How to Elevate Your Authority as a Key Account Manager

Hey, it's Jermaine Edwards, your customer growth guide. If you're new, welcome. If you're old, welcome back to the fold. In this video, we're going to talk about a powerful principle called the CVO principle and how you can elevate your authority with your most important customers. So let's talk about CVO. And what do I mean by the CVO principle? Principle? Well, it's my belief that every person who owns a key customer relationship must become a Chief Value Officer, somebody who's known and sought after and appreciated by a customer for bringing consistent value and insight that brings them really great advantage, something new that nobody else can bring to them. But how do you become that kind of person? Well, there are two principles and philosophies that a CVO holds to begin that process. The first is you get sent to who you sound like. The second is you get access to the level of problem you're trying to solve. So let's break down these two areas and think about how you can apply it today in your business. Number one, you get sent to who you sound like. And just for a moment, imagine that you're walking into a doctor's surgery. You expect that person to think and perceive certain things from a particular lens, meaning their expertise, the way in which they would interact in the world to understand your issues, to understand your challenges, to understand those things that will improve your health. It's exactly the same way for a chief executive or a chief financial officer. They have a particular lens, a particular way in which they think about the world and things that they deem as important. Now, when you're in a doctor surgery, going back to that perspective, if you can communicate to the doctor in a way that's helpful for them, they can then more quickly understand and prescribe a solution and more intuitively and more helpfully engage with you. And for a CEO, for a CFO, or CCO, they're expecting and wanting to get that kind of same exchange. And it helps you when you're speaking with people who are middle managers or junior managers that when you can articulate things in a way that they know their CEO would actually communicate, it means that they can trust you and have more confidence in you that you'll have a really meaningful conversation with the CEO. It also means when you speak with the CEO or somebody senior through their lens, through their perspective, with their language, it means they're less likely to pass you down the chain and ignore what you have to say. That's really important— speaking from their lens, understanding their perspective, and helping them to help you. Number 2, you get access to the level of problem you're trying to solve. What does that mean? Well, simply this: not every problem is created equal. And for a CEO, a senior person, every problem carries risks and opportunities. Now, most people, when they bring problems, they just bring problems. They just bring problems and say, look, this is wrong, how do you want to fix it? Or this needs to be fixed. No senior leader wants to hear problems. What they want to know is what are the risks, and then what are the opportunities? How do we move from that to gain new advantage? So for you, you need to decide what kinds of problems you're speaking with and about, and how to present risks and opportunities effectively. There are all kinds of different problems— problems that are departmental, problems that are cost-based, problems that are revenue-based. It doesn't really matter. What you want to think about are what are all the risks associated with that particular company and where are all the opportunities once those risks are actually dealt with that will give them greater advantage and leverage. If you can communicate those things better than the actual senior leader can, you'll be much more credible and establish really strong authority with that person as somebody who knows their business well. So take those two areas. Start with getting access to the level of problem by thinking about those areas of risks and opportunities. And then as you approach that conversation, thinking about it from the lens of that person. How can I bring new language to them that will be helpful for them to connect and resonate with what I'm about to communicate? And how do I ensure that I'm using their lens as a way to illustrate those ideas so they are more likely to take them on. If you can understand that, take your time to think about it, you'll be much more powerful and much more authoritative in those meetings. And I've got a tool that you can use to help you do that starting today in the link below. Make sure that you like and subscribe this video if it's been of value, and I'll see you on the next video.