Pizza, Sushi and Account Management at Google
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 8:37AM
I recently had lunch with an Account Manager from Google and it was an interesting insight into one of the most successful companies on the planet and their approach to customer relations.
"Eat what you want, it's all free". Someone had said the sushi was great but the pizza looked good too. Have both? Why not, who said you couldn't mix them in one meal (except possibly Mr Atkins).
At Google everything is distilled down to a maths problem. Each employee contributes an average of $1,000,000 in revenue per annum so anything the company can do to save them time, keep them focused or working a little longer has a significant impact on the bottom line.
What about the customers, partners and even the competition? Of course things are done a little differently. My host explained that each account is tiered by adword spend per month and this determines the amount of attention you receive, nothing unusual here. What is unusual is that Account Management means analysing the effectiveness of their current campaigns and working closely with them to generate more business, not necessarily spend more money with Google. The logic being that if they spend more on online media advertising the odds (I'm sure they have a statistic) are they'll spend more with Google.

Now I understand why Google has made tools like Analytics, AdWords and Optimizer available for free. It's again simple maths, you have limited resources so use them where they deliver the most value, on the big accounts. For everyone else make it self service with great tools. Who knows, some of todays small accounts might be the big spenders tomorrow.
Few companies have the revenue streams of Google to spend on free canteens and other time saving services but surely there's a lesson here for the rest of us. Who said we have to do things the same old way, why can't we have sushi and pizza together for lunch?
How much time/money might a well stocked fridge at work save. Could we work more closely with our customers on their business and not just ours? Are our most productive staff wasting time on tasks better outsourced or assigned to other?

