Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as an account manager and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
An account manager is responsible for managing a wide array of client accounts to ensure that they are all up to date and handled properly. He or she will also be tasked with building good customer relations and building a new client base. Furthermore, he or she takes charge of building productive teams and managing them to ensure that they perform at the highest level.
Other duties that he or she will get to perform from time to time include; achieving higher sales targets and goals, present feedback and ensure they are implemented, building new business relationships with other companies, resolving any issue related to accounts management, give sales presentations, oversee the development of client friendly accounts and preventing any form of attrition.
Core Skills Required to be an Account Manager
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
An account manager should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Interpersonal Skills:
Interpersonal Skills are a set of abilities that enable a person to positively interact and work with others effectively while avoiding office disputes and personal issues with each other.
An Account Manager must learn the importance of these skills in the workplace and emphasis on every employee possessing them to build a more cohabit able and productive workplace with the help of each.
Delegation:
Delegation is assigning responsibility or authority to another person a junior or subordinate to carry out specific activities while remaining accountable for the outcome.
An Account Manager must be equipped with skills on how to make the delegation work correctly to save the organization time and money and to allow the subordinate make wise decisions, skills, and motivation to become better and grow the company.
Managing at team:
Managing is the administration of an organization which includes activities of setting the strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of the employees to accomplish its objectives.
An Account Manager must learn the art of creating corporate policy, organizing, planning, controlling and directing organization resources to achieve the aims of the policies formed while making decisions to oversee the enterprise.
Planning and Scheduling:
Planning and Scheduling are the act of establishing a plan for a set of tasks that needs to be completed and including when they should be done.
An Account Manager needs creativity in balancing both planning and scheduling by clearing defining what and how activities will be carried out by when and who in particular to ensure there are a clear flow and accountability to every staff.
Enthusiasm:
Enthusiasm is an intense enjoyment or a lively interest in a certain thing with a zest and a strong belief that can be felt by those around you.
An Account Manager ought to be enthusiastic as well as create a friendly atmosphere that makes the staff comfortable with the surroundings, with the other employees to create a less passive working place.
Conceptual Thinking:
Conceptual Thinking is the ability to recognize a situation or problem by identifying patterns or connections while addressing the underlying issues.
An Account Manager must be a conceptual thinker who has a keen understanding of why things have to be done the way they are; he has to think at an abstract level and apply his insights to the situation across all facets to compete in the diverse and growing economy.
Practical Thinking:
Practical Thinking is the skill to think creatively about projects or work that requires your full attention to be completed and to bring great results.
An Account Manager must ensure the decisions he makes are well sought after using professional characteristics for employees with high-level responsibilities to feel included and to allow growth for everyone in a constantly changing world that requires creativity.
Financial Management:
Financial Management is the skill of learning how to handle accounting, finance, and organizational management through providing daily data on the operations that take place every day.
An Account Manager ought to be highly effective in planning and organization, controlling and management of the financial resources to achieve the company's organizational objectives that are laid down to see the growth of the enterprise.
Organizational Skills:
Organizational Skills is the ability to make use of time, energy and resources available in the most efficient manner to achieve their goal.
An Account Manager should organize the work for the employees to ensure overall organization, planning, time management, scheduling, coordinating resources and meeting deadlines is handled most efficiently by each employee for both personal and professional growth.
Analytical Skills:
Analytical Skills is the ability to collect and analyze information, solve problems and make decisions according to the policies and regulations of the business.
An Account Manager should hire employees who use clear, logical steps and excellent judgment to understand an issue from all angles before executing an action depending on the objective and the methodical approaches to benefit a company's productivity.
Hard Skills Required to be an Account Manager
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
An account manager should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.