Presenters: Robert C. Willard, Sr. Manager Global Service Accounts, Coherent, Inc.; Chris Miller, Sr. Manager, Global Service Markets and Accounts, Coherent, Inc.

Coherent Inc. is a global provider of lasers and laser-based technology serving demanding commercial markets like automotive and semiconductor manufacturing. These markets are heavily skewed to post-sale activity with respect to customer satisfaction and company revenue. To meet this need, we created the global service account manager (GSAM) role that, while similar to a traditional GAM role, requires a special understanding of manufacturing, service, logistics and quality.

The Global Service Account Management’s role and engagement early in the product or market life cycle is critical. In this session, we will discuss our experience introducing the GSAM role into the automotive manufacturing market.

In addition, we’ll cover:

• Why timing matters
• How to establish relationships, create partnerships and align expectations
• How to tailor your solution’s value across the customer organization
• How to identify key stakeholders (internal and customer) and prioritize activities
• How to leverage enterprise capabilities to differentiate yourself from competitors

Presenter: Dr. Carmen Simon, Chief Science Officer, Corporate Visions and B2B DecisionLabs

Prominent researchers in neuroscience, economics and business administration agree on this premise: One of the most important factors for success is getting others’ attention. This is because attention paves the way to memory and decision making. But getting customers’ attention is becoming increasingly harder, and trying to do it virtually doesn’t make it any easier.

In this session, attendees will learn the results from Dr. Simon’s most recent neuroscience research, wherein she studied buyers’ brains to find practical answers to questions like:

• Does a picture always lead to more attention and memory?
• Are extra details in complex sales messages detrimental or desirable for sustaining attention?
• For virtual settings, what kind of Zoom background keeps an audience more focused?

Attendees will gain practical applications taken from studying the buyer’s brain with neuroscience tools, which have the advantage of finding customers’ implicit responses and are therefore more accurate than self-reports.

Presenters: Melody Astley, Vice President of Sales, Finlistics; Candy Conway, Consultant/Coach, Finlistics

We have all dealt with tremendous change over the last two years. More than ever, strategic account managers need to know how to gain traction and improve sales in this ever-changing environment. Knowing one's customer has always been important, but it's even more so today. Based on the presenters' best-selling book, Insight-Led Selling, this session will offer attendees a guide to developing insights that demonstrate and bring real business value to customers.

Presenter: Mark Shonka, Co-CEO, IMPAX Corporation

As strategic account managers, we need to collaborate effectively with customers high and wide in their organizations. Customers’ executives are among the most challenging customer stakeholders SAMs deal with, due to their high expectations and the imperative that we not only meet but exceed those high expectations.

For us to confidently connect with executives, we need to possess strong executive presence ourselves. How we prepare, how we look, how we sound and how we handle ourselves all make an impact – for better or worse. This highly interactive session answers the questions, “What is executive presence, and how do I develop it?” Attendees will walk away with a series of usable ideas that will help any SAM assess and strengthen his or her executive presence.

Presenter: Dan Kosch, Co-CEO, IMPAX Corporation

One thing we have learned the past couple of years – if as a SAM you weren’t deeply ingrained with your customers in terms of knowledge and relationships, you went backward during the Covid era. If you weren’t prepared, you found your customer’s business and organization changing drastically at the exact time when your access to people and insight was limited. If you weren’t constantly learning about and co-creating with your customers, your competitors were quick to jump in.

Another thing we learned – there is almost nothing more important in the role of a SAM than truly understanding your customer’s business and needs, developing a network of supporters, and identifying and gaining access to real senior level decision makers. Although these skills can seem “basic”, understanding your customer’s business and building a relationship map that is aligned with influential players and decision makers are incredibly challenging and critical skills.

This session has been designed for new and experienced SAMs who are working with dynamic customers where the stakes are high, and the payoffs are huge. In this highly interactive session, SAMs will be given a chance to apply some of these key ideas to their own customer situations.

Presenters: Tim Pollard, CEO, Oratium; Mark Bourgeois, Chief Product Officer, Oratium

Part 1: Key Principles of Message Design & Delivery
This session will impart the key principles and methodology of message design and delivery in a hybrid sales environment. It will provide attendees with an understanding of what most companies get wrong in their messaging approach and will address how these problems get amplified in the virtual environment. Also, with the future of client communications being hybrid, this course will discuss the need to master both the live and virtual meeting approaches. We will use brain-based science to share the seven hallmarks for effective client communications.

Please note: Participants may attend Part 1 without attending Session 2 but SHOULD NOT sign up for Session 2 without also joining Session 1.

Part 2: Deep Dive into Key Practices and Tools of Client Conversation Construction
This session will take the foundational understanding gained from Part 1 and dive deeper into the following areas:

• Building your message to ensure it is “retellable”
• Crafting the message for your intended audience with an emphasis on the difference for C-Level messaging
• Utilizing a problem analysis and pyramid of planned outcomes for message creation

In addition, this session will discuss the key ways in which COVID has changed sales and will provide ways to overcome and excel through these changes.

Presenter: Kevin Doddrell, Executive Vice President, Revenue Storm Corporation

The world of virtual communication has changed the traditional concepts of relationship building, and strategic account management has been flipped upside down as a result. How has this change altered the perception of value? How does one differentiate and create competitive advantage? Attend this insightful session to discover the five game changers for virtual strategic account management.

Presenter: Shakeel Bharmal, Senior Vice President, The Summit Group

The uncertainty we all face in the years to come requires us to reset and reinvent how we engage with each other. This is especially true for the relationship between the SAM and his or her key customers. In this session, we will draw from the profession of executive coaching to share immediately applicable practices and questions that will enable you to truly differentiate yourself in the eyes of your customers. You will learn how to give power to the relationship between you and your client; how to establish a verbal contract to give energy to the value they seek; and how to use thought-provoking questions developed by the most seasoned executive coaches to engage, enlighten and empower your clients to excel. The outcome will be a deeper level of trust and endurance that will enable the alliance to thrive in the face of adversity.

Presenters: Christopher Ferguson, Vice President, Business Development, The Summit Group; Chris Pratt, VP, Contact and Delivery, The Summit Group

What is the financial impact on your customer resulting from a shortage of a $2 part in a $1,000 piece of equipment if the shortage means they can’t ship any finished goods? How many more customers could you serve if you could automate processes to reduce the need for labor? What are the most profound challenges in your customer's business and industry? Many companies are reassessing what they value in partners in a post-COVID world, and suppliers need to have answers to questions like these.

In this session, we will think beyond the traditional tradeoffs of value creation to share tools to help understand the broader impacts of your solutions on your customer's financials and their ability to meet the needs of their customers. We will look at the financial benefits of risk reduction and innovation measured in terms of your customer's performance. You will learn how to reframe your price premium as an investment in their business that delivers an attractive return on investment – not simply a cost increase. The final step for strategic account managers is to learn to create a shareable value creation story for customers.

Presenter: Carrie Welles, Partner, Think! Inc

How often have you diligently worked your strategic account sales process and feel solid about the value you have created for your customer, only to give it up in the last mile through price concessions and giveaway pressure? In this extremely practical session, you will audit your personal negotiation process to understand where your shortfalls lie and then learn a systematic negotiation blueprint framework to course correct your strategy. This approach will help you crystalize your negotiation strategy for your internal stakeholders, create a negotiation plan to capture the value you have created and ultimately lead you to much better deal outcomes.

Presenters: Leslie Wooding, Global Strategic Account Manager, Waters

As a SAM you are expected to co-create value with your customer(s), but sometimes you don’t know which customers are ready to innovate – or how and where to start. SAMA Certified strategic account manager (CSAM) Leslie Wood will share “recipe for success” for value co-creation by sharing concrete examples attendees will be able to use with their own customer. Attendees will learn to:

• Discover which customers are ready for innovation and value co-creation
• Target the right executive sponsor
• Gain agreement, engagement and alignment internally
• Define KPIs for value co-creation
• Design an agenda for a co-creation meeting

Presenters: Steve Andersen, President and Founder, PMI

In this session, participants will use one of their own strategic accounts to benchmark against best practices for developing and executing strategies to accelerate account growth. Participants will walk away with a proven approach for brainstorming, designing, building and implementing an effective collaborative strategy to drive proactive growth with strategic and key customers – in 2022 and beyond.

The session will begin with a self-assessment to help participants determine the current state of their account growth strategies, which will provide a baseline against which they can strategize proactive growth within selected accounts. The focus will then shift to building an effective account growth strategy, as participants will explore how to expand their accounts using the “Planning to Grow” process through the application of best practices and tools to:

• Assess the current state of their account growth strategy
• Define the critical elements of an effective account growth strategy
• Engage cross-functional team members in building account growth strategy
• Leverage customer sponsors and your past Proven Value to Gain Momentum
• Discover and Explore Future Potential Value Targets for Account Expansion
• Develop Your Account Growth Strategy and Validate with the Customer
• Pressure-Test Your “Plan to Grow”

Specific areas of emphasis of this “How-to” session will include the primary dynamics of driving proactive growth in strategic and key accounts, leveraging customer sponsors and your past proven co-created value with these stakeholders to accelerate growth, and the most common success factors.

Presenters: Craig Jones, Managing Director, PMI; Kim Balaski, Director Major Accounts Marketing & Operations, Zoetis Petcare; Lori McWain, Director Strategic Accounts, LP Building Solutions

As one strategic account manager recently lamented, “I have two sales cycles: one with my customer and one with my company. What makes it even more frustrating is that the internal sales cycle is sometimes more difficult and much longer.” According to research conducted by SAMA, internal alignment (i.e., conflict between internal silos) continues to be the number one challenge faced by SAMs in today’s strategic account management environment.

Does this sound familiar to you? The good news: There are proven approaches to enhancing account team performance, primarily by establishing a collaborative environment with a foundation of sharing, trust and cooperation – rather than control, tension and conflict.

In this session, attendees will hear from a panel of practitioners, from varied industries, who will share universal insights on topics such as:

• Focusing the cross-functional account team on co-creating customer value
• Aligning the roles, responsibilities and value of each internal team member to the customer’s team
• Leveraging the strengths of all available resources to advance relationships both higher and wider
• Leading teams of non-direct reports by influence rather than authority
• Engaging the cross-functional team to articulate past proven value and create a compelling growth strategy

Presenter: Shane Meeker, Corporate Historian and Chief Storyteller at Procter & Gamble, and Founder, StoryMythos

Following his conference keynote, Shane will use this workshop session to “go deeper” on a variety of story tools and fundamentals that SAMs can quickly apply to their story needs. This will be an interactive, hands-on session that will include new content, including an introduction to a set of story tools and a handful of exercises that attendees will be able to apply back to their business right away. Attendees are encouraged to bring a story need/challenge/idea with them! It could be a brand story, a new campaign idea, a sales pitch or a personal story – time to let your inner storyteller loose!

Presenter: Ed Wallace, Managing Director, Human Capital Practice, AchieveNEXT

Everyone knows that, in the past two years, we've experienced a sales environment like none other. Many strategic account managers believe that they have somehow upped their game by increasing sales in this environment. What if, on the other hand, their competitors just haven’t been able to ship? Which is it? The answer, for most, is probably someplace in the middle. The challenge is how to transform these ad hoc, net new relationships into long-term, outstanding customers.

Based on Ed Wallace's critically acclaimed book, Business Relationships That Last, session attendees will learn how to:

• Create competitor-proof relationships
• Distinguish sales interactions with provocative discovery questions
• Qualify forecasts with the simple BANT approach
• Translate “sources of value” into the language of the customer
• Use a simple approach to create impactful value statements

All participants will receive a complimentary e-version of Ed's book.

Presenters: Adrian Davis, CSP, President, Whetstone Inc. and Principal Partner, The Summit Group; Ryan Jeffery, Director of Strategic Account Management, WBM Technologies

Do you encounter resistance from your customers? Do you struggle to develop C-level relationships? Imagine what would happen to your revenue and profits if you could consistently develop strategic relationships with the right customers at the right level. In this presentation, we will equip you with the frameworks necessary to make the development of strategic customer relationships an integral part of your company’s culture. Ryan Jeffery will share a real-life example of how he applied this framework and reaped significant benefits for his clients and his company.

During this engaging presentation, you will learn:

• A simple and compelling framework that will shape the thinking of your entire team
• How to ensure account managers deliver strategic value to their clients and their companies
• How to assess your company’s evolution and prepare for its next strategic move
• A new, more practical way to think about strategy

This presentation will challenge account managers to rethink their approaches and to re-evaluate their customer relationships. Adrian and Ryan will bring in-depth, refreshing and thought-provoking insights that can be put into action immediately.

 This session is on demand only.

Presenter: Jeff Cochran, Partner, Shapiro Negotiations Institute

While strategic account managers have the good fortune of building strong relationships with generally good people, everyone who’s worked in the role has unfortunately had to deal with difficult people and manage uncomfortable conversations. This engaging and interactive session will provide participants with a method for figuring out why a person is being difficult and then a process for overcoming this challenge. Participants will take part in a simulation that will leave them with:

• A framework for identifying the core reason why someone is being difficult
• A four-step process for dealing with a difficult person
• A tactic to level the playing field when the other side is being challenging

Presenter: Steve Andersen, President and Founder, PMI (Sunday only); Todd Lenhart, Managing Partner, PMI

The business world is changing and with it, the skills a SAM needs to succeed. Traditional approaches to account management are rapidly placing SAMs at a disadvantage. In this session, Steve Andersen and Todd Lenhart of PMI will be joined by an expert panelist and provide participants with a facilitated discussion of how top performers develop and implement account plans that effectively address the impact zones of modern SAM/KAM. Discussion will include contemporary approaches to account planning, management and review, including the core essentials of an effective plan and a proven approach to facilitating executive briefings and account reviews.

Topics will include:

• Assess the current state of the account most critical to your success in 2022
• Value Benchmark
  - Does your account plan include a complete picture of your account value portfolio?
• Alignment Benchmark
  - Have you engaged your cross-functional team members in the account planning process?
• Relationships Benchmark
  - How will you develop and expand trust-based relationships with customer stakeholders?
• Growth Benchmark
  - Does your plan include a clear and actionable strategy to drive proactive account growth?
• Account Plan and Planning Pressure-Test
  - Is your account plan and account planning “motion” ready for success?
• Executive Account Briefings and Reviews
  - Are you ready to effectively communicate your account story to your team and leadership?

The session will close with participants identifying focus areas to immediately begin strengthening their “Plans to Grow” and position themselves for a successful 2022.

Presenters: Jonathan Hughes, Partner, Vantage Partners; Ben Siddall, Partner, Vantage Partners

Global competitive pressures are increasingly compounded by complex environmental, political and social challenges. Innovation has long been the hallmark of exceptionally successful organizations; it has now become a requirement for survival. During this session, we will explore how leading companies are leveraging strategic customer relationships to create breakthrough innovations. Participants will leave the session with a roadmap and best practices for how they can maximize co-innovation with their own strategic accounts.

Topics will include: • Research on the value of external innovation, including greater revenue growth and enhanced profitability

• Why and how SAMs should lead external innovation efforts
• How SAMs can capitalize on the growing focus companies are placing on co-innovation with suppliers
• Best practices for converting co-innovation into revenue
• How to overcome barriers to co-innovation (including customer desires to own jointly developed innovations)

Presenters: Cheryl Comer, Strategic Account Manager, Duke Energy; Gordon Galzerano, SAM Consultant, Advisor, Coach, Former Cisco Leader, Timberwilde Consulting; Nick Pintaro, PSP, ESNT, Program Manager-Key Account Managers, Axis Communications Inc

The session will discuss how leaders used the new SAM program at Duke Energy to discover a unique way to bring value to not just one but four strategic account customers through mutual corporate sustainability and diverse spend goals. The presenters will share how they championed a coalition to create a customer advisory board, obtained external and internal buy-in, executed the initiative and forged tangible outcomes. They will also address how the initiative strengthened relationships with these four strategic accounts – Kroger, T-Mobile, General Motors, and Microsoft – all while working collaboratively to make the world a better place by reducing carbon emission through innovation.

Presenters: Deb Honea, Sales Productivity Lead, Worldwide Commercial Sales, Amazon Web Services; Martyn Lewis, Founder and CEO, Market Partners

With more people involved with making buy decisions than ever, it has never been more complex. There is rarely a single decision maker, but rather a dynamic network of individuals all of whom impact the decision-making process. A buyer in today’s world, even an executive buyer, must manage many activities and balance many priorities through the overall buying journey. They must invest time in gaining alignment among different roles and organizations, and they must deal with the implications of the acquisition and the associated change management. This is why more than 50% of budgeted buying journeys result in no decision.

Many of these activities are hidden from the salesperson. Our own research shows that salespeople are usually involved in less than 10% of all the activities that a buyer must manage through their overall buying journey. This is one of the most significant opportunities for today’s account managers. They need to gain even greater intimacy with their accounts and help the key players to navigate their own buying journey. They must develop the relationships, knowledge and approaches to be relevant and engaged across the entire buying lifecycle, not simply the 10% that has been previously visible.

This workshop will focus on:

• Research findings – the hidden buying activities
• Mapping the full buying journey lifecycle
• Leading, supporting and managing the buyer through the buying maze
• The nine areas our research has shown to lead to stalls and stops across the buying journey for strategic accounts
• A new level of account planning and relationships
• A case study that will illustrate how these ideas translate into pragmatic sales tools and methods

Presenters: Ron Davis, EVP, Global Head of Customer Management, Zurich; John Gardner, Retired – President, Global Strategic Accounts, Emerson Automation Solutions; Alessio Arcando, Adjunct Professor presso Bologna Business School - Università di Bologna

Whether within your own company or at a customer, executive management impact decisions. Therefore it's in the interests of SAM leadership and SAMs to figure out how best to engage with executives. This session will include three elements:

1. Engaging with execs within your company
2. Engaging at execs at our strategic customers
3. Using your business acumen to ensure your SAM program continually evolves to remain relevant to the top executives at your company

 This session is on demand only.

Presenters: Rachel Brutosky, VP of U.S. Strategic Accounts, Nilfisk; Jane McGinty, Global Strategic Accounts Director, Nilfisk

Cleaning has often been considered an afterthought in the business world. However, the pandemic has moved it from backstage to the center stage as organizations have struggled to protect the health and safety of their customers and staff. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on the unprecedented evolution and revolution of an entire industry spawned during COVID’s peak. Discover how Nilfisk, a global leader of professional cleaning equipment in the industrial, commercial and consumer markets, leveraged its emerging strategic accounts program to provide agile, innovative solutions for their customers’ customers during the pandemic.

Attendees will leave the session with practical tips and new ideas on how to innovate, co-create and grow as a trusted advisor in the midst of significant industry change. They'll learn how to:

• Become a natural extension of your customers' staff
• Efficiently and effectively achieve internal alignment
• Elevate the relationship hierarchy from vendor to trusted advisor

Presenters: Ulrik Monberg, CEO, ARPEDIO; Harvey Dunham, Managing Director of Strategy & Marketing, SAMA; Jeff Raber, Head of Strategic Accounts, Aggreko; Ned Gilbert, Sr. Director of Strategic Accounts, PINC AI Applied Sciences; Dino Bertani, Board of Directors, SAMA

SAMA’s 7-step value co-creation framework provides a strong foundation for a best-in-class strategic account management program. But how do you make the seven steps work for your organization? And how do you operationalize it into your account management process? Aggreko and Premier are on this journey and will share their strategy and learnings with SAMAs Harvey Dunham in this best-practices panel. During this session, we will cover:

• Business drivers for the SAMA 7 Steps
• What NOT to do in your SAM coaching calls
• Where is money generated or lost? The right questions for account assessments
• Tailoring the 7 Steps and the importance of relationship heat maps
• Managing your team during the Great Resignation and mobilizing resources

Presenter: Chris Wells, Director, Strategic Accounts, bioMérieux

Creating a SAM program and having it function like a well-oiled machine is a challenge for companies large and small. Successful SAM implementation requires the right combination of people, knowledge and tools. In this session, Chris will draw on his experiences over the last decade in building a SAM program from the ground up within bioMerieux and the initiatives that have evolved from it. Chris will also share examples of the types of tools that have evolved over time to support and serve the company’s work with strategic customers.

Presenter: Mounir Chaouki, Director of Marketing & Account Management, PROMAMEC

Following its annual sales conference in January 2020 in Casablanca, Morocco, Promamec realized that it needed to become more customer oriented if it wanted to increase sales and create better relationships with its customers. In this case study, published in Harvard Business Review, attendees will learn how Promamec overcame its legacy organization and culture to become a true customer-centric organization by creating a new SAM organization within the company.

Presenters: Richard Santucci, President, S&H Strategic Sales Consulting LLC; David Hughes CEO, S&H Strategic Sales Consulting LLC

Many companies currently considering the creation or remodeling of a strategic account management program may find the task daunting. They may not know what direction to take, where to focus energy, and how to establish and execute a successful SAM process. This session will cover the entire SAM program creation process from a practitioner’s view, including account selection, strategic account manager selection, team formation, strategic account planning process, relationship management, plan review and analysis, evolution of the relationship through stepped value-delivery mechanisms, and internal and external communications. Furthermore, the presenters will share a number of lessons learned to guide strategic account program directors charged with creating a SAM program.

Presenter: Shakeel Bharmal, SVP, The Summit Group

The pandemic has dramatically shifted consumer behavior, your customers’ operating models and their outlook on the future. As your customers reset and re-invent, they need partners that will bring their best to co-create and align strategy across the value chain from their own company, through to their customers company, all the way to the end customer.

This session will enable you to leverage the power of individual ideation, group creativity and customer-centricity to co-create a future value narrative for your customer with strategic alignment to the shifting needs of their end customer. We will share some simple, yet transformative approaches to change the way you look at your customer, their customer, and to unleash your personal genius to create value. You will leave this session feeling more confident in your skillset, mindset, and experience set – and eager to apply what you learn the following day. We will explore the topics of creating an end-user persona, defining your customer’s business compass, structuring simple individual and group ideation for creative breakthroughs, and translating this creativity into how you can impact your customer’s business.

Presenters: James Robertson, President, The Summit Group; Dominique Côté, CEO & Founder, Cosawi and Principal, The Summit Group; Max Walker, Director, Strategic Account Management, Medtronic

Medtronic has organized itself to focus on accelerating growth with strategic customers. This interactive session will take you on an immersive journey to develop best-in-class, distinctive strategic account management capabilities. Max Walker will walk you through Medtronic’s roadmap to SAM excellence, which integrates:

• Executive sponsorship
• Immersing leaders in their role
• In-house SAMA CSAM curriculum
• SAM methodology & competencies
• Enabling and sustaining in CRM

This is a story of resilience to build a customer-centric culture in the face of ongoing organizational and leadership changes with significant and important lessons for companies seeking to learn from the people that have been the architects of this strategic customer engagement transformation.

Presenter: Hajo Rapp, SVP SAM & Sales Excellence, TÜV SÜD

SAM programs can be a very focused and effective investment enabling the commercialization of innovation. Economies of scale develop by putting the SAM program into the center of the overall sales activities. Acting in accordance with this logic, a SAM program can be the key for positioning new services in existing markets, shaping new markets, or co-creating and co-positioning new services (to name a few examples). In this session, we will discuss:

• How to sell new offerings based on scientific research as well as practical experience
• Decision structures and customer buying centers around future markets/innovation
• How to align a SAM program for addressing growth areas both strategic and operational
• The SAM’s unique selling proposition: co-creation, management access, winning market share early, leveraging opinion leaders in market ecosystems (i.e., positioning early) and internally (i.e., enabling change), bridging the gap from service development to global sales and more experiences and measures for success

Presenters: Namita Powers, Principal, ZS; Brad MacLeod, Head, US Strategic Accounts, Alcon

Join our presenters as they share the ~2-year-long journey of SAM transformation. From diagnosing and developing a business case and roadmap to systematically executing that multiyear roadmap, with many learnings and stories along the way! The team had four foundational work-streams – from customer insight and segmentation to customer engagement process, talent selection and development, and metrics and motivation – and have been systematically building up a world-class SAM capability. Most impactful are the Early Experience Teams conducted with a few large accounts. Come hear about the experience and impact being made at this interactive, joint session.

Presenter: Dennis Chapman, President, The Chapman Group

In a business world characterized by fierce global competition and account demands, an organization needs strong and well-founded signals (metrics) that indicate when key objectives are being met or when trouble is on the horizon. Unfortunately, most strategic account management programs are evaluated by the sales numbers they post. While sales numbers, usually defined as revenue increases, are critical measurements, there are additional key metrics to consider that give valuable insights into the probability of achieving or not achieving all organizational sales and SAM objectives.

Key learnings of this session will include:

• What is a metric-based performance dashboard?
• Which metrics will provide the optimum value to your organization?
• How to develop, communicate and measure any metric?
• Launching metrics: What, how, by whom and when?
• Challenges associated with any metric-based program

Sample templates will be provided to all participants.

Presenters: Jay Persinger, Director of Sales, Owens Corning; Sara Theis, KAM Program Manager, Owens Corning

Building and industrial materials leader Owens Corning had KAMs in roles with documented account plans but were struggling to quantify and deliver customer value, leaving them short on leverage during contract negotiations. This session will walk you through their business challenge, how they designed and built a formal Key Account Management (KAM) Operating Model and Management System from scratch, as well as the measurable business impact of their efforts. Presenters will share their key learnings and practical advice, especially helpful for companies in the beginning stages of their KAM/SAM journey.

Presenters: Chris Reiman, Sales Training and Effectiveness, United Airlines; Nashir Hirjee, United Airlines

Air travel is an important way to connect people and unite the world. But how do we do this more sustainably? As the 2021 Eco-Airline of the Year, United will become the first U.S. airline to achieve 100% Green by 2050 without the use of offsets. Please join us in this session to find out how our sales teams became the stewards of change, working in partnership with customers to help power the future of flying in a more sustainable way.

Presenters: Jerry Alderman, CEO, Valkre; Sara Theis, Program Manager, Regional Growth, Owens Corning; Anju Birdy, VP Strategic Account Management Excellence, Schneider Electric

Account-based marketing is finding its way into the account planning process. With this connection, account managers have a powerful new partner helping them build more effective account plans. For marketers, the connection is helping them to implement their strategic ABM work at the customer. In this session we will review early examples of how this work is being done in practice.

Presenters: Dave Ivester, Vice President, Global Strategic Accounts, Emerson; Jason Ray, Vice President, NA Strategic Accounts & Digital Transformation, Emerson

The global energy sector is in transition from fossil-based systems of energy production and consumption to a clean energy economy with a goal of net zero emissions. What does this mean to the future of a strategic accounts program with more than two-thirds of the program revenue from hydrocarbon industry accounts? This session will review energy transition dynamics, the impact and response of global energy producers, and how Emerson is utilizing principles from SAMA Research and best practices for account selection to assess how we define “strategic account” in an effort to diversify our program and align with future business drivers.

Presenter: Brian Lindholm, Executive Trainer and Leadership Coach, DHL

In today’s world it is more important than ever for strategic account managers to make themselves indispensable when it comes to serving their customers, but just how do we do this? In this session on Positive Intelligence, you will take your personal Saboteur Assessment to identify for you those traits that define who you are for your customers. We will review the 10 Saboteur traits and why they could be a roadblock to really connecting with your clients. You will learn which of these traits your customers might be defining you with and how to better manage them to your advantage. We will introduce the 5 Sage Powers along with tools you can use to incorporate them into your sales process whether you are dealing with your customers directly or internal team members in support of your customers. Finally, you will learn how you can operate with a more positive mindset for your personal well-being and sales success.

Should you choose to join our workshop please come to it having completed your Personal Assessment https://assessment.positiveintelligence.com/saboteur/instructions (best to bring a printed copy if possible).

Presenters: Dominique Côté, CEO & Founder, Cosawi and Principal, The Summit Group; Justin Kotzur, Head of U.S. Distribution Account Management, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health

Starting a global strategic account management journey to align around your most important customers is never a simple task. It is a business transformation that requires a clear roadmap, executive engagement and many passionate people to make it a success. In this session, you will have the opportunity to hear, exchange and discuss with your peers and gain insight and tips from Justin and Dominique based on their experience building successful global SAM programs.

Justin will share the BI Animal Health story, starting with the launch of the journey through establishing a center of excellence to design and execute on the global SAM structure, vision and business processes.

The presenters will focus on attendees’ individual topics of interest and will facilitate table discussions to foster sharing and overall attendees' exchange.

Attendees will hear the BI Animal Health perspective on:

• The “why” for embarking on the SAM journey
• Aligning leadership to ensure that SAM journey becomes a strategic imperative and global priority
• Creating the roadmap to establish, implement and sustain momentum
• Delegating the journey by sub-groups to the right people, creating internal champions
• Designing an organizational structure to drive execution and gain buy-in throughout the company
• Defining the key roles, starting small but outlining the needs for the next two to three years
• Developing capabilities from the COE to the global SAMs
• Selecting the strategic account and scope of the journey
• How to sustain, expand and embed into the organization’s DNA

We will provide a high-level journey, best practices and learning from the BI Animal health story, which we will use to define focus and then dive deep based on attendee interest.

Presenters: Bill Moore, VP Business Development, ERIKS North America; Jesse Shoff, Industry Director, ERIKS North America

There is an emerging trend where companies are moving from outsourcing the RFQ/bid process and expanding the use of consultants to include taking over Procurement entirely. Dealing with consultants who are working on a contract basis for your customer is very different from co-creating value with your customer and their in-house Procurement organization.

Are you ready for this current and future reality? ERIKS North America is dealing with several customers who have gone this route, and they are developing strategies for this growing procurement trend. Join us to hear our thoughts and experiences and to share any insights, challenges and questions YOU have in this arena.

Presenter: Betsy Westhafer, CEO, The Congruity Group

Many SAMs are overlooking an extremely powerful solution that is the answer to many of the challenges organizations and SAMs face on an ongoing basis. This under-utilized solution is the Strategic Customer Advisory Board. In this session, Betsy Westhafer, best-selling author, will shine a light on a well-kept secret that she refers to as The Rarest AdvantageTM. Learn how CABs can provide amazing results, such as: exceptional executive engagement, the co-creation of value with strategic accounts, alignment of internal teams around key customer insights, increased revenues, and 100% retention of customers who serve on Strategic Customer Advisory Boards. This session is not to be missed if you are in search of a tool that provides all these proven results and more.

In addition, this session will provide a deeper understanding of:

• What makes a Customer Advisory Board strategic
• How CABs help executives succeed
• Why KAMs want their accounts to serve on the CAB
• What makes a CAB effective and successful
• How to drive a CAB initiative for your organization

Presenters: Denise Juliano, Group Vice President, PINC AI Applied Sciences; Myla Maloney, Chief Commercial Officer, PINC AI Applied Sciences

Trying to build, expand or grow your strategic account management program requires intentional focus and energy. This session will provide an interactive forum to share and glean key insights and examples to ensure you are cultivating a strategic customer-centric organization. During this session, attendees will engage in dynamic best-practice sharing with peers across the SAM community. We will present and discuss case studies to extract information that will highlight what it takes to build a truly best-in-class SAM organization.

Topics will include:

• Customer segmentation and account selection. It is not one size fits all!
• Account breadth and depth
• Social channels. It's for more than sharing pictures of your family.
• Driving SAM program awareness for internal and external buy-in

Presenter: Michael Thomas, President, Magnetic Consulting

Strategic accounts organizations are increasingly challenged by having to communicate value across sophisticated, complex solutions. SAMs are selling more complex solutions, have less time to do so, and are fighting for attention with every virtual conversation. SAMs today are asked to sell solutions based on expertise and delivery experience, rather than products and features. To capture the high-growth potential of selling new, complex solutions, SAMs have to “be in the room” for these new, and very different, types of conversations.

Organizations need effective approaches and innovative tools to enable SAMs to lead these novel, boundary-pushing conversations. SAMs themselves must evolve new abilities by learning to think “beyond the presentation” to capture customer attention and interest toward increasingly complex solutions. Success with these high-growth business areas depends not just on simplifying the complexities of a solution, but also on the ability of SAMs to leverage the inherent scarcity of the resources (i.e., the people and their experiences) behind the delivery of these solutions

This session will explore approaches SAMs can use to radically improve their mastery of sophisticated messaging for expertise-led solutions and to do so within the realities of today’s virtual selling environment. Throughout the workshop, we will go beyond methodology by also discussing new technologies that unlock customer engagement and attention during remote conversations.

These innovative digital assets, coupled with the methodology, will strongly differentiate you and your solutions in a world of endless virtual meetings.

Presenters: Phil Styrlund, CEO, The Summit Group; Kelly Garramone, CEO, KRW International

This session will reveal trailblazing research that is anticipated to profoundly shift how we think about SAM/selling and account management. Participants will have the opportunity to be the first to learn about and activate salespeople's keystone character habits.

This research will be based on the groundbreaking work of Dr. Fred Kiel, who has demonstrated that leaders who frequently exhibit core four traits significantly outperform their peers who do not always demonstrate these traits.

Our hypothesis, to be validated in the current research project, is that salespeople, SAMs and sales leaders who exhibiting these keystone traits will significantly outperform their peers in terms of:

• Financial results demonstrated by profitable growth rates and market share
• Customer and company commitment
• Sales team member engagement and performance

Additionally, we will be revealing the four distinguishing mindsets for the future of strategic selling/SAM created and researched by Dr. Philip Squire. The intersection of character habits and the sales mindsets is the foundation for this session and research. Learning how to activate and grow these attributes can be transformative for your life and career.

Finally, this session will unveil the opportunity for SAMA members to participate in this exciting new body of research. This will be the first cohort to bring this body of science to the profession of SAM and sales.

Presenters: Oliver Halloway, Associate Director, Training & Capabilities, International Business Excellence, Allergan; Ivan Gruenthal, Director, Institutional Corporate Account Training, Ecolab; Nicholas Coletti, Global Development Manager | Corporate & Strategic Accounts, IDEXX; Kate Burda, CEO and Founder, Kate Burda & Co

This roundtable is an opportunity for talent management professionals, SAM program executives and SAM managers to exchange best practices and discuss issues as well as challenges related to establishing the strategic account manager position as a recognized career path. Panelists from IDEXX, AbbVie and Ecolab will share based on their experience best practices and insights on SAM development topics including SAM certification, critical SAM competencies and skills, career pathing and the importance of SAM specific training.

 This session is on demand only.

Presenter: Lori Preston, Organization Performance Consultant, Revenue Storm

The strategic account environment is not only requiring more of you; it is requiring something different. We have compared our research data for pre- and post-pandemic account management success. Learn the top three trending traits and how you can leverage them more, whether you are hiring a client-facing SAM or developing one. This will include a lively discussion on practical ways to identify these traits in prospective SAMs, as well as how to bring them into the daily practices of SAMs. The account needs to experience the SAM differently now. This conversation will trigger a new filter in how you look at what to prioritize with accounts and what to deprioritize as we reshape who we are in a world that has reshaped around us.

Presenters: Renae Leary, Chief Commercial Officer, Americas, Ansell; Dominique Côté, CEO & Founder, Cosawi and Principal, The Summit Group; Tania Lennon, Global Space Lead, Talent Assessment and Leadership, ZS; Jennifer Stanley, North America Lead, Sales & Channel Practice, McKinsey & Company; Denise Juliano, Group Vice President, PINC AI Applied Sciences

In today’s environment characterized by complexity and change, the strengths that drive success are evolving. This session will explore key factors for successful leadership in a dynamic commercial context and the advantages of capitalizing on a range of strengths by harnessing diverse talent to drive higher performance and create competitive advantage. Tap into the collective wisdom of seasoned, corporate leaders with experience across industries and geographies to discover how they have navigated and overcome key challenges.

Attendees will leave with:

• Reflection: Uncover the internal barriers to strong leadership that may hold you back – and how to increase your personal impact and receive a personalized feedback report
• Community: Participate in discussion with like-minded leaders to harness your personal strengths and achieve your leadership potential
• Skills: Learn simple methods to enhance your visibility and presence as leaders
• Research: Dig into research about the talent profile that drives success in B2B sales and how to provide the right conditions to enable this talent to thrive, with a particular focus on women as SAMs and SAM leaders

This high-impact, multifaceted session will provide an exceptional development opportunity for SAM leaders and for anyone responsible for building high-performing teams to address today's myriad challenges and opportunities – with some unique points of view that offer valuable insights for creating a strong pipeline of SAM talent and SAM leaders.

Presenter: Namita Powers, Principal, ZS; Alex Simon, Associate Principal, ZS; Michael Hauser, Head, Health Systems Engagement, Novartis; Tim Holmes, Senior Director Key Accounts & Sales Transformation, Bayer Pharmaceuticals/Oncology Division

KAM metrics are complicated due to the longer time horizons involved in B2B selling, the inherent complexity of multiple stakeholders and organization-wide engagement, and the hurdles associated with data integration for large and complex customers.

Strong KAM metrics programs take a Balanced Scorecard approach, with an appropriate mix of leading, lagging, Voice of Customer and shared indicators of success. They begin with cross-functional KAM program objectives, then overall KAM program metrics, individual KAM metrics and finally – the smallest subset, what you pay on - incentive compensation. There are also easy ways to operationalize the ongoing measurement and tracking of this Balanced Scorecard approach through self-serve dashboards for leadership and KAMs themselves.

Join ZS as we host a panel of practitioners to share perspectives, tell stories and react and respond to a comprehensive POV on measuring performance in a B2B world.

Presenter: Gordon Galzerano, SAMA Consultant, Timberwilde Consulting

We are in the midst of the most significant transformation irrespective of the industry we are in. The speed of automation, robotics, AI and machine learning are all contributing factors to how we must adapt our talent strategies for the future. In this interactive session, you will learn practical, impactful ways to shift your talent strategy to exceed the expectations of your customers, your organization and your employees.