By Harvey Dunham, Managing Director of Strategy, SAMA
With more than 30 years working with strategic accounts at Schneider Electric, I know first-hand that few jobs in the world are as misunderstood as that of a strategic or key account manager. People think of you as the ones who “make the big bucks” without the stress of making quotas, the ones who put their customers’ needs above their own company’s.
They also assume you were born clairvoyant, omniscient and all-powerful. No pressure, right?
Even though Schneider is one of the longest-running members of the SAMA community, I was 20 years into my career before I attended my first SAMA event.
My first reaction was: “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”
I remember having conversations on the sidelines with complete strangers (many of whom I now consider close friends and even colleagues) that yielded nuggets I immediately put to use with my own customers. It’s a powerful experience.
But what I remember most vividly is how soothing it was to finally – at last! – be surrounded by hundreds of people who “get it.” Working as a strategic or key account manager can be lonely — and that’s what makes being a part of the SAMA community such a powerful experience.
In honor of that feeling of community, and in anticipation of our upcoming Annual Conference and Pan-European Conference, I present to you my own personal top-10, “You MIGHT be a SAM…”
If you have a company car, but you only use it for driving to the airport….
If you have far more people working for your customer initiatives than your boss has direct reports – even though you have no official direct reports…
If your best years involve an audit from Finance “just to make sure” you’re not fluffing your results…
If your magic power is being yelled at by your customer’s CEO and your own CEO at the same time…
If you spend dull meetings mentally calculating how many weeks it’s going to take you to recover from jet lag…
If your own spouse and kids are on a first-name basis with your main customer contacts…
If you’ve got more swag with your customer’s logo on it than your own company’s…
If your meetings bring together more of your customer’s big players than their own meetings do…
If you catch yourself calculating bar tabs in your customer’s home currency…
Then you might…just possibly…be a strategic/key/global account manager.
- SAMA’s Annual Conference: The Ultimate ROI - February 12, 2024
- What’s In A Name? Turns Out — Everything! - February 1, 2024
- Procurement & Sales: A Complex Relationship - January 17, 2024