The Leaky Bucket of Learning
Train the team but not their managers, and the learning quietly drains away. Three months later, nothing has changed.
What happens when a Key Account Manager stops thinking like a seller? This was the central question behind an intervention we recently designed for the Key Account Management team at Snapdeal. The objective wasn’t another conventional KAM program. The organisation wanted its KAMs to make a shift: From Key Account Manager → Fractional Growth Partner. That is a fairly significant mindset shift. A KAM who thinks like a seller tends to look at the immediate transaction.
A growth partner looks at the larger business. What is the customer’s business trying to achieve? Where are the opportunities? What is the commercial implication? Where can we create value rather than merely negotiate price? The program began much before the workshop. We spent considerable time on discovery and diagnosis — understanding the business, its operating model, processes, vision and goals, and speaking to stakeholders across levels. The participants also came with reflective pre-work.
The full-day workshop was therefore not a blank slate. One of the processes we used was Seller’s Choice, which deliberately challenged participants to examine how they were currently approaching their accounts. We then moved into Snapdeal Voyage — a journey that allowed the participants to explore their own ecosystem through the metaphor of rocks, anchors and sails. Then came the more commercial pieces: FIT + WILL matrix. Concession matrix. Deal value structuring.
And finally, a Negotiation Café where the conversations became increasingly closer to what participants encounter in their actual roles. The program ended with The Premium Listing — a simple but powerful recognition and acknowledgement exercise. The feedback was encouraging — 4.6/5 across parameters such as relevance, business suitability, practical application, facilitation and content. But perhaps the bigger success was that the intervention did not end with the workshop. The diagnosis and discussions had thrown up several specific areas that needed deeper work.
And that is often where the real value of a training intervention lies. Not in the room. But in what the room reveals.
