The Sales/Service Continuum
One of the issues that institutional asset managers ask me the most about is their sales/service model. Should sales people also manage client relationships? Isn’t it a different skill set? Shouldn’t the best sales people be constantly looking for new clients in order to grow the business while others nurture existing relationships? The answer I most often give is that in the institutional business, sales and service are not distinct, but rather occupy different points on a continuum. In this business, sales is all about long term relationship building where the sales person gains credibility over time with the potential client. Service is about long term relationship strengthening where the client receives frequent value added communications and hopefully adds more assets in both existing accounts and cross sold products. Some professionals are better at bringing in new clients while others are better at servicing existing clients, and perhaps cross selling. Their respective responsibilities should align with their strengths. But organizations should be careful about drawing more of a functional distinction between sales and servicing than exists in practice.
Add comment July 22nd, 2009
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