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Category: Strategic account manager skills and competencies

The skills, competencies and behaviors that enable the strategic account manager to successfully develop and sustain mutually profitable, long-term strategic customer relationships.

Strategic account manager skills and competencies

THE 10-K FILING: THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT THAT SAMS NEVER READ

By Jacques Sciammas, President, Selling to Executives

In the age of convenience, where same-day deliveries have become the gold standard and news articles are now conveniently timed down to the second, our need for accurate and concise information has never been more pressing. So why on earth do we still bother with documents numbering hundreds of pages, sans picture and color? Truth be told, 99 percent of us don’t bother reading these documents at all. They make great paperweights, but if asked about specific details, most of us might offer an uneasy grin, knowing that we have companions-in-arms, equally guilty of shirking that responsibility to read altogether.

The 10-K report: Why bother?

You’re familiar with a company’s annual report, right? But very few bother with the 10-K. And for those of you who have heard of it, do you really understand its value? Unfortunately, due to its no-color, no-graphics (thereby implying “no fun”) standard format, a format mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the 10-K is easily the most overlooked, undervalued and – shockingly – untouched research document.

In my personal experience as CFO for several large corporations, where I chaired the Capital Committee (i.e., the committee responsible for overseeing purchasing decisions), I met thousands of salespeople and strategic account managers through the years, and I would say that no more than 3 percent or so had bothered going through my company’s 10-K. Now, those familiar with the 10-K may be groaning out loud and thinking, “Who is going to actually read that monstrosity?!!” And it’s true. It would be similar to “indulging” in the U.S. tax code, a document filled to the brim with dense terminology and one-dimensional creativity.

“Stop Jacques! The 10-K is tedious. I’ d never get through it, despite my and your good intentions!”

Fair enough, but let me put forth the good news [Drumroll, please!]: One doesn’t need to go through the entire document to gather the most crucial nuggets of information. While it’s true that the top executives and their legal teams are involved in the creation of the 10-K, what makes this document vital to SAMs and GAMs are the highlights (and confessions) stealthily included – and typically ignored. These highlights can assist SAMs and GAMs enterprising enough to sleuth them out to establish strong credibility and relevance with the C-level and to truly differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Continue reading “THE 10-K FILING: THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT THAT SAMS NEVER READ” →
April 5, 2021April 5, 2021Financial acumen, Strategic thinking, Talking to the C-levelLeave a comment
Strategic account management program organization, Strategic account manager skills and competencies

“LIQUIDITY,” ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE AND YOU

By Arun Sharma, Professor, Marketing, Miami Herbert Business School, University of Miami

Arun Sharma will deliver a keynote address at the 2021 SAMA Annual Conference (May 24-26). To learn more, or to register, visit the conference website.

Resilience is an organization’s ability to withstand a major disruption, recover quickly and adapt to the changing environment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some firms have flourished while others in the same industry have floundered. To give a couple of examples: Among department stores, Nordstrom has demonstrated resilience by dramatically increasing online sales; as a result, they have excelled. Arch competitor Neiman Marcus, on the other hand, has declared bankruptcy. In telecommunications, while most firms have posted strong results, Digicel has declared bankruptcy. Researchers who have studied this topic have found that having flexible resources (monetary, assets-based and human), flexibility and adaptability increase organizational resilience. 

Classifying organizations

To better understand why some organizations exhibit resilience while others do not, we conducted interviews with senior executives, analyzed industry and firm performance, and examined extant academic research on organizational structure, resilience and liquidity. Liquid organizations develop and execute strategies faster than their competitors, they change direction and accelerate rapidly, and they are ambidextrous – by which we mean they can simultaneously leverage their existing competencies (“exploitation”) while at the same time they discover and harness new opportunities (“exploration”).

The first thing we did was to classify the organizations, at which point four distinct organizational categories emerged:

Hierarchical. In hierarchical organizations, every employee reports to one and only one supervisor (except for the CEO). This is the classic, pyramid-shaped organizational hierarchy. Most government entities, and many corporations, follow this organizational form. It is typified by slow and deliberate decision making, a decision-making process that is rigorously codified and decision making authority that is rigidly prescribed.

Matrixed. Matrix organizations are designed to increase teamwork between internal-facing (e.g., marketing, R&D, finance) and external-facing departments (geographic and product market). Most employees have dual responsibilities: to the function to which they belong (e.g., marketing) and the market in which they operate (e.g., Latin America). A matrix organization is typically visualized as a rectangle with internal functions (horizontal lines) and markets (vertical lines) forming the structure. Most modern organizations follow a matrix structure. Unfortunately, the amount of teamwork expected in matrix structures has not materialized, and rather than focusing on making the best possible decisions, negotiated decision making is the norm.

Entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial organizations are unstructured, where both functional roles and reporting structures are flexible and adaptable to the context. Employees typically perform multiple functional roles, and decision making is decentralized and team-based. Due to the lack of structure, these firms are typically small and have fewer employees. Decision making is quick, and the organization is adaptable. However, scale and growth require organized decision making, and most entrepreneurial organizations shift towards matrix or hierarchical organizations as they grow.

Liquid. Liquid organizations use team-based structures to increase the quality, speed and innovativeness of outcomes. They focus on skilling their employees in multiple functional areas and create organizational relationships to become more flexible and adaptable. Liquid organizations combine the speed and flexibility of entrepreneurial organizations with the scale of global organizations.

Resiliency of organizations

Our second project involved examining the context under which each organizational form would be most successful. In analyzing our data, we identified two dimensions that affected organizational success: the degree of disruption and resilience. Then we moved on to identify the context under which each type of organization would be most prone to success.

We found that hierarchical organizations are only successful when there is a limited need for resilience, and disruptions are limited and short term. That is because hierarchical firms are slow to recognize disruption and tend to be deliberate (i.e., slow) in making decisions.

By contrast, matrix organizations tend to be more resilient and able to make decisions more quickly – but only when disruption is limited. This is because the matrix organization’s complex structure makes rapid strategic and tactical decision making very difficult. For this reason, matrix organizations are best suited to times that require high degrees of resilience, but only if disruption is limited and short term. Extensive academic research shows that matrix organizations function favors stable environments but falter when conditions are prone to changing rapidly.

Entrepreneurial organizations are flexible, which equips them for addressing major and long-term disruption; but they struggle to exhibit resilience because they do not have the resources (monetary, assets-based and human) to sustain them during long-term disruptions.

Finally, our research found that liquid organizations are best suited to thrive when resilience and adaptability are most in demand. Liquid organizations are both resilient (thanks to their scale) and possess the ability to sustain and grow through major disruptions due to organizational speed, flexibility and adaptability. In our research on the impact of COVID-19, we find that the most successful and resilient firms have been those that are the most liquid.

Our Recommendations: Liquidity and you

To increase resilience, we recommend that leaders take steps to increase organizational liquidity.

Specifically, we recommend they take three steps:

  • Create and use teams to increase liquidity and quality of deliverables. We suggest that executives form teams by pairing people from different vertical markets or functional areas. (For more on creating teams within the strategic account management program, see “Addressing the New Normal: Creating Liquid Strategic Account Teams,” in the Fall 2020 issue of this magazine.)
  • Increase the multifunctional expertise of executives through training and assignment.
  • Reduce boundaries between the firm and suppliers by creating teams that include people from both firms.

In summary, our results suggest that leaders need to focus on increasing resilience by increasing liquidity. While the emergence of multiple highly effective vaccines portends an end to this global recession, it surely won’t be the last time organizations face conditions requiring high resilience levels.

Arun Sharma is a marketing professor at the University of Miami’s Herbert School of Business, has published extensively on strategic accounts, and is ranked in the top 1% of all marketing professors. Find him online at https://www.theliquidorganization.com/.

February 23, 2021March 2, 2021Agility, Liquid organizations, TeamsLeave a comment
Strategic account manager skills and competencies, Technology

Back to the Future: F2F selling is returning, but virtual selling is here to stay

Jonathan Hughes, Partner, Vantage Partners, and David Chapnick, Partner, Vantage Partners

Just when customer account teams and salespeople were beginning to grow accustomed to virtual-only sales and account management, a return to (some) face-to-face interactions is on the horizon. Customer-facing teams need to continue to up their virtual game, even as they learn how to optimize a balance of virtual and in-person engagement.

COVID-19 has accelerated a trend already underway toward increased virtual interactions between customers and their suppliers. As vaccines are distributed and we move beyond the most acute phase of the pandemic, most salespeople believe virtual selling is here to stay. According to research we conducted during the second half of 2020 (involving salespeople and sales executives at more than 100 B2B companies), just 31 percent of respondents said they expect to return to pre-pandemic levels of in-person sales activities (Figure1). A strong plurality expects to transition to a hybrid model that optimizes both in-person and virtual selling, while more than one in four expects virtual to become their primary means of interacting with customers.

Figure 1: Percentage of salespeople who expect virtual selling to persist post-COVID
Continue reading “Back to the Future: F2F selling is returning, but virtual selling is here to stay” →
February 2, 2021February 2, 2021Virtual sellingLeave a comment
Strategic account management program organization, Strategic account manager skills and competencies, Technology

Ten insights on the future of SAM

By Nicolas Zimmerman, Editor-in-chief, SAMA

Whether you’re struggling to survive the pandemic or thriving and experiencing unprecedented growth, one thing is clear: We are experiencing radical shifts in how we conduct business with our most strategic customers. As conveners of the largest community in the world dedicated to strategic and key account management, one of SAMA’s foundational purposes is to help our community both adapt to what’s happening right now and prepare for what may happen next.

At the 2020 SAMA Annual Conference (held virtually Nov. 9-11, 2020), we pulled together a group of the smartest, most sophisticated observers, students and practitioners of strategic account management for a conversation on “The Future of SAM.” Highlights are presented below, and the full panel is available on demand by registering for the virtual conference here. 

Moderator: Jim Ford, Chief Commercial Officer, Solecta, and Chairman, SAMA Board of Directors

Panelists: Jennifer Stanley, Partner, McKinsey & Co.; Dino Bertani, Executive Director, International Strategic Account Management,  Allergan Aesthetics; Harvey Dunham, Managing Director, Strategy and Marketing, SAMA; Tom Hablitzel, Senior VP, Enterprise Clients, Sherwin-Williams Company; Jim O’Leary, Global Practice Chair, Corporate Affairs, Edelman

#1. Shifting from focus on shareholder value only to stakeholder value as well – and a broadening understanding of what stakeholder value means.

O’Leary shared takeaways from Edelman’s most recent Business Roundtable, which highlighted the growing emphasis placed on a company’s role in society – from environmental impact to social justice and diversity/inclusion. Non-traditional sources of value will play a growing role in how stakeholders evaluate the impact of companies and their strategic accounts efforts.

#2. Sales and account management – no longer an expense but an investment.

While firms once viewed sales as an expense, in this environment it’s clearly an investment. O’Leary’s advice: Projects with the best “story” will be funded and resourced first. His other advice:

  • Expand whom you interact with at your customers
  • Focus more than ever on active listening. Only by making astute observations will you uncover potential new sources of value.
  • Make sure your internal stakeholders understand the value your program brings to customers and, through them, to the firm. If they don’t grasp it, you may become the target of cost cutting and/or restructuring.

#3. Centralized beats diffused.

When companies shift their programs into the regions or business units, Bertani says, you risk adding inefficiencies, redundancies and opportunities for misalignment. You also risk sacrificing a common strategy, methodology and customer experience.

#4. SAM will become (if it isn’t already) the standard bearer for all sales.

From Stanley’s perspective, SAM already serves as a beacon for what it means to be a sales professional–particularly when it comes to the rigor SAMs bring to account planning, solutions co-creation with customers and articulation of unique value propositions.

#5. Centers of Excellence (CoE).

Bertani says these centralized groups of SAM experts can and should be leveraged as the catalyst for instilling the mindset, skill set and processes for distinctive go-to-market and customer-centric engagement models.

#6. Agility is the new stability.

In disruptive times, leaders need to increase their organizations’ agility by focusing on what really matters and making much faster decisions. Bertani recommends trading perfection for simplicity. “I’d rather be approximately right,” he says, “than exactly wrong.”

#7. Those who have the data, and use it wisely, will control the playing field.

If you’re accumulating data on your customers and even your customers’ customers, how are you using it to develop insights that lead to innovative value propositions? How are you linking it to your core business strategy?

#8. In just a few months, COVID accelerated digital adoption as much as 10 years.

What this means is a vast proliferation of data on customer behavior. Those companies that both control the data and utilize it most effectively to glean customer insights will be the ones who will control the playing field. Stanley predicts that digital adoption will spare SAMs from much of the day-to-day “firefighting” of the job, freeing them to look into all this new data and distill it back into insights about their customers.

#9. The profile of strategic account teams will shift dramatically.

New and different skills will be needed to analyze all this new data and make use of it, leading to teams that include not only data scientists but also behavioral scientists and others with non-traditional sales skills. Teams will also need to become flatter, less hierarchical, in order to move quickly and with agility.

#10. Customers will reward suppliers who successfully blend a great digital experience with the human touch.

When McKinsey surveyed B2B buyers to see whether they prefer to buy digitally or from people, the answer, overwhelmingly, was “it depends.” Turns out customers are much more likely to reward suppliers with sole-source contracts when they excel in both areas and know which channel is right for which kinds of interactions.

Want more? A recording of the discussion, more than two-dozen breakout sessions and keynote presentations is available for unlimited, on-demand purchase. See what you missed here.

December 3, 2020February 1, 2021Digitalization, Future of SAM, Strategic account teamsLeave a comment
Strategic account manager skills and competencies

Five Key Principles for Successful Negotiations

By Kunal Bhatia, Senior Global Account Director, Johnson & Johnson

Over the course of this year we’ve experienced tremendous change. Whether it’s the way we work, the way we socialize or the way we get around, the COVID-19 crisis has fundamentally changed pretty much everything. Having shifted mostly to the virtual arena, negotiation is no exception.

As both a global account director AND the parent of young children, I can’t overstate the importance of negotiation skill. Whether it is negotiating a multimillion-dollar contract, compensation particulars with a potential employer or appropriate screen time with your children, strong negotiating acumen is critical for survival.

While virtual negotiations might be perceived as time and cost efficient, if they’re not done right they can hinder social awareness, social interaction and cooperation. Having worked in different countries, cultures and roles, I’m cognizant that myriad nuances must be taken into consideration to promote smoother, less contentions negotiations. However, I have observed that the need to be a skilled negotiator is agnostic of culture, industry, profession and job level and that certain negotiating principles are near universal.

Here are my top five.

#1: Make the first offer. There is a widespread belief that it is wise and strategic to let the other person make the first offer. However, there is virtually no research that supports this claim. In fact, research shows a strong and powerful positive effect of making the first offer.

Admittedly, it does takes courage to make an offer, especially in situations of ambiguity or when you’re in a low-power position. However, first offers have a strong anchoring effect, which exert a strong pull throughout the rest of a negotiation. Even when people know that a particular anchor should not influence their judgments, they are often incapable of resisting its influence. As a result, they insufficiently adjust their counter-offer away from the anchor.

#2: Focus on differences. Conventional wisdom says that we negotiate to overcome the differences that divide us, so we look for win-win agreements by searching for common ground. Common ground is generally a good thing, yet some of the most overlooked sources of value arise from “differences” among the parties. 

Differences of interest, priority or hierarchy-of-needs can open the door to unbundling different negotiation elements, leading to outcomes that potentially give each party what it values the most, possibly at the least cost to the other. 

#3: Zoom-in on interests, not just issues. Three elements are at generally play in a negotiation:

• Issues: on the table for explicit agreement

• Positions: where each party stands on the issues

• Interests: each party’s underlying concerns. 

Don’t just negotiate the issues. Great negotiators understand that the dance of opposing positions is only the surface game, and they focus instead on probing behind their counterpart’s positions to identify their full set of interests at stake. Before any negotiation begins, seek to understand the interests and positions of the other side, and weigh/measure them against your own interests and positions. 

#4: Listen. There’s a widely held assumption in the business world that negotiation is mostly about talking and that the best negotiators are the best conversationalists. That view overlooks perhaps the most crucial aspect of the negotiation process: listening. In the words of de Callières, “one of the most necessary qualities in a good negotiator is to be an apt listener.” Your attention should be focused on the words and actions of the other side, your own words and actions, and the effect of your words and actions on the other side.

#5: Help your counterpart sell. The person on the other side of the table might agree that your offer is reasonable, but they will still reject it if they can’t sell it to others in their organization. Your job as a negotiator is not simply to convince the person with whom you’re negotiating but also to help them be an effective ambassador for you when they speak to their boss, their board, their partners or others who have a stake in the outcome. Keep an eye on all of the people who can influence the negotiation on their side and help craft a narrative that will allow your counterpart to get the buy-in he or she needs.

Final thoughts

These are some key principles that have helped me negotiate large and complex contracts at work and also keep the peace with my young children at home. One bonus tip from personal experience: To be a good negotiator, you must practice patience.

Patience is difficult, especially when you have a deal that is constrained by a time limit imposed by a leader or a contract expiry. But if you’re impatient or time constrained by a deal that isn’t moving fast enough, you may make unnecessary concessions in order to get it over the finish line. This can have long-term consequences.

It can also be counterproductive, as the other side may be less satisfied with a concession made easily in quickly, as they will perceive it as being of low value. Practicing patience, whether with your customer’s Procurement team or with your children, encourages flexibility and provides time for the other side to accept otherwise-tough choices.

Further reading:

“6 Habits of Merely Effective Negotiators”

“Should you Make the First Offer?”

“The Art of Deal Diplomacy”

“Five Reasons Good Deals get Rejected”

“Investigative Negotiation“

Kunal Bhatia is senior global account director at Johnson & Johnson, where he has worked for 16 years in a variety of sales, marketing and leadership roles. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

August 18, 2020August 17, 2020NegotiationLeave a comment
Podcast, Strategic account manager skills and competencies, Technology

Creating meshed relationships: A conversation with Arpedio co-founder Ulrik Monberg

If you aren’t building and maintaining deep, wide relationships inside your strategic accounts, you’re in trouble. We talk to the co-founder and CEO of Arpedio about the importance of creating meshed relationships with your strategic customers.

Listen to this episode of The SAMA Podcast here.

July 9, 2020March 29, 2021Interpersonal relationship skills, Multifunctional account team leadership, Relationship Mapping, Stakeholder ManagementLeave a comment
Podcast, Strategic account manager skills and competencies

Getting inside your customer’s head: A former CFO on how companies make investment decisions

Ever wonder how your customer’s finance team evaluates supplier proposals? It’s a lot easier to position your company’s value when you understand how the customer buying team thinks. Chris Ferguson – who has worked as an investment banker and held executive roles in sales and in finance – spills the beans.

Listen to this episode of The SAMA Podcast here.

June 18, 2020March 29, 2021Dealing with procurement, Financial skills, Value quantificationLeave a comment
Podcast, Strategic account manager skills and competencies

Helping your customers through crisis: Lessons learned on Sept. 11

What can the experience of 9/11 teach us about helping our customers through the pandemic? We ask SAMA’s own Chris Jensen – who, on the morning of Sept. 11, was a sector head for the global leader DHL.

Listen to this episode of The SAMA Podcast here.

March 30, 2020March 29, 20219/11, Communications skills, Crisis management, customer-centricity, DHL, LogisticsLeave a comment
Strategic account manager skills and competencies

On making better decisions

By Nicolas Zimmerman, Editor-in-Chief, SAMA

Is there any single skill that has a bigger impact on our personal AND professional lives than decision making? I would argue no. And yet, how much time do we actually spend thinking about how we go about making decisions (large and small)?

As someone working with your company’s largest and most important accounts, you are responsible for making decisions that affect your company’s bottom line, your colleagues’ livelihoods, and your own personal and professional reputation.

While you wouldn’t have gotten to where you are today without some inborn decision-making acuity, there isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t benefit from examining how they go about making decisions and then seeing where they can tinker with their process.

“Making better decisions isn’t one skill but rather a series of tools and frameworks,” writes Shane Parrish, a former intelligence analyst and the founder of the consistently brilliant Farnam Street blog. “What distinguishes consistently good decision makers from poor ones is a series of diverse mental frameworks and tools (as well as relevant specific information).”

This post is about decision making, but if you are interested in consistently amazing, enlightening and thought-provoking articles on everything from learning more quickly to being more creative. Parrish has a voracious, omnivorous mind, so it’s no wonder why 261,000 people (including coaches, athletes and CEOs) subscribe to his newsletter.

In his “Decision-making: A guide to making smarter decisions and fewer errors,” Parrish offers a  comprehensive guide for — you guessed it — making consistently smarter decisions and fewer blunders. You should read the whole thing, but here are a few of Parrish’s choicest nuggets.

First, the most common sources of BAD decisions:

  • Unintentional stupidity. Writes Parrish: “Whether we’re tired, overly focused on a goal, rushing, distracted, operating in a group, or under the influence of a group, we’re more prone to stupidity.”
  •  We have the wrong information. “Making decisions with the wrong assumptions or facts is likely to lead to disaster.”
  • We use the wrong model. Mental models — things like second-order thinking, probabilistic thinking or Occam’s Razor — help us make sense of the world. Relying on false, incomplete or irrelevant models can easily lead to poor decisions.
  • We fail to learn. “We all know the person that has 20 years of experience but it’s really the same year over and over,” Parrish writes. “If we don’t understand how we learn, we’re likely to make the same mistakes over and over.”
  • Looking good, not doing good. We are programmed to do what is easy over what is right. Writes Parrish: “We unconsciously make choices based on optics, politics, and defendability. We hate criticism and seek the validation of our peers and superiors.”

When approaching any decision, Parrish recommends a simple formula: intelligent preparation (which, if you work in strategic accounts, is probably second-nature) paired with looking at your decision through any number of time-tested, multidisciplinary frameworks. He goes on to list five of his favorite:

  1. The map is not the territory. “The map of reality is not reality. Even the best maps…are reductions of what they represent.”
  2. Circle of competence. “If you know what you understand, you know where you have an edge over others. When you are honest about where your knowledge is lacking you know where you are vulnerable and where you can improve.”
  3. First principles thinking. “Reasoning from first principles…is a tool to help clarify complicated problems by separating the underlying ideas or facts from any assumptions based on them. What remains are the essentials. If you know the first principles of something, you can build the rest of your knowledge around them to produce something new.”
  4. Thought experiment. “Thought experiments can be defined as ‘devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things.’ They let us take on the impossible, evaluate the potential consequences of our actions, and re-examine history to make better decisions.”
  5. Second-order thinking. “Second-order thinking is thinking farther ahead and thinking holistically. It requires us to not only consider our actions and their immediate consequences, but the subsequent effects of those actions as well. Failing to consider the second and third order effects can unleash disaster.

Spend a few distraction-free minutes digesting Parrish’s guide here: https://fs.blog/smart-decisions/.

January 14, 2020Decision makingLeave a comment
SAMA training and certification, Strategic account manager skills and competencies

A higher calling: Putting the work of the SAM into perspective

By Harvey Dunham, Managing Director of Business Development, SAMA

When the holidays approach, and my thoughts drift toward the special circumstance of having three generations of the Dunham family together in one place, I allow myself the occasional indulgence of waxing philosophical. Lately, I’ve been thinking about this question: What is the higher purpose of a strategic account manager?

Is it, as Milton Friedman would surely espouse, simply to create profit for your company’s shareholders? To make rich guys richer, in other words? As someone with a long career in sales — first as a fresh-out-of-the-Coast Guard salesman for Schneider Electric and then later as a district manager, strategic account manager and eventually country president — who is gracefully (I think) approaching retirement, my answer has aged and settled over time. And if you asked me now, “What is the higher purpose of the SAM?” I would say this:

The very best SAMs are entrepreneurs who not only create jobs but quite literally create the future.

Is it hokey? Maybe. But like I said, the holidays put me in a sentimental frame of mind. But I’m thinking about a conversation I had not too long ago with a strategic account manager whose name and company I won’t mention because it’s not nearly as important as the work he’s doing. The context of the conversation was this man’s final review before being conferred the official designation of SAMA Certified Strategic Account Manager (CSAM).

The purpose of the final review (and, indeed, of the CSAM program itself) is to demonstrate that the candidate has not only completed all of his or her coursework but is applying what they have learned to their actual strategic customers. (Lest this turn into a sly advertisement for SAMA certification, I won’t say more.) For his final review, the candidate, who works for a global pharmaceutical company, enumerated four initiatives he is currently working on for his customer, a large institutional customer.

We live in turbulent times, and there are all kinds of reasons – especially for those inclined to look for them – to be cynical. But here is a guy with a crystal clear vision of what he is doing and why he is doing it — to create a better existence for doctors and nurses, for the families of patients and, most importantly, for patients themselves. Here is a guy who is pouring his heart and soul into creating a better future for people who are suffering through the most painful and difficult human experiences.

As I was listening to this exemplary strategic account manager recount how his solution is directly helping patients suffering from cancer, I felt an incredible pride for the work that SAMA does training and educating strategic account managers — who are literally out there making the world a better place.

It got me thinking about my own proudest moments as a strategic account manager. In some ways, it was just another deal — the kind a SAM closes, pats himself on the back for, has a few beers with the team to celebrate and then forgets about because there’s always more work to be done. I’d been brought into reanimate a relationship that had been transactional before it had fallen off a cliff. Long story short, we went from selling a few random products into this giant manufacturer to being the single-source supplier in our category.

Overnight, we went from darkness into light. Like most sales guys with more than a few notches in my belt, I find bragging abhorrent. I only mention this career highlight because it represents the moment I realized that I wasn’t just selling products — I was creating jobs, sometimes hundreds of them, that helped sustain families. All those millions (or even billions) of dollars’ worth of products had to be  loaded into a truck, installed, tested and commissioned — you get the picture.

The SAM job is a difficult one. No doubt about it. If you’re doing it right, you aren’t sitting around waiting for someone to identify a need before springing into action. You’re starting with a blank piece of paper, developing initiatives that create real value for you AND your customer, and then you’re marshaling the resources — internal and external — to bring it all together.

So while being a SAM (or KAM or GAM) is undoubtedly one of the hardest jobs there is, I believe it’s also one of the most rewarding. And that’s why I try to inspire the SAMs I interact with to aspire to be not just good SAMs but great ones. Because great SAMs are actively creating a better tomorrow, one deal at a time!

November 18, 2019Leave a comment

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Older posts
  • THE 10-K FILING: THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT THAT SAMS NEVER READ

    THE 10-K FILING: THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT THAT SAMS NEVER READ

    April 5, 2021
  • “LIQUIDITY,”  ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE AND YOU

    “LIQUIDITY,” ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE AND YOU

    February 23, 2021
  • Back to the Future: F2F selling is returning, but virtual selling is here to stay

    Back to the Future: F2F selling is returning, but virtual selling is here to stay

    February 2, 2021
  • Strategic account managers (and their bosses) deserve better decision-making tools

    Strategic account managers (and their bosses) deserve better decision-making tools

    February 2, 2021
  • Ten insights on the future of SAM

    Ten insights on the future of SAM

    December 3, 2020

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