Explore SAMA’s best practices in strategic customer management.
Today, companies must balance strong business fundamentals with the agility to embrace new ideas and opportunities. SAMA’s proven approaches to successful SAM implementation are built on decades of benchmarking with the world’s leading strategic customer management practitioners. Through this work, SAMA has developed frameworks that define the critical success factors for individual SAMs, customer-centric organizations, and effective value co-creation with strategic accounts.
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SAMA’s Best-in-Class SAM Competency Model
Strategic
Account Manager Competencies &
Skills
1. Understanding Organizational Priorities ⊕
1. Understanding Organizational Priorities
1.1 Customer Orientation
- New Trends in Buyer Behavior: What our market research reveals
- Develop Competitor-Proof Relationships
- Moving Toward Strategic Account Leadership: Aligning and engaging for increased value co-creation
1.2 Company Knowledge
- Aligning Internal and External Orientation and Other Competing Demands for Strategic Account Managers
- How the Best Companies Equip Salespeople to Sell Innovation
- Managing Internal Stakeholders to Successfully Advance Creative Customer Solutions
- Engaging Company Stakeholders Early and Often
1.3 Industry Knowledge
- Collaboration in Strategic Co-Developed Solutions Aimed at Improving Population Health
- Non-Traditional Strategic Value Creation
- What Great Account Planning Looks Like: A conversation with Denise Juliano
1.4 Customer Knowledge
– Creating Competitive Immunity Through Deep Customer Discovery
– Managing the Hidden Buying Journey
– Keys to Effective Strategic Account Planning
– The Neuroscience of Decision-Making: How buyers frame value and make choices
– Creating Competitive Immunity by Deep Customer Discovery
– Strategic Selling in an Omnichannel World
- Customer Orientation
- Company Knowledge
- Industry Knowledge
- Customer Knowledge
2. Strategic Account & Opportunity Panning ⊕
2. Strategic Account & Opportunity Panning
2.1 Strategic Thinking
- The SAM as a Strategist: Defining the approach to transform your customer’s business
- Outside In: Where sales meets strategy
- Strategic Thinking for SAM: Putting “strategic” back into strategic account management
2.2 Financial/Business Acumen
- The 10K: By far the most important document that SAMs/GAMs never read
- Finance for SAMs
- Getting Inside Your Customer’s CFO’s Head
- Financial Acumen for SAMs
- Understand Your Customer’s Financials
2.3 Value Analysis & Opportunity Insight
- Six Actionable Steps Toward Preparing Financially Quantified Value Propositions for Strategic Accounts
- Collaborative Planning with Your Customer: Best practices for high-impact growth
- Discovering, Aligning and Co-Developing Customer Insights that Add Value to Strategic Account Partnerships
- Unlocking New Value with the Value Creation Compass
- Strategic Thinking
- Financial/Business
Acumen - Value Analysis & Opportunity Insight
3. Joint Solution Development, Co-Creation & Reaching Agreement ⊕
3. Joint Solution Development, Co-Creation & Reaching Agreement
3.1 Communication & Influence Skills
- Dealing with Difficult People and Conversations
- From Difficult Conversations to High Value Dialogue
- The Neuroscience of Your Customer’s Attention
- Cracking the Code on C-Suite Messaging
- Sorry Shouldn’t Be the Hardest Word: Master the psychology of effective customer apologies
- The Neuroscience of Decision-Making
3.2 Value Co-Creation
- Moving Toward Strategic Account Leadership: Aligning and engaging for increased value co-creation
- Co-Creation with Customers: It’s easier said than done
- Innovation and Value Co-Creation Accelerates Growth in Car Battery Market
- The Value of SAM
3.3 Negotiation Skills
- Negotiating Through Turbulence and Beyond (Part 1)
- Negotiating Through Turbulence and Beyond (Part 2)
- Separating Negotiation Fact from Fiction: Key insights for SAMs
- Building and Implementing a Negotiation Strategy and Process
- Changing the Conversation from Price to Value with a Consumable Killer Technique: Multiple solution options
- Communication & Influence Skills
- Value Co-Creation
- Negotiation Skills
4. Multifunctional Account Team Leadership ⊕
4. Multifunctional Account Team Leadership
4.1 Interpersonal Relationship Skills
- Selling Internally: Managing Internal Stakeholders to Successfully Advance Creative Customer Solutions
- Selling to Psychopaths Internally and Externally: Are you aware and prepared?
- Dealing with Difficult People and Conversations
- Return on Character for SAM
4.2 Team Leadership
- Leading High-Performing Account Teams
- Coaching the Behaviors that Drive SAM Execution
- Operating as One Integrated Cross-Functional Team
- Successful KAM Leadership: Interviews with four successful women in KAM
- Engaging the Customer in Your Account Planning Process/Coaching and Leading Your Account Team
4.3 Cultural Knowledge & Sensitivity
- Interpersonal Relationship Skills
- Team Leadership
- Cultural Knowledge & Sensitivity
5. Overall Relationship and Outcome Management ⊕
5. Overall Relationship and Outcome Management
5.1 Responsible for the Corporate Customer Relationship
- Utilizing Metrics and Science to Drive Unifying Relationship Actions: Creating high-wide-deep strategic account/strategic supplier engagement
- Account Insights that Guide Team Construct and Account Planning: Insights from the ivory towers!
- Making Customer Centricity Matter
- Driving Account Growth: Building and leveraging your account value portfolio
5.2 Process Discipline
- How to Drive Results and Make an Impact
- Create a Smart Solution that Accelerates R&D Discovery
- Operating as One Integrated Cross-Functional Team
5.3 Accountability for Business Outcomes
- Sorry Shouldn’t Be the Hardest Word: Master the Psychology of Effective Customer Apologies
- How to Align Internally to Manage Your Strategic Accounts When Your Supply Cannot Meet Their Demand
- Account Feedback Metrics to Guide Transformation: From transactional supplier to strategic account-centric trusted advisor
- Rewarding Extraordinary Customer Relationships: Utilizing more than S-score to drive organic growth
- Responsible for the Corporate Customer Relationship
- Process Discipline
- Accountability for Business Outcomes
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The SAMA SAM Process
Business Outcomes
- Superior Growth
- Superior Profitability
- Superior Customer Loyalty
- Innovative & Scalable Customer Solutions
- Risk Management
Strategic Account Management Process (Strategic Value Selling) Priority Areas
Step 1 - Customer Co-Discovery & Value “Fit”
- Client's org strategy, drivers, goals
- Industry & competitive analyses
- Buying process maturity
- Influencers & decision makers
- Value “fit” insights & prioritized opportunities
Step 2 - The Strategic Account Business Value Plan
- Formalize strategic customer value through the business plan
- Ensure internal alignment to customer value propositions using the strategic plan, process, and governance systems
- Execute on the value, deliver, and measure through the customer scorecard
- Continually update the plan
Step 3 - Co-Create Value
- Validate the “fit” with customer needs
- Provoke innovative solutions
- Blueprint value propositions & “monetize”
- Define customer engagement strategy
Step 4 - Mobilize & Align the Multi-functional Team
- Drive the process
- Involve core expertise and key stakeholders
- Create customer alignment
Step 5 - Capture Value through Negotiating & Closing
- Finalize value proposition with customer & optimize price (master agreement)
- Understand customer negotiation goals
- Understand role of competition
Step 6 - Execute Value & Deliver to Customer Commitments & Orders
- Ensure delivery
- Maintain quality metrics
- Document and check impact on customer metrics (quantify delivered value)
Step 7 - Realize/Expand Value through Overall Relationship & Outcome Management
- Expand share of wallet
- Measure & strengthen relationship
- Trusted advisor role
- Customer metrics scorecard
