ystone69

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

Account Manager Interview Help

Hi everyone, I have a final round interview for an account manager role at a really good company and want to nail it. I'm coming from an Inside Sales/SDR role so I want to make a solid impression as I feel like there may be other more experienced candidates.

The interview will be in person and consist of a presentation of a 30/60/90 plan and a mock presentation/call with the team director acting as an existing customer. Here is the prompt I was given:

From recruiter: A customer is coming up on their first renewal after having been locked into a 3-year agreement that had price protection for the first 36 months of the term. The customer has been disengaged with previous account managers refusing to take business review calls citing that they don’t need any new functionality. They have already expressed they believe they are overpaying for our solution and will only want to remove from their renewal and not add anything new into their contract.

Goal:

To convince the customer to engage in the full renewal evaluation and consider what is best out of their partnership with our company while making an opportunity for upsell.

Audience & Setting:

Account Manager to CFO- this is a call the CFO agreed to discuss renewal pricing

Any advice on how to approach this? I assume I should make some sort of deck to have on while I present in person, but looking for advice on what to include. One question I'm planning on asking the recruiter is if the goal is to sell the actual solution, or just selling the full renewal evalution/next call. Any advice appreciated!

Thanks!

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12 comments

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Filth

Politicker

2

Live Filthy or Die Clean

Ok as an AM that has been in this EXACT situation:

Let the client know that you hear them and understand what they are saying. In order to move forward, you'd like to see them in person and bring a solutions engineer and map out current use of system and possible improvements. After that engagement you can evaluate contract moving forward.

Go see em, bring a good presentation, have your engineer do all the real work and wow them will follow ups and all the new products you've developed and implement with the signing of a new contract both parties agree to.

Works. EVERY. TIME. be their friend and go see them and bring muscle/technical to do the real work while you build the relationship.

ystone69

Opinionated

0

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

Thanks for the help. While I agree that this would be a good approach this is just a mock scenario so I wouldn't actually be able to do this but to offer it as a solution i think makes a lot of sense. thank you!

oldcloser

Arsonist

1

💀

Sounds like the sale they want you to make is not the product. They want you to tee up an opportunity for the sales team. If I’m reading this right, this is a “re-discovery” opportunity from that side of the drill.

Pricing should not be part of the conversation. How could it be when there’s been zero communication over 3 years. You don’t even know if the product fits anymore. But they owe it to themselves to allow your company the opportunity to make the determination and either prove it or step down, particularly after the investment they’ve already made.

Your job is to own that responsibility and set the next call. So start there. Your conversion will happen when they agree that the above makes sense.

As for the plan, search this forum for 30/60/90. You’ll likely find help.

ystone69

Opinionated

1

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

Totally agree, and honestly if we were to dive into licensing it probably wouldn't be a smart move on my part seeing as I don't know the product that well yet. I think the goal of the scenario is to re-engage with the customer and get them back to the table seeing as there has been such a long period of disconnect. That will be my goal while positioning the next meeting as a way to learn more about new features/products that can be an opp for upsell

oldcloser

Arsonist

0

💀

I think you're on track. Good luck!

ystone69

Opinionated

1

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

Thank you!

ystone69

Opinionated

1

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

I got some more clarity on the mock call and it seems like pricing is actually expected to be apart of the call. i’m expected to conduct a full renewal evaluation. any strategies? i know below someone said to offer staggered pricing based on how the term length which i don’t think is a bad approach.. anything else that you believe would help me stand out?

oldcloser

Arsonist

0

💀

Yes, a hook with an ascending discount idea is horrible. Brings the cost of a 10 year renewal to zero at year 10.

Here's where I disconnect from the authenticity of the exercise. How can you do a thorough renewal evaluation without client history. Did they give you the details- like CRM style?

You need to understand the clients engagement history, or lack thereof. You need to understand the value that you're communicating. Is it time? Is it ROI? What's the actual benefit that everyone originally agreed would solve their problem. What was the actual problem, for that matter.

Do you have any of this?

Pachacuti

Politicker

1

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

This Is a great SalesGPT question.

That said, there are plenty of 30-60-90 day plans online you can grab and alter to your needs.

Finally, the approach is take on the renewal is to prepare some sort of business case detailing what the product has done for other similar customers and then make assumptions on what it has done for this specific customer.

This will help justify the cost. If they don’t want to add additional features, fine, but I would also add a section on the benefit of the additional features to the other customers and hope FOMO kicks in.

Good luck on the interview!

ystone69

Opinionated

1

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

This is helpful thank you!

ystone69

Opinionated

0

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

I wanted to share that I got really good feedback from my presentation and got an offer that I'll be accepting. HUGE thank you to everyone that chimed in with some tips they seriously helped!

Maximas

Tycoon

-3

Senior Sales Executive

I would approach this by offering an ascending discount increasing the longer they'll stay as 5% for the first 12,10% for the second and 15% for the third year.
Hope it helps and for your to nail it eventually!
Good luck.

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