem question. A problem question. Now, what do I mean by a problem question? Well, I don't mean a problem in the sense of you're creating more challenges for you, but what I do recognize is that for everybody, every single week, in order to achieve a particular result, you're literally solving a problem to get there. And so a question you might ask yourself or ask your team is, what problem are you trying to solve this week? That would have the most impact on your results? What problem are you trying to solve this week that would have the most impact on your results? If you can ask that question, a problem-based question, to really figure out what is that problem that I need to solve to get that result, you have much more impact and focus on the right things. Question 2 is a reflection question. So reflection questions are really helpful and powerful. Why? Because we're having conversations with our customers every single week, And what often happens is we don't create space to reflect on what we've learned from those conversations. So reflection-based question is there to stimulate those ideas. So the question would sound something like this: How have the conversations you've had with your customer this week changed or shaped the way you might serve or sell to them this week? So how have the conversations you've had with your customer already How might that change the way that you serve or sell to them this week? Reflection-based questions helps us to really focus on the learning that we've had from those conversations, and then apply the learning back into the week so we can have more effective conversations. Question number 3 is a habit-based question. And habit-based questions are really interesting. Why? Because it's often geared towards the behaviors that we unconsciously do, but sometimes provide really helpful results to us each week. So a question you would ask yourself with a habit-based question is, what is the one thing I do, or you do, consistently each week that gives you the biggest return on your effort, the biggest return on your results, the biggest return in your activity? What is that one thing that you do? And what it does, it forces you to have to think about your activity in order to understand what are the most What are the most impactful, what are the most important things that I do that I need to keep doing, or maybe to double down on, maybe do even with more intensity, with more energy and focus? So habit-based questions help you to do that. Question number 4 is a development question. Development questions are important because it's about how we get better every single week. And if we're not getting better, if we're not moving quickly and intentionally with thinking about the, the focus we put on those areas that we need to improve, we're likely not to get the results that we want. So a question in a development question might be, what one skill this week would I need to pay more attention to that would give me greater results of my effort? What skill might I need to focus on this week that would give me greater returns on my effort? And that might be thinking about the question skills that you have, thinking about the way in which you build rapport with your customers, thinking about your planning skills, whatever those things are that you believe would support the continuous success of your results and your engagements, that's what you need to focus on. And that's what a development question is all about. Question number 5 is a curiosity-based question. And curiosity questions help us to think about those specific ideas, those specific things about the customer that we may not know right now, but if we did know about those things, it would give us greater leverage and insight to knowing how to position new ideas, how to serve them at a higher level, how to position our value and raise that perceived value with our customers. It could provide a range of different benefits. And so a question you might ask in a curiosity-based question is, what is the one thing we don't yet know about our customer that if we did know, it would help us to position our value, it would help us to serve better, would help us to raise, you know, the ability for us to really drive value at a much, uh, a much more intense level with that particular customer. That's what a curiosity question does. It points us to those places that we need to find out to drive greater engagement with our customers. Question number 6 is a team-based question, and team-based questions bring your team together, and they're designed to help your team to think about how they serve each other better and not just themselves. So a team-based question might sound like, how can we as a team help each other this week to achieve more than we did last week? How can we as a team help each other achieve more this week than we did last week? And just watch things happen as a leader or as an individual, as people come up with ideas on how they can help that person or this person achieve more in their role. And what you'll begin to see and hear are the skill sets being shared, the ideas and strategies and tactics. It will just bring more energy and much more focus to really looking at the results and value you can bring to customers. So it's a really, really important question and should be one of the final questions you ask as a leader in those team meetings. And that's what a team-based question is all about. Now, I've given you all 6 questions, and what I want you to do is to download the PDF so you can get immediate benefits from using these questions in your team meetings or just for yourself to think about how you increase your engagement with your customers. And if you like this, please subscribe. I've got more videos to come, and I'll see you in the next video.