Velocity Spring 2023

Value. Alignment. Relationships. Growth.

The pursuit of SAM excellence is a journey that requires commitment and resolve, typically undertaken by organizations that have realized the importance of becoming more strategic to their most important customers. Those that succeed gain competitive advantage by equipping their account teams with proven best practices that support effectiveness in each of the primary account planning and management impact zones.

Value: Today’s strategic and key customers expect their providers to understand their business pressures, objectives and challenges, and deliver solutions and value that address them. Top performing account managers and teams understand what matters most to their customers, and co-create mutual value that enables their accounts to realize the business outcomes that drive success.

Alignment: By engaging cross-functional team members in the deployment of SAM best practices, stronger internal alignment and enhanced customer value co-creation are realized. When account managers and teams understand customer pressures, objectives, and challenges, and align on how to address them, the result is heightened collaboration and value realization with the customer.

Relationships: Strategic customers expect to build trust-based relationships with their providers. Deploying and adopting SAM best practices equips and enables account managers and teams to evolve relationships with key and strategic customers into partnerships, with dramatic impact on how they engage, co-innovate and co-create value together.

Growth: Driving proactive growth is the essence of SAM excellence, and when account managers and teams develop and implement strategies to facilitate expansion of strategic customer partnerships, growth can be accelerated. By building growth strategies collaboratively with customer stakeholders, your approaches to value co-discovery, co-creation and realization provide you with powerful differentiators.

PMI’s customized strategic account planning and management solutions are designed to assist you in your SAM journey. Let’s discuss how we can help you and your team evolve value co-creation, customer stakeholder alignment, trust-based relationships and proactive account growth to new levels of effectiveness in your pursuit of SAM excellence!

PMI Congratulates all of the winners of the 2023 SAMA Excellence Awards™, with special recognition of our clients Boehringer Ingelheim (Outstanding Mature Program of the Year) and LP Building Solutions (Outstanding Young Program of the Year)!

The SAMA Excellence Awards™ honor B2B companies who achieve unparalleled success at elevating relationships with key customers by solving their most critical business challenges.

41 Artificial intelligence and the augmented SAM

47 The state of mental health in sales

57 The strategic account manager as value creator

62 The extraordinary SAM: Building stronger customer relationships through the lens of DEI&B

V ELOCITY ®

A PUBLICATION OF THE STRATEGIC ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

Publisher: Denise Freier | Editor-in-chief: Harvey Dunham | Associate Editor: Nic Halverson

Creative Director: Aimee Waddell | Advertising: Ashley Davis

The Strategic Account Management Association is a global knowledge-sharing and networking organization devoted to developing, promoting, and advancing strategic customer-supplier value, collaboration, and learning.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission. Copyright © 2023 by the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA). The SAMA ® logo is a registered trademark of the Strategic Account Management Association.

Velocity ® is published three times a year. The annual subscription rate is $65.

Changes of address, suggested articles, and requests for extra copies of this publication should be directed to: SAMA, 4740 N. Cumberland Ave., #389, Chicago, IL 60656. Tel: 312-251-3131 Fax: 312-251-3132 Internet: www.strategicaccounts.org

For membership information or to join SAMA, contact Chris Jensen at 312-251-3131 x10 or jensen@strategicaccounts.org

SAMA Corporate Members

Abbott

ABM Industries Inc.

Agilent

Ainsworth Inc.

Air Liquide

Airbus Defence and Space

Abbvie

Amgen Canada

Arcadis

Astellas

AVI-SPL

Avient Corporation

Axis Communications Inc.

Bailey International

Bayer AG

Bellevue University

bioMérieux

Boehringer Ingelheim

Brenntag Specialties Inc

Buckman North America

Bunge

CAS

Ceva Santé Animale

CH Robinson

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Clarios

Cox Automotive

CPC Worldwide

Danaher Companies

DHL

Donaldson Company, Inc.

Ecolab

Eisai, Inc.

Elanco Animal Health

Emerson Automation Solutions

Endress+Hauser

Expeditors

FCM

Formerra Freeman

Genmab US, Inc.

Greene, Tweed & Co.

Grifols Therapeutics Inc

Henkel

Hilton Worldwide

Honeywell

Hovione

Hyatt

Hyland

IDEXX Laboratories, Inc.

John Deere

Johnson & Johnson

Lilly USA, LLC.

LP Building Solutions

Lubrizol

Medtronic Merck

Michelin

Mölnlycke Health Care

New York Power Authority Inc.

Nilfisk

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O-I

Optum Inc

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Premier Inc.

Rockwell Automation

Saint-Gobain

Sanofi Vaccines

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Schneider Electric

The Sherwin-Williams Company

Sidel

Siemens

Solecta, Inc.

Solenis

Sonoco

supplyFORCE

The AAK Group

The Qt Company

TÜV SÜD

UL Solutions

United Airlines

Vallourec

Veolia

VSP Global

W.L. Gore & Associates

Wajax Corporation

Waters Corporation

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc.

Wolters Kluwer Belgium

WorkCare, Inc.

Xylem Inc.

Zurich Insurance Group

SAMA Board of Directors

Steve Andersen President and Founder PMI

Dino Bertani

Executive Director, International Strategic Account Management AbbVie

Anju Birdy

Strategic Account Management Excellence, Vice President Schneider Electric

Noel Capon

R.C. Kopf Professor of International Marketing Columbia Business School

Mauro Cerati Senior Vice President, Global Customers Bunge

Dominique Côté Owner and Founder COSAWI in/Sprl

Ron Davis Executive Vice President, Head of Customer Management Zurich Insurance Group

Jim Ford Chief Commercial Officer Solecta, Inc.

Chairman of the SAMA Board

Denise Freier President and CEO SAMA

*John F. Gardner Retired - President, Global Strategic Accounts

Emerson Automation Solutions

*Rosemary Heneghan Retired - Director, International Sales & Operations, Worldwide IBM

Eric Gantier President, Global Engineering, Manufacturing & Energy

DHL Customer Solutions and Innovation (CSI)

Gerilyn Horan Vice President, Group Sales & Strategic Accounts Hilton

Denise Juliano Group Vice President, Life Sciences

Premier Inc.

Renae Leary Chief Commercial Officer –Americas Ansell

Mike Moorman Managing Principal, Sales Solutions

ZS

Geoff Quinn Director Key Account Management Center of Excellence

Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals Group

Dr. Hajo Rapp SVP Strategic Account Management & Sales Excellence

TÜV SÜD AG

Kevin Reilly Global Sales Development Leader, 3M Healthcare Business Group 3M Company

Tony Stanich VP Global Corporate AccountsFood & Beverage for Water and Process Services

Nalco, an Ecolab Company

Jennifer Stanley Partner McKinsey & Company

*Dr. Kaj Storbacka Retired - Hanken Foundation Professor Hanken School of Economics

Geoff Williams Vice President, Global Accounts Danfoss

*Distinguished Board Advisors (lifetime contributors; nonvoting members)

V ELOCITY ®

Publisher: Denise Freier

Editor-in-Chief: Harvey Dunham

Associate Editor: Nic Halverson

Creative Director: Aimee Waddell

Advertising: Ashley Davis

SAMA 2023 EVENTS

Academy Online - APAC (CORE 3)

June 13-15

SAMA Academy Chicago

July 18-20

SAMA Staff Executive

President & CEO: Denise Freier

Finance/Operations/Meetings

Director of Finance, Meetings and Operations: Fran Schwartz

Senior Manager, Meetings and Events & Individual

Member Liaison: Rhodonna Espinosa

Finance & Operations Manager: Jaclyn Such

Registration Manager: Shannon Feeney

Customer Solutions

Director, Customer Solutions: Christopher Jensen

Corporate Account Manager: Michael Johnson

Corporate Account Manager: Dina-Marie Farrell

Sr. Corporate Solutions Manager: Ed Zupanc

Salesforce Analyst/Administrator: Erin Pallesen

Sr. Account Manager, Business Leader - AMS: Stephanie Fahey

Knowledge, Certification & Training

Director, Knowledge, Certification & Training: Libby Souder

Assistant Director, Knowledge & Training: David Schweizer

Knowledge and Training Manager: Brad Maloney Research

General Manager, Research & Customer Experience: Joel Schaafsma

Strategy, Marketing, & Communications

Managing Director, Strategy and Marketing: Harvey Dunham

Creative Director: Aimee Waddell

Associate Editor: Nic Halverson

Marketing Manager & Sponsorship: Ashley Davis

Academy Online - Third Quarter 2023

July-September

SAMA Academy Online - APAC (CORE 4)

September 19-20

ABM Academy: Next Generation ABM

Customer-Led, Team-Enabled

September 19-20

SAMA Pan European Conference

October 11-12

SAMA Academy Europe

October

Academy Online - Fourth Quarter 2023

October-December

SAMA Academy Online - APAC (CORE 1)

November 27-30

SAMA Tech Fest

November 1-2

Follow SAMA on Twitter at www.twitter.com/samatweet

Nic Halverson Associate Editor Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA)

Sewn throughout this issue of Velocity is the common thread of transformation. This idea of refinement and enhancement — whether you apply it to your customer relationships, your strategic account management program, or your company at large — begins with one person: yourself. But not just a cardboard cutout of yourself — your authentic self.

Finding that person takes courage. The courage to be intentional and vulnerable, defy convention and stereotypes, and help you shift to a more customer-centric mindset. Herein lies the harmony of being truly strategic.

To sustain this harmony and elevate your relationships, SAMA is thrilled to announce our partnership with The Congruity Group, which we have selected to build and execute our Strategic Customer Advisory Board. Our collaboration will launch multiple initiatives, including customized tools for SAMA members “that accurately identify and measure areas in which organizations can improve their strategic engagement with customers, while also aligning internal teams and advancing executive support,” as Congruity CEO Betsy Westhafer outlines in our first feature.

Still, internal alignment remains the albatross around many a SAM’s neck, right? However, in his article on engaging internal stakeholders, Adrian Davis, President and CEO of Whetstone Inc. and Principal Partner at The Summit Group, proposes a novel solution: apply the discipline of strategic account management to your own organization and add it as one of your strategic accounts.

We’re all familiar with the salesperson stereotype: the pushy, lone wolf with the hunter vs. prey mindset. “As absurd as this mindset is, it is still prevailing in many organizations,” Nigel Cullington, VP of Marketing at Upland Altify, observes in his piece on account planning. To succeed, “sellers must put this approach behind them once and for all,” he writes. “Instead, they must seek to put their relationships at the heart and center of everything they do.”

EDITOR’S CORNER

Customer relationships and embracing the whole value chain are at the heart of what we do at SAMA — just ask Airbus Defence and Space. Read all about how they zeroed in on SAMA’s methodologies to develop amazing SAMs and took advantage of the SAM2Win simulation, an online game used by SAMA, universities, and corporations to teach advanced account management.

To say that simulations and artificial intelligence (AI) stand to revolutionize strategic account management is “a masterpiece of understatement,” according to Robert Box, Managing Partner and Global Account Director at Mercuri International. Still, Box says everyone should be asking, “What exactly can [AI] do for my job, and if I’m going to benefit, what changes do I need to make in the way I think?” In his article on AI and the augmented SAM, Box offers a practical way forward, including action items for SAMs on the current and future application of AI.

As salespeople, we also need to change the way we think about our mental health, studies show. According to data in the 2022 State of Mental Health in Sales Report, published by Sales Health Alliance, there is a correlation between mental health and the ability to achieve sales targets. The prognosis isn’t good, as the mental health of salespeople continues to get worse. However, Sales Health Alliance founder Jeff Riseley identifies 13 factors sales leaders can use to improve mental health, such as “clear career pathing, boundary setting, and embracing more vulnerability within sales.”

Joe Machicote, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Premier, Inc., is the ne plus ultra of someone who embraces vulnerability. When you read his riveting interview with SAMA President & CEO Denise Freier, witness how proactive and intentional he is about his own mental health. In a fitting finale to close out this issue, Machicote reveals his formula for being extraordinary and shares key insights that helped him find clarity in the face of tragedy. Applying his resiliency and mindset shift to all aspects of life — including DEI&B initiatives — his life-affirming advice is guaranteed to motivate you to become the best version of yourself. n

KANECT

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BEHAVIORS of your accounts. TRANSFORM your relationships through DIRECT customer feedback.

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DEFYING SALES STEREOTYPES TO DELIVER AUTHENTICITY AND TRANSFORMATION

In an excellent interview with McKinsey and Company, University of Southern California (USC) adjunct professors of entrepreneurship Colin Coggins and Garrett Brown posed the question: What do you think of when you hear the word salesperson?

“The stereotype around sales and salespeople was so pervasive that you could ask anyone,” said Coggins. “And they would say, ‘Yucky, manipulative, pushy, smarmy,’ but that wasn’t our experience.”

In their new book, “The Unsold Mindset: Redefining What It Means to Sell,” Coggins and Brown paint a different portrait of salespeople — one that defies stereotypes. Drawing on personal experience and research, Coggins said they set out to “change the way that the world viewed sales and salespeople by changing the way that these people viewed themselves.”

As they trace the contours of today’s successful, modern seller, what takes shape is a salesperson who embraces a more holistic mindset that emphasizes emotional intelligence, purpose, and authenticity — to make sales less about transaction and more about transformation.

Up first on the chopping block: the vicious cycle of inauthenticity.

Fortunately — as a silver lining — the pandemic provided ample opportunity and research for the authors, who had access to “tons of hours of recordings” of sales calls. From these calls, a curious phenomenon occurred. Typically underperforming sellers started thriving during COVID, while traditionally high-performing sellers went into a tailspin as lockdown hit. But why?

According to Coggins, “for the group that historically underperformed but that performed high during COVID, all of their conversations started almost the same way. They would say, ‘I have no idea if we should even be having this conversation right now. This is very weird. This is my first pandemic, too, but I know that you accepted this calendar invite, and we

have a job to do, so we’re going to do it.’ You would see this reciprocation of love from the customer on the other end.”

This acknowledgment of vulnerability and imperfection, Coggins said, was a gateway to authenticity.

“When you think about a way that a salesperson can mitigate inauthenticity, rule number one is to be aware,” Coggins added. “Give yourself permission to be authentic and be aware that the world will give you credit for your flaws, that the world will give you credit for being just like the person you’re talking to, who is imperfect. Inauthenticity is rooted in someone who’s trying to seem like they’re better than they are, but that’s not actually what we want. Those aren’t the expectations, and there’s a real disconnect between that.”

Brown suggests listening to that little voice inside your head, which inspired their classroom mantra. “We say that if you think you sound like you’re being cheesy, then you’re probably being cheesy,” he said. “A corollary to that is, if you think you sound like you’re being inauthentic, you’re probably being inauthentic.”

But can you teach the average person to be a great, authentic salesperson?

“We absolutely believe that,” Brown said. “The reason we take a mindset approach to selling as opposed to a tactical approach: there’s a lot of places that you can go, and you can learn how to build rapport, handle objections, and do the day-to-day tactical approach to selling, but not a lot of people are talking about how you think.”

Taking this mindset approach means tapping into one’s emotional intelligence — the capacity to be aware of, control, and express emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.

“We started to have conversations with

all of these amazing sellers, with and without sales in their title,” Brown said. “We talked to everybody from CEOs and founders to doctors and lawyers and artists and hypnotherapists and everything in between. We realized that they all had things in common […] things that are related to emotional intelligence and mindset and things that can absolutely be taught and developed over time.”

Great questions are the hallmark of great sellers. But Coggins takes it a step further, suggesting that great sellers think and care about their customers differently. In conversations driven by empathy, buyers don’t feel like they’re being sold. They don’t feel stripped of their agency. They feel part of a process of mutual co-creation.

In teaching this ethos, Coggins wisely observed, “It’s probably not a conversation about adding. It’s a conversation about stripping away” and making space for intentional ignorance.

“Great salespeople don’t know it all, intentionally,” Coggins said. “The reality is, you’d be way better off if you said, ‘I don’t know, but I do know someone smarter than me who does,’ or ‘I don't know, but let me go find out for you.’ Customers are giving people more credit for being resourceful than they are for having every single answer. Because if you have every answer, you strip the agency away from people, and people start saying no to you just because you’re right, not because you’re wrong.”

To foster resilience amid current global challenges, Brown suggests salespeople should celebrate the process — not just the wins and achievements, but also the rejections and lessons learned, so sellers can examine what went wrong and recalibrate for next time.

“When you’re talking about resilience, I think looking for the good, celebrating the process, and realizing that what the brain looks for it typically finds more of is a really important lesson that we learned from the people we spoke to,” Brown said.

One of the many hurdles that salespeople must transcend is viewing their customers as just another name or just another number on a long list of cold calls and follow-ups. As a solution, Brown proposes the radical, yet basic, concept of “falling in love with the person you’re going to

talk to” because “you act differently when you actually care about somebody.”

The authors teach this concept via their idea of “love threeby-three.”

“Spend three minutes before any call or any conversation finding three things that you love about the person you’re going to talk to,” Brown said. “Go on their LinkedIn or other social media profiles or on the company website and find things that you love.”

There’s abundance everywhere, as Coggins put it. But if you’re so narrowly focused on the transaction and not the transformation, not only are you wearing blinders, but you might also be sitting — quite literally — on an opportunity and not even realize it. To wit: Coggins relates a superb anecdote about an enlightened account executive accused of hoarding leads. After Coggins calls him in to address the allegations, the account exec sits down on a couch, admires its comfort and quality, flips over the cushion, identifies the maker, and scouts the company for prospects on the spot. No further questions needed. He wasn’t hoarding leads; he was just finding opportunities where others weren’t looking.

The authors say the baseline of their book is that “if you look for the good, you’ll find it” — beautiful, universal wisdom that we can all apply to our lives both on and off the clock. But for SAMs specifically, Coggins follows that up with the real kicker.

“If you want to be a great salesperson, people are looking for the good in you,” he said. “People are looking for the good in your product or your service or your ideas.”

People are looking for the good in you . How will you respond? With the authenticity of a trusted advisor seeking transformation? Or with a version of yourself reserved for transactional vendors?

Adapted from “Author Talks: How the most successful salespeople defy stereotypes,” published at McKinsey. com, by McKinsey Global Publishing’s Vanessa Burke. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-onbooks/author-talks-how-the-most-successful-salespeople-defystereotypes.

There’s a problem with most sales messaging...

Many sales organizations have excellent solutions but fall short in communicating their sales story, resulting in missed opportunities, longer sales cycles, and lost deals.

IS THERE A SOLUTION?

Our sales communication academy enhances professionals’ abilities to craft persuasive sales messages that engage audiences, drive action, and boost revenue.

This training will teach you how to design customer-centric, brain-aligned messaging; and how to deliver the sales conversation effectively, producing better outcomes.

EXECUTIVE MINDSET: AN OUTSIDE-IN ASSESSMENT ON CUSTOMER DISCOVERY, SOLUTION DEVELOPMENT, AND COMMUNICATION RELEVANT TO EXECUTIVES

SAMA Research partnered with FinListics to study their existing model that helps sales and strategic accounts organizations be more relevant to executive buyers. Through this study we collected practices from 93 companies defining how companies are executing discovery, solutions, and communication in terms of:

1. How often and where to look.

2. Effectiveness of solution-impact areas and communication-strategy areas.

3. What customer insights to use in the account planning process.

Companies With a Structured, Frequent Cadence of Customer Discovery and Customer Meetings Specific to Co-creation are Significantly More Effective When Expanding Customer Relationships

Within your top customers, how effective were you at expanding your customer relationships “higher, wider, and deeper” into new functional areas, business units, or key stakeholders? How

co-create innovation?

Almost 60% of respondents that were slightly or not-at-all effective at expanding customer relationships conduct customer discovery on an ad hoc/as needed basis.

Only 48% of respondents that were slightly or not-at-all effective at expanding customer relationships conduct meetings specifically to co-create innovation.

Nearly half of respondents that were very or extremely effective at expanding customer relationships conduct customer discovery quarterly.

77% of respondents that were very or extremely effective at expanding customer relationships conduct meetings specifically to co-create innovation.

How do great sales leaders set themselves apart?

‘Great’ in sales is easy to recognize. Win rates are higher. Deals are bigger. Cycles are faster. And customers reliably come back for more. But what’s not apparent is how?

At Altify, we reached out to top sales leaders to learn the secret to becoming ‘Not Just Another Vendor.’

| We collected their stories.

| Outlined their practices.

| And put these together into a book.

UplandSoftware.com/Altify/trusted-advisor

NEW SAMA MEMBER BENEFIT DRIVES INTERNAL ALIGNMENT AND EXECUTIVE SUPPORT TO ELEVATE STRATEGIC CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

By Betsy Westhafer CEO The Congruity Group

A recurring sentiment consistently expressed by strategic account managers (SAMs) is that they spend more time selling internally than they spend with their customers. In fact, SAMA research finds that SAMs spend 70% of their time selling internally and only 30% of their time with customers. Imagine the impact of reversing those percentages.

Furthermore, challenges in gaining executive support for engagement, product enhancements, and process improvements that impact the customer experience are often cited by SAMs regarding the barriers they experience in optimizing success in retaining and expanding their key accounts.

Helping members solve both of these challenges is a committed focus area for SAMA leadership, and as a result, SAMA is offering a new solution to identify and overcome the gaps that lead to misalignment, ineffective use of time, and competitive pressure.

The Customer Engagement Assessment™ and Customer Engagement Score™ are customized tools that accurately identify and measure areas in which organizations can improve their strategic engagement with customers, while also aligning internal teams and advancing executive support. The Customer Engagement Assessment is a methodical and

measurable approach that spotlights the current state of eight key areas that are critical to successful customer engagement:

• Customer-centric culture

• Commitment to customer engagement

• Customer engagement strategy

• Internal team alignment and engagement

• Co-innovation with customers

• Value add from customer engagement

• Customer engagement programs

• Customer advocacy

The Assessment is offered as an annual complimentary benefit for up to five senior leaders within SAMA’s corporate member organizations, and for up to three senior leaders from individual member companies. By taking the Assessment annually, participants have a consistent approach with benchmarks, ensuring progress is being made and collecting data to identify and mitigate any red flags that may appear on the horizon.

The importance of customer engagement metrics

Until now, it has been difficult to measure and monitor improvement with regard to strategic customer engagement. The Customer

Engagement Assessment provides a comprehensive Customer Engagement Score that serves as a baseline from which to build a more robust, strategic, and consistent approach to elevating customer engagement throughout an organization.

In addition, a score is provided for each of the eight focus areas (Figure 1), giving participants a micro view of where the current approach is working well and where improvement is most needed.

An in-depth, customized Report of Findings is included and outlines observations and recommendations for elevating the effectiveness within the eight focus areas.

SAMA has partnered with The Congruity Group, providers of strategic customer engagement programs, to offer this proprietary tool as a complimentary benefit of SAMA membership. Upon completion of the Assessment and delivery of the Report of Findings, The Congruity Group will schedule an executive briefing with participating organizations to review the report, answer questions, and offer strategic recommendations and next steps.

Marge Murphy, President of Acadia Lead Management Services, points to multiple benefits of taking the Assessment.

“As a service organization, customer retention is extremely important. We were looking for a tool that would challenge us to rethink and/or validate our strategy. The Assessment defined areas of strength but more importantly, opportunities for improvement. The results clearly stated observations and recommendations which enabled our team to align around the action plan.”

How the Assessment drives internal alignment

A key feature of the Customer Engagement Assessment is that all individual responses are kept confidential and shared only with the person completing it. This allows for participants to be open, honest, and transparent with their responses.

When multiple senior leaders within an organization complete the Assessment, the responses are aggregated to illustrate underlying trends and patterns across the participating organization. A graphical view is provided to quickly and easily identify areas in which there is alignment and misalignment among the participants. This visually illustrates the opportunities to focus conversations on areas that will help leadership teams better align and develop action plans that will elevate strategic customer engagement for greater impact, including retention and expansion of key accounts.

In the real-life example that follows, four senior leaders of an organization participated in the Assessment. In this illustration, the following statements were posed and participants were asked to rank their responses:

• We provide a forum for our key customer executives to see our long-term product roadmaps and provide perspectives so that we make accurate strategy decisions.

• We regularly engage our customers with regard to their future needs from our company so that we deliver what they want, how they want it, and when they want it.

There are three specific perspectives the Assessment is looking for within each statement:

1. Our organization has or does this.

2. Our organization does this consistently.

3. Our organization does this effectively.

As Figures 2 and 3 illustrate, there are some areas in which the majority of the participants are aligned, and some areas where no two participants answered in the same way. For example, when asked how effectively the organization regularly engages customers with regard to future needs, there is a definite disconnect among respondents. This presents

FIGURE 1. CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT SCORE SUMMARY

THE IMPORTANCE OF CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT METRICS

the opportunity to have an internal discussion to gain deeper insights into how the company can more effectively engage customers with regard to their future needs.

Who should take the Customer Engagement Assessment?

For maximum impact and to provide the greatest opportunity for executive support and internal alignment, the following roles are best positioned to participate in the Assessment:

• Chief Executive Officer

• Chief Marketing Officer

• Chief Revenue Officer

• Product Leader

• Highest-producing SAM

Having this cross-functional approach helps ensure that various perspectives are considered. For example, helping the C-suite align around what the SAMs are hearing directly from customers while at the same time helping SAMs understand the strategic impact with regard to the CEO’s priorities and investments is the holy grail when it comes to organizational alignment. It will also help identify blind spots that are impacting the customer experience and bring those to light for the C-level as well as the new business and retention sales leaders.

CEOs who have mastered customer engagement are referred to as Growth Champions in research conducted by Noel Capon and Christoph Senn. Their research notes that these executives are deeply engaged at the strategic level with their key accounts and commit to a regular cadence of meetings that are marked by in-depth business discussions. Capon and Senn note that this type of strategic engagement requires a robust investment and is not feasible for all customers.

Relative to other levels of executive engagement (Figure 4 on page 18),

Growth Champions have the highest five-year compound annual growth rates for sales and profitability. They live by the mantra “We love long-term customer success.”

The C-suite is ultimately responsible for growing the organization. Bringing this Assessment to your executive leaders helps them identify how they can best engage with customers

Our organization has/does this: We regularly engage our customers with regard to their future needs from our company so that we deliver what they want, how they want it, when they want it.

Our organization has/does this: We provide a forum for our key customer executives to see our long-term product roadmaps and provide perspectives so that we make accurate strategy decisions.

FIGURE 3. CO-INNOVATION WITH CUSTOMERS

FIGURE 2. CO-INNOVATION WITH CUSTOMERS

FIGURE 4. REAPING THE REWARDS

Comparing the five-year compound annual growth rates for sales and profits at the 515 companies in a study by Capon and Senn shows the gains realized by Social Visitors, Dealmakers, and especially Growth Champions.

likely is not being leveraged or used by your competitors.

How to take the Customer Engagement Assessment

To get started, go to thecongruitygroup.com/SAMA/assessment to learn more and to register the participating members of your organization. SAMA is excited to offer this new membership benefit and strongly encourages you and your colleagues to take advantage of this impactful tool.

COMING SOON!

to accelerate sales and profitability, while at the same time supporting the efforts of the SAM responsible for the account.

How the Customer Engagement Assessment creates competitive advantage

Strategic account management works best when the teams are aligned and customers are properly engaged. It’s just that simple. Having a tool to ensure that your organization is flying in formation and functioning at the most strategic levels of engagement is the best insurance against competitive forces. This is best performed with consistent monitoring of key performance indicators that the Customer Engagement Assessment and Score provide. It’s a unique and valuable approach that is a benefit to you as a SAMA member that

In addition to being able to obtain a 180° view of your internal strategic customer engagement performance, you will also have the opportunity to increase that view to 360° by soliciting similar feedback directly from your strategic accounts. This will allow your team to align around how your customers view your engagement with them in the same eight focus areas. Customized reports will be generated, delivering a market-validated roadmap for strategic customer engagement as well as a powerful competitive advantage. n

Betsy Westhafer is the CEO of The Congruity Group, a consultancy that focuses exclusively on strategic customer engagement programs. Betsy is the co-author of the #1 bestseller, “The Rarest Advantage: How to Co-Create Strategic Value to Retain and Grow Your Key Customer Accounts.” She is also the co-host of the REALLY Know Your Customer podcast, named one of the “Top 15 Customer Retention Podcasts on the Web” by Feedspot. Betsy can be reached at 937-550-1701 or at betsy@thecongruitygroup.com.

INCLUDED IN THE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT ASSESSMENT:

3 Comprehensive customer engagement score

3 Engagement scores for each of the 8 focus areas

3 Customized Report of Findings, including observations and recommendations

3 30-minute review of your report and results with a Congruity Engagement Strategist

Hands-Off Loose Cannon Social Visitor Dealmaker Growth Champion

Reproduced with permission from Noel Capon

THR EE REASONS WHY WE M AY BE A GOOD F IT :

#1 E NOUGH W ITH F LUFF

Our work is 100% custom to you and focused on how to:

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•Against your actual competitors

•Given actual verbatim tactics from your customers

# 2 WE CALL B.S.

Negotiation has long been thought of as unpredictable and hard to measure. Our approach is different. Our research (yes, we have proof) shows that buyer tactics are 97% predictable and fall into two categories.

#3 H OLD U S A CCOUNTABLE

• Documented case studies that show 466% average ROI for our clients.

• Clients include Google, Microsoft, FedEx, across 47 countries over 17 years.

It’s all we do. And we’re good at it.

If you like our approach, let’s jump on a call or drop me a note to discuss.

Brian Dietmeyer Founder & CEO of Think! Inc.

ENGAGE INTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS EARLY AND OFTEN

By Adrian Davis President and CEO Whetstone Inc. Principal Partner The Summit Group

Our global economy is experiencing seismic shifts from forces which are beyond our control. Amid this ongoing evolution, one thing remains evidently clear: the importance of strategic account management has never been greater. To stay relevant amid this shifting marketplace, we must consider the driving factors of such change.

Automation

Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence are making it possible to automate many jobs that were previously done by humans. This has the potential to make many businesses irrelevant if they are unable to adapt and compete with the increased efficiency and lower costs of automated systems.

Digital disruption

The rise of digital technology has already disrupted many industries, from music and media to retail and finance. As more businesses adopt digital technologies and shift to online platforms, traditional brick-andmortar businesses may struggle to keep up.

Climate change

Climate change is expected to have a significant impact on the economy in the coming decades, particularly in industries that rely on fossil fuels or contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses that are unable to adapt to new environmental regulations and shifting consumer preferences for sustainable products and services may become irrelevant.

Globalization

The increasing interconnectedness of the global economy has made it easier for businesses to operate across borders and reach new markets. However, it has also increased competition and put pressure on businesses to adapt to changing consumer demands and preferences in different regions.

Demographic shifts

As the population ages and becomes more diverse, businesses will need to adapt to changing consumer preferences and behaviors. This may require new products, services, and marketing strategies that cater to different categories of consumer.

Inflation

Significant amounts of money had to be printed during the pandemic. On top of that, many businesses closed their doors forever. The combination of increased circulation of money and a decrease in supply resulted in inflation. This has been exacerbated by repeated banking failures, which also fuel inflation.

As players in every industry grapple to come to terms with these and other adversarial forces, they will have to acknowledge that they cannot address these significant issues by themselves. Increasingly, they will turn to suppliers that have the expertise and resources to co-create with them.

The importance of internal stakeholder involvement

The caliber of strategic account managers that we have trained over the past decade is impressive. These SAMs are intelligent, creative, and highly motivated. They face the challenge of increasing external stakeholder involvement in their initiatives, with the added complexity of fostering these relationships with empathy, determination, and commitment.

However, many SAMs are unprepared for one of the most pressing challenges: increasing involvement with internal stakeholders. Many express frustration, exasperation, and disappointment when, after aligning external stakeholders around a new, creative initiative, they are met with internal roadblocks. On multiple occasions, I’ve heard SAMs state, “It’s harder to sell to my own company than it is to sell to my client!” Whenever this statement is expressed within a class, it is met with immediate support from the other participants.

Part of the reason for this exasperation is the growing

complexity of organizations. Multiple re-organizations, matrix configurations, and global cooperation between branches add to the complexity. However, we can’t place all the blame on the complexity of our organizations. We must accept some of the blame for at least three reasons:

1. We don’t treat our own organization as a strategic account.

2. We don’t proactively sell to our internal stakeholders with the same level of discipline as we do to external stakeholders.

3. We tend to think of internal stakeholders as an afterthought. We desperately seek their approval when we are about to cross the finish line.

If we added our own organization as one of our strategic accounts, it would be natural for us to apply the discipline of strategic account management to our own organization. This would immediately result in us lining up our internal stakeholders at the starting line rather than desperately reaching out to them at the finish line. As we proactively engage them, we would also learn what’s important to them and how including their different perspectives will enable us to develop robust solutions that are not overengineered, that don’t deplete our company’s profitability, and that advance our company’s strategic objectives.

Risks of neglecting internal stakeholders

When SAMs approach internal stakeholders as an afterthought, they face the following risks:

1. Developing initiatives that excite their customers, but are misaligned with their own company’s strategic objectives.

2. Developing initiatives that excite their customers, but which are overengineered and are not mutually profitable.

3. Creating unnecessary friction and resistance because internal stakeholders do not have sufficient time to understand the initiative. Buy-in is almost impossible at this point because of the disrespect the internal stakeholder experiences by not being consulted earlier.

4. Missed opportunities to align internal and external stakeholders.

5. Missed opportunities to identify additional creative initiatives.

6. Damaging internal relationships by being perceived as disrespectful and reckless.

7. Damaging external relationships by setting expectations

that cannot be met and demonstrating that they don’t have the influence within their organization that is required to advance creative initiatives.

8. Increasing the probability of implementation failures by not having cross-functional support for their solution.

Practical approaches for SAMs to engage internal stakeholders

Engaging internal stakeholders is crucial to ensure the successful outcome of co-creation initiatives. Here are some practical approaches to engage internal stakeholders in these initiatives.

1. SAMs should foster a culture of internal collaboration and rigorous debate. This includes creating an environment where internal stakeholders can freely express their opinions, share their perspectives, and challenge each other’s assumptions. This approach enables the SAM to leverage the collective wisdom of their internal stakeholders and ensure that everyone is working toward a common goal.

2. Engage internal stakeholders at the beginning of the

co-creation process. This is critical to ensuring their buy-in and commitment to the process. Early involvement allows stakeholders to provide feedback on the proposed transaction, identify potential risks, and offer suggestions for improvement. It also helps to build trust and transparency among stakeholders.

3. Prioritize internal stakeholder involvement based upon their level of influence and level of interest. Not all internal stakeholders need or want the same level of engagement. Some you need to actively collaborate with, while others will be satisfied by simply keeping them informed.

4. Align your initiatives with your company’s strategic objectives as well as your customer’s strategic objectives. Ensure that you leverage the insights of internal stakeholders in order to shape the terms and conditions of your agreement. As the SAM, take the responsibility of ensuring your initiatives create a win-win situation, to set up your strategic relationship for success in the long run.

5. Leverage your internal stakeholders to prevent the overengineering of your solutions. Overengineered solutions can lead to unnecessary costs, delays, and inefficiencies. SAMs should focus on developing practical solutions that are easy to implement and deliver mutual benefits to both parties.

In conclusion, customers are going to be looking to their suppliers for greater assistance as they face more demanding challenges in an uncertain economy. Waiting until the last minute to engage internal stakeholders is a recipe for disaster. On the other hand, engaging internal stakeholders early puts SAMs in an increasingly strong position to co-create value not only for their customers but also for their companies. SAMs should, therefore, adopt a collaborative approach, and treat their own companies as a strategic account and involve internal stakeholders early, often, and in meaningful ways. These practical approaches can help SAMs to achieve successful outcomes in large co-creation transactions and build stronger relationships with their stakeholders. n

Adrian Davis is President and CEO of Whetstone Inc, a SAMA faculty member, and a Principal Partner of The Summit Group. Contact Adrian at adavis@whetstoneinc.ca or connect with him on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/adriandavis

THE PRACTICE OF ACCOUNT PLANNING

By Nigel Cullington VP of Marketing Upland Altify

In the digital age, it can sometimes seem out of touch to say that the human touch is the most valuable aspect of a B2B sales interaction. However, increased digitalization has, if anything, heightened the need for sellers. In fact, recent Forrester studies have found that not only is face-to-face selling on the rise post-pandemic, but buyers are more likely to turn to face-toface, in-person meetings and rely more heavily on sellers when sales are large and complex.

The most important deals rely on relationships. Building those relationships starts with a strong foundation in account planning practices

for the entire revenue team.

Sadly, many businesses haven’t caught up. For many, the world of sales looks much like what it did many years ago, where relationships resembled something much more akin to a hunt, instead of relationships based on the reciprocal exchange of value.

With sales cultures so deeply entrenched in a “hunter vs. prey” mindset, it can be daunting for a sales leader to even attempt to overcome this obstacle and switch to a customer-centric mindset.

How sales leaders can go beyond being just another vendor to build trust and grow revenue

Luckily, it’s not impossible. In fact, it’s as easy or difficult as a change in mindset.

The era of lone wolves — what selling used to look like

Have you been to a used car lot lately? The old world of B2B sales used to look a lot like the kind of behavior you are likely to experience there. Sellers were encouraged to “hunt” — they were the wolves; buyers were their prey.

In a world rife with buying groups of more than 10 individuals (according to Gartner), and most of the buying journey happening outside of the seller’s direct involvement, it’s almost absurd to imagine B2B sellers still functioning this way. This is for several reasons:

• A lone-wolf approach works best in one-on-one sales situations. However, enterprise-level sales are rarely done oneon-one.

• Buyers are more discerning, meaning they are not likely to trust the “hunter” who simply puts together a proposal based on basic information and fires it over.

• With limited interactions with the buyer in comparison to the full buying journey, sellers need to prioritize understanding buyers and their challenges, and work together with a team. Given the disproportionate length of the buying cycle spent apart from the seller, they need to maximize their time with the buyer.

As absurd as this “lone-wolf” mindset is, it is still prevailing in many organizations. To succeed in the practice of account planning, however, sellers must put this approach behind them once and for all. Instead, they must seek to put

their relationships at the heart and center of everything they do.

Selling is all about relationships

In modern sales deals, it’s relationships that matter. When problems come down the line, it’s the quality of the relationship that gets the seller that coveted phone call from a buyer who needs advice. Through building a trusted advisor status with your account, sellers can make relationships that matter and drive revenue as a byproduct of their effort.

Making the transition to a relationshipcentric sales model, however, takes a monumental shift akin to seeing the world as the center of the universe one day, and the next day seeing a spinning orb moving through the universe at incredible speeds.

Sales leaders, therefore, need to get buy-in not only from the revenue team, but from the leadership team, as well, before moving forward with account planning, or else, like Galileo, they could end up on the short end of this big revelation, instead of being heralded as a prime example of what good looks like.

With that in mind, sales leaders need to consider a few integral steps as they move toward becoming trusted advisors. The first step has to do with teamwork.

It takes a revenue team to build an effective account planning practice

Speaking of those large buying groups — what does their prevalence mean for sellers?

For starters, it means sellers need to be a lot smarter about how they target accounts. It means they need to truly understand their accounts — most of all the people, problems, and politics in them.

But before they can move to build those relationships, their own house must be in order. This means gathering the entire revenue team and getting them oriented behind sellers on a multi-armed approach to sales. Doing this starts with the account plan.

What is a revenue team?

We talk about revenue teams a lot, and their importance. But

not everyone is familiar with this term or concept. It is crucial to fully grasp the idea of the revenue team before getting too deep into how sellers can tackle the deals that truly matter.

Simply speaking, a revenue team is a team of professionals across different functions all banded together to work toward the common goal of driving revenue. This means that instead of different departments working in disparate silos, every function is part of a greater whole aimed at generating mutual success. This includes people in sales, customer success, marketing, and other customer-facing roles. As they work together on account plans, they begin to function cohesively as a team, consistently and reliably arming sellers with everything they need to make the most of their relatively limited time with potential buyers and existing customers.

A few core tenets of your revenue team include:

• Effective coaching for sellers: Making relationships a priority starts at the internal level. Sellers need top-notch coaching and mentorship as they work through deals.

• Collaboration: It’s often been said that the difference between a good account plan and a great one is collaboration. Therefore, regular collaboration on account plans between sellers, leaders, and customer success and marketing teams is vital to tackling accounts as one cohesive revenue team.

• Sales enablement: As teams work through their account plans together, they can begin to strategize on ways to effectively support sellers through content, sales enablement, customer success stories, and added training.

The moments you get with buyers are few — use them wisely

One of the reasons it’s so important to have a revenue team behind you is what you’re up against. Did you know that, according to Gartner, a meager 17% of the buying cycle is spent with the seller? As digital channels have grown and become more robust, there is more and more ample information to be gleaned about a solution without spending time with a seller.

This doesn’t devalue the seller. What it does mean, however, is that the seller is under immense pressure to deliver impactful interactions every time they interact with a customer.

With so little time spent with the seller, the idea that a lone wolf is going to single-handedly tackle a buyer, bag them, and bring them back on their own through sheer power of will is almost laughable. We don’t want that. Instead, we want a scalable, repeatable account planning practice to build meaningful relationships and grow and retain revenue. This is impossible

without a revenue team and without the right tools and methodologies to collaborate on account plans when it counts.

Account planning as a team starts with understanding your own people

Massive shifts in mindset can seldom be effective in a vacuum. That’s why a fundamental aspect of making the leap to relationship-centric selling is getting buy-in from the greater team at the highest level. One of the stories in our upcoming book, “Not Just Another Vendor,” focuses on the power of buy-in, and how important it is to get everyone, even the CEO, behind you as you roll out your account-based selling program.

Not everyone will be on board right away. Remember, a sales leader bringing an account planning practice into being within their organization is telling the Renaissance world that the globe revolves around the sun.

In our stories, you will see how sales leaders often face a good deal of adversity from their own internal team members as they try to guide them through this momentous change.

What are the strategies they took to overcome this hesitancy?

One sales leader we highlight in the book is Eddie Pyrtle, Sales Excellence: Value Selling Coach at Qlik Technologies. Eddie took a unique approach to this issue. Instead of bulldozing everyone into getting them to collaborate on account plans, he sought to understand what was causing the hesitancy of the seller or team member.

And by taking this approach, he was able to turn the ship around and head them toward more profitable waters.

It’s not easy to take your sales teams from a pack of lone wolves and turn them into a revenue team, but it is possible. And much like seeking to understand the people and problems in target accounts, it starts with understanding the issues your people are facing first and foremost.

“Account planning is a journey,” Pyrtle says.

Through building meaningful relationships, you can establish yourself as a trusted advisor

Ultimately, there is one thing sellers need to seek above everything — even the deal!

That one thing is to establish themselves as trusted advisors to their customers — both prospective and existing.

Relationships are the currency through which this trusted

advisor’s status is achieved, and solving problems is how that currency is made.

To solve the challenges of multiple buyers within your account, however, you first need to uncover their biggest problems. And this is anything but easy. As we mentioned earlier, it takes collaboration between multiple stakeholders, data, technology, and methodology to get this done.

It also takes one thing far more valuable than anything else: time. It takes time to map the political structure hidden behind the organizational chart. But that time is well spent. Top sellers uncover influence in all kinds of ways, both from the information they can gain from each other as well and through behindthe-scenes insights only contacts in the account would know.

To make this shift in mindset, sellers must ask themselves a few questions. These include:

• Who matters?

• How do they think?

• What is the current relationship?

• What is the relationship gap?

• How can that gap be bridged?

• What goals, pressures, initiatives, and obstacles are top of mind for key players?

• How do our solutions solve the key challenges facing the account?

Armed with this information, revenue teams can begin their arduous but integral journey to becoming strategic partners to those with whom they want to do business.

Prioritize relationships and become a trusted advisor

We’ve covered a lot of ground here and have seen the challenges and benefits of building impactful relationships with prospective and existing customers. To add even more color, these are the specific benefits companies and sellers can hope to gain from delivering on a cohesive account planning practice.

• Better relationships: Buyers don’t want to be treated transactionally. They want and need the human touch to make complex purchasing decisions. Account planning helps with that — seeing the deal as an opportunity to add value.

• Achieve trusted advisor status: Through account planning, sellers can establish themselves as trusted advisors to their accounts, enabling them to be seen not just as another vendor. This way, when the big calls come in, they are invited into the inner circle to help.

• More revenue: As you can see, putting the relationship first — ahead of everything else in the sale — leads to more revenue as a byproduct. As sellers seek to understand their accounts, get to know the people within them, and earn that place at the strategy table, more revenue follows.

It’s never been a better time to put relationships at the heart of everything your revenue team does and establish account planning as a daily practice. As face-to-face selling becomes once again the go-to way for buyers to make complex B2B purchases, relationships are once again king and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. As you seek to build what “good” looks like in account planning, our upcoming book, “Not Just Another Vendor,” will be your consummate companion, guiding you through what real sales leaders from major organizations are doing to instill account planning practices for today and tomorrow. n

Nigel Cullington is VP of Marketing at Upland Altify. Connect with Nigel on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/nigelcullington.

DEVELOPING AMAZING SAMs AT AIRBUS DEFENCE AND SPACE

By Edmund Bradford Managing Director Market2Win Ltd and Andreas

Head

Airbus is known for its aircraft, but it also works with customers such as the European Space Agency to build satellites and spacecraft. To better serve its customers, the company recently adapted the training of its key account managers (KAMs). It now has a three-stage development program which utilizes external experts and has a final simulation-based level.

Airbus is a leader in designing, manufacturing, and delivering aerospace products, services, and solutions to customers worldwide. It is the largest aeronautics and space company in Europe with around 130,000 employees. It is at the forefront of the aviation industry and has about half of all the global commercial airliner orders. Many people reading this will have flown on an Airbus aircraft.

However, in addition to commercial aircraft, it also operates in the helicopter, defense, and space sectors. Airbus Defence and Space is a division within Airbus which provides commercial and defence solutions across land, air, sea, space, and cyber. These solutions are sold to governments, institutions, and agencies around the world. Key accounts include space agencies, military procurement agencies, and corporations (for example, needing cybersecurity solutions).

Airbus Defence and Space has approximately 250 KAMs looking after all its key accounts of different sizes. All accounts require a high degree of cross-KAM, crossfunctional, cross-enterprise, and international collaboration.

A new approach — the Airbus Defence and Space KAM Program

The introduction of KAM in 2018 was mandated across Airbus Defence and Space. There was an additional push on the program when Airbus Commercial Aircraft jumped on board in 2019.

Airbus Defence and Space reviewed the SAMA approach to program design as part of an early benchmarking exercise. It found the SAMA approach provided some major advantages compared with other methodologies. First, it was a perfect match with the established sales methodology of “Capture Management” as recommended by the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP). It

Pilz

of KAM Program

Airbus Defence and Space

also emphasized the importance of outcome management, which embraces the whole value chain of a company. It provided “offthe-shelf” support using best industry practices and trainers. It was agreed that a long-term, phased approach should be undertaken:

• Phase 1: An “as-is” analysis with a “Liquid Team.” This was a small task force of volunteers who had been approved to contribute to the program. The Liquid Team developed the first set of key account plans (KAPs) and laid the foundation of the “KAP Template.”

• Phase 2: A “to-be” definition of new ways of working, including what training and coaching was needed to turn KAMs acting as regional sales managers into strategic account managers (SAMs).

• Phase 3: The development of an effective KAM process that defines new ways of working as part of the business management system.

• Phase 4: Coaching of the KAMs on how to improve and deliver the KAPs before rollout of the process to a broader set of KAMs.

Phases 1 to 3 are now largely complete, and Phase 4 is currently underway.

The Three-Stage KAM Development Model

A key output from the first two phases was a ThreeStage KAM Development Model (see below). This provided the development pathway for KAMs from foundation to advanced levels.

KAM1 Training aims to develop a common and strong foundation across the KAMs. A tangible outcome of this so-called “workbench” is a ready-to-use KAP, which can immediately be acted upon, regardless of coming refinements. It is delivered in a two-day online workshop using instructorled training in a virtual classroom provided by the Pro Sales Academy in Brüggen, Germany.

KAM2 Coaching is focused on individual coaching of the KAMs using the current talent across the business. It takes a multilevel, multi-peer approach using trained coaches and peer support both across KAM teams and within KAM teams. In preparation for the sessions, the KAMs are asked to identify a major challenge they have experienced in implementing the KAPs. Using a specific format, each challenge is then presented to the peers. Using a structured process, the peers develop new ideas and concepts to overcome the challenge. The presenting KAM then makes a commitment to implement the agreed actions. Finally, the KAMs present the plans to their peers. Again, using a structured process, the presenting KAM and the peers develop a variety of activities to improve the situation with the target KAM. This training is provided by NewLeaf Partners Europe GmbH, in Dreieich, Germany.

KAM3 Advanced aims to elevate KAMs to an advanced level of competency. It uses a simulation combined with coaching by a trainer to learn and practice how to be a true SAM. This training is provided by provided by Market2Win Ltd in Alcester, UK.

• When operating an account, how do I mine it?

• How can I turn my relationship with my account into qualified sales opportunities?

• Once I develop a KAP, how can peer coaching help improve it?

• How can I use my KAM team and my project teams to generate additional insights?

• What is a key account plan (KAP)?

• How do I create and use relevant insights about chances to win and generate impact?

FIGURE 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE AIRBUS THREE-STAGE KAM DEVELOPMENT MODEL

KAM3: Using the SAM2Win simulation to develop advanced skills

Being strategic is important for all leaders. As Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood wrote in a famous 2007 Harvard Business Review article, “Building a Leadership Brand,” “Leaders must master strategy; they need to have a point of view about the future and be able to position the firm for continued success with customers.” KAMs are no exception and need to do this for their key accounts. For firms to achieve this — and for some managers, to deserve their title of strategic account manager — they need to be good at strategic thinking (listed as a key competency by SAMA).

Andreas and his Defence and Space team asked SAMA for their support. Libby Souder, SAMA’s Director of Knowledge, Certification & Training, recommended the SAM2Win simulation by Market2Win Ltd. Market2Win has been a longterm collaborator with SAMA, and it was important that the KAM3 training was consistent with the SAMA model and language embedded in the KAM1 and KAM2 training.

The SAM2Win simulation is an online game that has been used by SAMA, universities, and corporations to teach advanced account management. Participants compete in teams where each team represents one of five suppliers, selling to a single, large key account. At the end of the program, the team that makes the most profit is declared the winner. There are several advantages of an online game. Most importantly,

it allows participants to practice the ideas and therefore build their skills in the topic. You would not get in a car with someone that had only read how to drive, yet we expect account managers to drive strategic relationships from reading books on the subject.

It was agreed that a “pilot” exercise be undertaken over four weeks at the end of 2022. Its objectives were to demonstrate the course, explore key areas of the learning, understand the course being offered, and assess how to deliver a full course successfully.

It was carefully crafted to include participants from different areas of the business in different locations. This included participants from Airbus Commercial Aircraft and Airbus Helicopters, and included KAMs, sales managers, and other senior commercial staff plus learning and development staff drawn from across Europe and the Middle East.

The approach was to combine instructor-led training with webinars, gameplay, coaching, team exercises, and reflective learning (see below).

Typically, each decision round consisted of the competing teams reviewing their performance (which included feedback from Market2Win), instructor-led input on new account management tools to use in the new decision round, a team discussion on the future account strategy, updates to the account plan, and then execution of the plan in the simulation. The coaching sessions provided an additional opportunity for the

Team Coaching Calls Summary Webinar

FIGURE 2. SAM2WIN PROGRAM OUTLINE (ACTUAL)

teams to engage with the instructors directly and discuss how to apply the learnings to their real account challenges.

The results were impressive. A post-training online survey was issued to the participants, which highlighted the following:

• 100% said it helped with their communication of customerfocused strategy.

• 87% said it improved their commercial and strategic leadership, plus increased team collaboration across the business.

• 75% of the respondents said it improved their knowledge of key tools of KAM, helped them to find additional account business, transition from products to services, solutions, and projects — and avoid RFP shocks.

• There was also a clear upward shift in self-rated KAM skills ratings from OK/Good to Good/Very Good.

As a result of the positive feedback, the simulation-based training will be included in the Airbus learning catalog and made available across the company.

Three quotes from participants highlight the key lessons learned.

1. The importance of focusing hard on the right sales opportunities: “Develop a clear strategy of what you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it and what you will NOT do.”

2. Borrowing brilliance from marketing strategy led to new ways of approaching account management: “Segmentation was key. Other useful tools and principles [were] targeting, positioning, structured analysis and customer approach.”

3. The importance of anticipating the future: “Anticipation is the key for success; the better the understanding of future market developments and corresponding customer motivations, the better the strategy and business success.”

These fit nicely into SAMA’s definition of strategic thinking, which states that it is “the process of developing a clear and winnable strategy…,” going “beyond conventional modes of thinking…,” imagining “different ways of strengthening the relationship…,” and “making decisions regarding resource allocation to ensure deliverables and including where not to invest resources.”

Benefits

The Airbus Defence and Space KAM Program has already provided significant benefits to the business. These include:

• Better continuity in the customer relationships.

• More consistency across the business in how key customers are managed.

• A clearer learning and development path for KAMs.

• Better training of KAMs to handle key strategic challenges such as understanding future customer needs, predicting competitor behavior, and choosing the best opportunities on which to focus.

• Acceptance that KAM is not a short-term sale but a longterm commitment by employees, customers, and companies.

• A considerable amount of knowledge which helps the company to ensure continuity of the business and consistency of its proposals, beyond the great individual customer insights of the account planning process itself.

• Increased lead generation through better mining of the account for new leads.

The future

Airbus will continue to improve the KAM program in the years to come. Work is currently underway to develop a new training level, KAM4, which will be focused on sales leadership. There will also be a more seamless path from KAM1 to KAM4 and better integration between KAM training and other trainings (for example, current sales training). KAM training will also be used for broader commercial leadership, for example, in using SAM2Win to develop broad strategic thinking skills across all the commercial teams. The program also aims to go deeper in the four key home countries.

Be an agile pilot

The future of the program draws inspiration from one of Airbus’s products: “The Eurofighter Typhoon” — the world’s most advanced swing-role combat aircraft, which provides simultaneously deployable air-to-air and air-to-surface capabilities.

There are a number of collateral lessons here which Airbus Defence and Space will strive to achieve in the future:

1. Fly straight and level: This means operating in a stable condition and being able to respond effectively to unforeseen challenges. By responding this way, businesses can both protect their current value and focus on increasing it.

2. Maintain a state of situational awareness: Transparency and visibility is critical for companies in the digital age to make the right decisions at the right time. By creating an unobstructed view, businesses can see where they are heading. In the cockpit of the Typhoon, pilots always have optimum situational awareness.

3. Set a clear destination: A fighter aircraft crew has a clear mission, a detailed plan, and objectives for a successful outcome. In KAM1 to KAM3 we at Airbus train our KAMs to identify key waypoints that must be hit. In business, the path to a destination is never a straight line but is clearly communicated to the teams involved along the customer pathway. In business, the requirement to be profitable is a given, like a pilot returning safely, but there also needs to be a higher purpose. These are the essential focus elements in every key account plan.

4. Maintain a continuous feedback loop: Pilots are always debriefed after missions and given feedback to the home base, which determines the safety of future assignments. Businesses should also continuously challenge their own performance, whether this is through employee and/ or customer surveys, online reviews, or other means.

5. Deliver one joined-up truth: Flying the aircraft is incredibly demanding, and only elite pilots are recruited. The pilot’s decision-making on how they fly the aircraft is critical and based on a single, unambiguous set of data presented to them in the cockpit. With a streamlined and joined-up approach, businesses can make better decisions based on one set of reliable first-hand information, which also enables better communication with customers.

The Airbus Defence and Space KAM program has shown that organizations can balance agility and long sales cycles with hard financial goals. In this, there are lessons for all SAM/GAM/KAM program managers.

Put simply, if you want real and lasting KAM success, be an “agile pilot” with a clear task and mission. n

Edmund Bradford is Managing Director at Market2Win Ltd. He can be reached at e.bradford@market2win.com.

Andreas Pilz is the Head of KAM Program at Airbus Defence and Space. He can be reached at linkedin.com/ in/andipilz. NewLeaf Partners can be reached at ago@ newleafpartners.com. Pro Sales Academy can be reached at sr@prosalesacademy.com.

or Thrive

Survive…

In our AI-enabled, omnichannel world, how organizations and people collaborate, learn, engage customers, and co-create value has never mattered more… and will never be the same

Our Transforming Sales: Business-to-Business Value CoCreation research and doctoral journey into the past, present, and future of strategic selling revealed insights into how organizations and people can develop “fit for the future” sales and account management capacity and capabilities

We invite you to join us in the upcoming SAMA Webinars* and/or contact us to explore the research insights we uncovered and discuss their implications for your organization, you, and your team Phil

DIGITAL SALES ROOMS: HYPE OR REALITY?

By Anne Slough Principal Analyst, Sales Operations Strategies Forrester

In 2001, Apple launched the first iPod. Able to store 1,000 songs, it revolutionized how listeners stored and transported music. No longer did listeners need to carry bulky CDs and portable CD players. Then, in 2010, the first iPad was unveiled. The value seemed much less clear. Why would someone use an iPad versus a laptop? Usage revealed the value. It was lighter, smaller, and easier to transport. Then, in 2015, Apple introduced the Apple Watch in conjunction with the iPhone 6. Why would anyone need an iPhone and an Apple Watch? Based upon the hype surrounding the watch, I bought one for my son, and now he says he can’t live without it.

Besides creating innovative products, Apple has created a user ecosystem for those products, one that maximizes the value of the product. Operating outside of the ecosystem complicates the user experience and creates friction. Users often evangelize and refer these products to others, which encourages adoption and brings new users into the ecosystem. Digital sales rooms (DSRs) function a lot like this. Understanding the value of DSRs is most readily realized by using these spaces, but there is a lot of hype surrounding the benefits and capabilities of DSRs.

What are digital sales rooms?

Digital sales rooms are centralized locations or microsites where sales reps and buyers can collaborate. Sellers co-create value and create transparency throughout the sales process by interacting within these digital spaces. Alignment is fostered, throughout each stage of the buyer-seller process, by checking for agreement and determining next best actions/steps.

How do DSRs function?

Digital sales rooms offer a one-stop shop for seller and buyers to interact — a place where all buyer and seller motions are captured. Within these digital rooms, sellers can create branded experiences that offer buyers secure access to personalized content, such as videos, mutual action plans, chat platforms, and calendars that enable a buyer-centric experience. Sellers, then, can see how and when the buyer (or prospect) engages with these unique pieces of content, and use those insights to tailor their strategies. Bottom line, DSRs help

sellers adapt to their customer’s interests and address their needs more quickly, so they can secure more sales in less time.

What’s the hype?

DSR vendors lavishly advertise the potential benefits. They tout the ability to provide buyers with “white-glove” experiences, a frictionless buyer journey, and rooms chock-full of hyper-relevant content. For sellers, DSRs claim to be “instant setup,” allowing them to maintain control of the sales process and create instant and ongoing transparency throughout the sales process. This allows sellers to win more deals, faster. For sales leaders and sales operations, DSRs claim to offer detailed insights around buyer preferences (e.g., the best content to provide at each stage to advance a deal) and to leverage AI to recommend next best actions for sellers and key insights.

What problems can DSRs solve?

When deployed effectively, DSRs can solve three main problems.

1. Substandard buyer experience: Buyers are often frustrated by and disengage with the sales process because of repetitive content sharing — receiving dozens of communications (e.g., emails, files, PowerPoint presentations) and experiencing inconsistent branding across the buying group. DSRs offer appealing, accessible, and tailored personalized experiences.

2. Inefficient sales: Buyers are recipients of poorly coordinated sales experiences because sellers have little to no insight into the buying group and each stakeholder’s desired outcomes, which elongates a repetitive and manual sales process that can jeopardize the deal. DSRs create a shared visibility into the buyer-seller process. This integrated approach amplifies the impact of each sales activity.

3. Lackluster insights: Despite a robust sales tech stack that promises to offer sellers opportunity and level insights on accounts and stakeholders, the promise of aligned and robust insights has yet to be fully realized. DSRs, by coordinating

and orchestrating the buyer and seller journey in one portal, can offer real-time engagement insights, with the potential to offer insights regarding correlation of activities to outcomes. Sales activities like forecasting become based on buyer action, not seller opinion. According to Forrester’s B2B buying studies spanning 2015 to 2021, the total number of interactions during the purchase process increased from 17 to 27 and the purchase timeframe of four months or more increased from 19% to 32%.

Which organizations benefit most from DSRs?

While there isn’t one type of organization that would benefit from DSRs, or one single set of success factors, common threads of application emerge when considering how and where a DSR can be of use.

• Long, complex buying cycles: Organizations whose sales cycles are characterized by large buying groups, multi-person sales teams, and significant revenue generated from existing customers.

• Process reinforcement: Organizations that hire large numbers of new sales reps and/or need to reinforce new sales processes or sales methodologies.

• Personalized experiences: Customers/buyers that cite personalized experiences as instrumental in the decision process, partners that extend the organization’s reach, and customers with shorter buying cycles but a need for personalization.

What are the barriers to DSR implementation?

Don’t assume that “if you build it, they will come.” DSRs change buyer-seller interactions and require support. Be sure to consider the following challenges.

• Shared ownership. Sellers and buyers must agree to adopt, use, and collaborate within the DSR. Otherwise, the value of DSRs becomes diluted.

• Privacy concerns. Increased privacy concerns and current/ impending privacy regulations may inhibit some buyers and sellers from fully using DSRs. Buyers and sellers need to feel confident that contracts, pricing, and other sensitive or confidential information and conversations are protected.

• Training and reinforcement. Sellers and buyers need to be acclimated to DSRs’ features, functions, and value. Without the proper onboarding and understanding of the rules of engagement within DSRs, buyers and sellers will not realize the value of the ecosystem.

• Marketing support and automation. Sellers need support from marketing, from both a content and insight/data perspective. Understanding the buying group, its preferences, and what content to supply at which stage of the sales process is an imperative for seller success.

• Clarifying customer benefits. Customer adoption and engagement are paramount to fully realizing DSR potential. Without a clear buyer understanding of the “what’s in it for me,” adoption and engagement will be low.

How can organizations get started with DSRs?

Four key steps can ensure success with DSR implementation.

Step 1: Start Strong. Understand buyer and seller motions. Map your buyer-seller sales process. Understand what activities, content, and knowledge your buyers need to move deals forward in the sales process, and then map your seller process accordingly. Once you have a clear understanding of the buyer-seller process, engage with your DSR vendor and work with your sales team to set up a DSR. Next, be sure that sales leaders are using DSRs and emulating the sales behaviors and processes that you want your sellers to replicate. Lead by example.

Step 2: Build for Success. Develop templates, microapps, activity maps, and content that mirror your buyer-seller process. Build upon the initial launch with repeatable processes and templates that will enable the adoption of DSRs by sellers and buyers. Ease of use is a strong factor in determining whether buyers and sellers choose to interact with DSRs.

Step 3: Reinforce. Front-line sales leaders are key drivers for DSR success. Ensure that sales leaders are coaching and reinforcing the usage of DSRs for each deal. Inspect what is expected.

Step 4: Capture Gains. Identify which metrics will determine success. Track before-and-after metrics on deal management and content usage. Track customer and rep satisfaction. Understand and track deal engagement for various sales scenarios and templates. Measure, analyze, and refine.

Like the iPod, iPad, and Apple Watch, the real value of digital sales rooms can best be understood by using them. Adoption rates will be key. As content creation and engagement become more robust, and as AI continues to improve its ability to provide impactful buyer and seller insights, DSRs will become foundational for buyers and sellers alike, and our understanding of the buyer journey will only increase. n

Anne Slough is Principal Analyst of Sales Operations Strategies at Forrester. She can be contacted at aslough@forrester.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/aslough/.

By Robert Box Managing Partner and Global Account Director Mercuri International

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE AUGMENTED SAM

The current and future application of AI for strategic account managers

To say that we are living in a time where artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly relevant is a masterpiece of understatement. The pace of development has been breathtaking, yet AI’s impact on jobs, industries, and society as a whole is only just beginning to be appreciated.

However, while it’s tempting to debate the full breadth of philosophical and ethical issues that AI — particularly generative AI — raises, it’s also useful to look at it at a more pragmatic level and ask, “What exactly can it do for my job, and what changes do I need to make to the way I think, if I’m going to benefit?”

In the world of sales, AI offers huge potential — and it could be what strategic account managers have been waiting for…if used correctly.

There are numerous articles on the history, technology, and recent developments in artificial intelligence; however, the SAM’s understanding of the term has become more nuanced, particularly over the last few months. At its core, AI basically consists of algorithms capable of (a) finding patterns in large datasets, and (b) training themselves to get “smarter” (increasing their predictive accuracy).¹

It is difficult to fully comprehend the impact of the exponential improvements of which AI is capable. What was just months ago a marginal use case can become very quickly useful and adopted — and mass adoption has

followed at a startling rate. As an example, the first chatbot was developed in 1966 at the MIT Artificial Intelligence laboratory and the term “generative AI” was coined in 1997, but it is not until recently that we have seen mass interest in applications of AI large language models (LLMs) due, perhaps, to the ease of interaction.

AI use by purchasers and competition

While AIs like ChatGPT or DALL-E 2 have grabbed the headlines, AI is not just limited to natural language processing and generative text models. There are many aspects of business where AI is and will be impacting strategic account managers. There are a multitude of companies that are pursuing AI — not only big tech, but also traditional companies and startups.

Your competition and customers are most likely working on their own AI strategy. In fact, we see purchasing departments at your strategic accounts using AI to make purchasing decisions, score vendor performance, and build predictive pricing models to apply in negotiations with you. When your purchasers are leveraging the latest technology and algorithms and you are not, you can see the importance of AI.

There are hundreds of technologies that are developing that will soon move past what Gartner Hype Cycle research calls the “trough of disillusionment” and become a

part of the way we do business. As with any major leap forward of technological development, SAMs need to prepare themselves for this inevitability, becoming familiar and comfortable with AI and working out how it can enhance their role, rather than replace it. This can be summarized in the often repeated phrase: AI will not replace you, people using AI will.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the current practical applications of AI in strategic account management.

Gain account insights

SAMs gather information on the account to gain insights and analyze information about the customer’s market, competitive situation, objectives, and needs. The best SAMs often have more information about the customer than the customer has themselves. With AI, SAMs can move to the next level with insights that even the customer does not have. AI tools to augment the SAM might include:

• Integration of AI in the sales process to streamline and optimize. For example, working with digital twins as a sales tool — a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object, relationship, or ecosystem.

• AI-powered coaching recommendations based on internal and external data.

• Using AI tools to crawl CRM systems and other customer data for predictive patterns.

• Social listening.

• Predicting customer behavior.

Set objectives & strategy

A SAM should create a sensible and sustainable strategy for strategic accounts, help develop the account plan, and build

buy-in across the organization. AI tools to augment the SAM might include:

• Embedded tools to predict strategic account growth areas.

• White spot analysis to identify gaps in the account approach.

• Natural language chatbot interface to gain instant access to customer information with which to build the account plan.

Manage relationships

SAMs ensure consistent and meaningful engagement with those people who have the power to make decisions within the account. This can be both within your own organization and on the customer side. Some AI tools to augment the SAM might be:

• Legal AI to help review and check legal documents that codify the contractual relationship. This AI can check contracts and highlight implications for the SAM.

• Social media content and interaction tools.

• Building trust through efficient execution.

• Virtual assistant with natural language processing to provide information, data, and insights to team members, when and where they need it.

• Optimizing pricing policy for consumables and transactional business.

Identify & generate opportunities

A SAM should recognize and evaluate new opportunities at the strategic account and develop the best strategy to position the solution. AI tools to augment the SAM might be used for:

• Mining data in the SAM’s own organization.

• Predictive analytics.

• Pipeline analysis.

• Account-based marketing.

• Chatbot coaches to help in the sales process.

• AI-driven lead scoring.

• Visual inspection to identify opportunities.

Develop & deliver value

SAMs build an impactful value proposition that resonates with the customer’s needs and deliver it as an engaging message. AI tools to augment the SAM:

• Collect value propositions from virtual sales meetings across the organization.

• Review value propositions and provide feedback and deep learning on the success of various value propositions.

• Use AI-based simulations to deliver value propositions and iterate innovations or prototypes through virtual trial and error.

• Create digital twins.

Review, predict & adapt

SAMs often struggle to update their account plans with useful information and best practices gathered, which could be used as inputs to guide account development and to forecast the notoriously difficult development of larger accounts. McKinsey & Company state, “Too many companies still rely on manual forecasting because they think AI requires better-quality data than they have available. Nowadays, that’s a costly mistake.”²

AI tools for the augmented account manager could be invaluable when it comes to:

• Predicting demand for a given solution by analyzing patterns.

• Using generative AI to develop summaries of account activity.

• Account planning automation.

• Selection and deselection of strategic accounts.

• Fostering co-creation and innovation using AI.

Risks/caveats

AI holds a lot of promise. But there are risks. As AI becomes more complex, it gets harder to know “how” it got the result. Even the developers of AI are often not 100% sure of the mechanics of their creations. Since AI works by analyzing massive data and sets — iteratively drawing conclusions — it’s often hard to clearly lay out the A to Z of its reasoning. This is the problem of explainability.

For any SAM who will be working with AI, it is key to be aware of the following risks that using AI tools can have.

Ethics — anthropomorphic

We give them human attributes, but what do they know? What choices is AI making? Is it aligned with the values of your organization? Investment guru Warren Buffett once remarked that “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.” Do you really trust an AI with your most valuable business asset?

That trust could be severely — and very quickly — damaged by wrong decisions and actions taken by an AI. It’s yet another

reason for augmented account management to determine the right level of automation for the account.

Overconfidence

Incorrectly, we often believe the answers given to us by a computer are correct. Why? Because it is the computer. The problem is that AI is based on probability.

However, as AI strategist Elin Hauge said as speaker at the Mercuri International 2022 Sales Conference, “The thing is that these algorithms come with a probability. And a probability comes with a probability of being a wrong as well as right. And we humans make a mess out of it.”

It can be difficult to distinguish the right answer sometimes, given the confidence that AI has when it produces wrong answers. Completely turning over the keys to your most valued customer to an AI algorithm can have disastrous effects. Look no further than the Zillow iBuying situation, where possible overreliance on algorithms can have negative effects. To recap, Zillow staked significant future growth in their digital home-flipping business, Zillow Offers, but it ultimately failed due to the algorithm’s inability to accurately predict swings in housing prices.³

Overly conservative approach

Not making AI core to your SAM program and expecting the fad to fade could be catastrophic. AI is a strategic issue for most companies. As a SAM, it is important to know the basic skill set of AI — to leverage AI for personal productivity and to align the strategic direction of your organization and that of your customers.

Often the first iteration may not appear to have the intended result, but the exponential learning capabilities and improvements mean we may dismiss valid AI solutions too early.

SAMs need to be strategic in how AI is applied. This is how the augmented account manager becomes the SAM of the future. But blindly following the next new and shiny thing and accepting AI without questions is just as risky as ignoring it.

The augmented account manager

So how should we think about the practical applications for AI when it comes to strategic account management?

Well, when AI fails, it tends to fail spectacularly, and we have to ask the question: Do we want to entrust our most valuable clients to AI? To quote Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI: “We want to make our mistakes while the stakes are low.”

To truly understand the benefit of AI, it helps to think of it as an augmentation to existing roles — a labor-saving device that creates efficiencies and discovers insights. Consider it an AI-skilled augmented account manager, perhaps.

A good way to think of it is in terms of self-driving cars. According to SAE International (formerly known as the Society of Automotive Engineers), when we describe autonomous driving, there are six levels of driving automation.

Level 0: No automation

Level 1: Assisted driving automation

Level 2: Partial automation

Level 3: Conditional automation

Level 4: High automation

Level 5: Full automation

When you are on the highway driving 65 mph and you press a button on the adaptive cruise control with lane centering, you are still driving, holding the steering wheel (hopefully), yet the car is adapting the speed and searching for obstacles in case it needs to brake. In this case, you are using level 2 automation. Some actions are taken by the driver, some are taken by the machine.

This is the most useful way to think about AI in the context of the role of the SAM. For SAMs, using the right mix of AI to augment and support the strategic accounts makes perfect sense.

Practical way forward

So how do we put all this into practice? Here are just a few questions and action items for strategic account managers and program designers to ask and do:

1. What problem can AI solve for our customers, organization, or SAMs?

2. Is AI the appropriate solution for the situation?

3. What’s out there?

a. What AI innovations are your organization and the customer already using?

b. What innovations should you be having strategic discussions about?

4. Align the SAM strategy with your organization’s AI roadmap.

5. Get your SAMs ready for AI so they can have the strategic business discussions internally and with the customer.

6. Is senior leadership ready?

A SAM cannot spend their time updating themselves on every single new application, startup, or AI technology. What we can and should do is to understand the promise and reality of AI and know enough to work with customers and internal teams to deliver a unique competitive advantage with AI. Knowing enough includes systematically considering how to apply AI. Additionally, consider using an implementation barometer to assess the possibility, practicality, and risk/ reward.

Conclusion

So, what’s the future of AI? Well, that’s beyond the scope of this article, but when it applies to SAMs it’s all about pragmatism. It means that we need to develop a real, profound understanding of what AI can and can’t do — and exactly how AI, carefully used, can augment the role of the SAM.

AI is not something to fear — but it should be treated with respect. We’re at a technological inflection point where the winners will be the ones who understand how to get real benefit out of these new tools.

All new revolutionary technologies offer the same choice — adopt or ignore — and AI is nothing new. In this case, the choice seems pretty simple. But what we get out of this new technology is really going to depend on how well we think through the balance of possibilities and practicalities, constantly reviewing progress and effectiveness of our AI adoption specifically for strategic account management. n

1. Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2023, March 23). Should you share AI-driven customer insights with your customers? Harvard Business Review

2. Amar, J., Rahimi, S., Surak, Z., & Von Bismarck, N. (2022, February 15). AI-driven operations forecasting in data-light environments. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/ai-driven-operations-forecasting-indata-light-environments

3. Parker, W., & Putzier, K. (2021, November 17). What went wrong with Zillow? A real-estate algorithm derailed its big bet. The Wall Street Journal

Robert Box is a Managing Partner and Global Account Director at Mercuri International. He has presented at the SAMA Annual Conference multiple times and as a CSAM lector. Since 2000 Robert has developed SAM programs globally and has been leading Mercuri’s Artificial Intelligence partnership since 2019. For more info on Mercuri International, visit www.mercuri.net/SAMA

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THE STATE OF MENTAL HEALTH IN SALES

By Jeff Riseley Founder Sales Health Alliance

The sales department is the heart of any company. Without it, products don’t get sold, and business grinds to a halt. No amount of marketing, HR, or personnel selection can replace a robust and effective sales team. Despite the importance of sales to a company, research shows that sales team members are among the most stressed and unsatisfied corporate workers.

In the second annual industry report, we’ll introduce the latest sales mental health research and illustrate how its implications affect your company’s bottom line. This report will also present findings from our survey of 703 respondents. Their responses provide first-hand insights into the most critical determinants of mental health in a successful sales workplace in 2022. And yes, they’ve changed.

We collected this data over four weeks between May and June 2022.

The data shows a correlation (not necessarily causation) between one’s mental health

and ability to achieve sales targets. It also illustrates the specific support structures that leaders and organizations can implement to foster a mental health-oriented culture. The biggest takeaways from this report are:

1. The mental health of salespeople continues to get worse with more than 3 in 5 sellers (63%) now struggling with their mental health, an increase of 5% from last year.

2. We identified 13 factors sales leaders can use to improve in this area. Factors such as clear career pathing, boundary setting, and embracing more vulnerability within sales are strongly correlated with better mental health and sales performance.

3. All leaders and sellers need significant upskilling in the areas of prioritizing mental health, resilience, stress management, and mindset training to achieve optimal performance.

4. Sales leaders require consistent wellbeing data on their sales team to manage

As salespeople continue to struggle with their mental health, learn what support structures your organization can implement to foster a mental health-oriented culture

FIGURE 1. MENTAL HEALTH SPECTRUM

performance effectively. Traditional sales KPIs catch symptoms of burnout and declining mental health too late.

Mental health = mental performance = sales performance

It is crucial to recognize the difference between mental health and mental illness. Just like physical health and physical illness, they are related, but not the same thing. An organization that focuses on mental health isn’t only aware of mental illness. Instead, it implements a strong company culture and system that supports healthy living and provides resources to help people who encounter mental illness.

Our ongoing goal in publishing this annual report is to share insights, break down stigma, and drive positive change surrounding mental health. We want to help people acknowledge that their mental health matters and provide guidance to organizational leaders who can help their company remove the mental health stigma by creating an inclusive, supportive workplace.

Our data shows that leaders who prioritize vulnerability and open conversation form effective connections and create higher engagement. As a result, their teams can experience better mental health and increased productivity, which drives sales goal attainment.

We are thrilled to share this message for the second consecutive year and look forward to continually updating the data regularly.

What’s changed

In May 2021, the global pandemic was still ravaging the mental health of sales teams everywhere. Most sellers and leaders agreed that this was the most difficult experience in their lifetime. That’s why it wasn’t surprising to find that 58% of salespeople were struggling with their mental health in our report last year.

What’s surprising, however, is that a year later and after returning to a semi-normal state, mental health in sales has continued to get worse. Our survey data from May 2022 now finds 63% of salespeople are struggling with their mental health, which is a 5% increase from the report in 2021.

Which sales roles struggle the most?

As we dove deeper into the data, we found that those working as sales development representatives (SDRs), business development representatives (BDRs), account executives, account managers, and sales leaders were struggling the most. In fact, there was a significant increase in those struggling with their mental health in sales leadership/executive roles from 42% in

FIGURE 2. 2021 VS. 2022 COMPARISON OF MENTAL HEALTH

In 2021, almost 3 in 5 (58%) struggled with their mental health

In 2022, over 3 in 5 (63%) struggled with their mental health

2021 to 60% in 2022. This could be from several factors like pressure to hit inflated growth targets, difficult decisions to lay off team members during a recession, and lingering burnout from the pandemic.

How much does mental health affect sales performance?

Similar to 2021, we continued to see an extremely strong correlation between mental health and sales performance. Among salespeople who rated their mental health the best, 77% rated their sales performance as very good or excellent. Among sellers with the worst mental health, only 29% described their performance as very good or excellent. Therefore, sellers who rated their mental health the best were over 2.5 times more likely to rate their sales performance the best it possibly could be.

Why have things gotten worse?

Societally, if things have improved with the pandemic, then why has the mental health of sellers worsened? In countless conversations with sales leaders during the pandemic, one sentiment was shared by sales leaders over and over again: “If I’m feeling it, then I know my team is feeling it.”

As a result, leaders challenged traditional management styles, leaned into what their teams needed, and invested into strategies that put their people first. As we return to normal, our belief is core needs of sellers that were prioritized during the pandemic are now being neglected by leaders who are experiencing burnout and reverting back to old habits.

The pandemic opened the eyes of many to “what’s important in life.” Now sellers are holding the line and expecting better integration between work and their life outside of it. The leaders and sales organizations that acknowledge this change, became curious, and lean into aligning with their employees will be most successful going forward.

What can sales leaders do?

On the next page are 13 core needs which thousands of research papers have proven humans need to feel their best and thrive in stressful environments. Across all of these needs, a greater proportion of salespeople in 2022 now disagree that these needs are being met compared with 2021. This is likely contributing to why more salespeople are struggling with their mental health this year.

FIGURE 3. HOW MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES CHANGE BETWEEN ROLES

FIGURE 3. HOW MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES CHANGE BETWEEN ROLES

FIGURE 4. HOW MENTAL HEALTH IMPACTS SALES PERFORMANCE

It could also be a sign that leaders are experiencing burnout, have less compassion to support their team with investment into mental health initiatives, and are reverting back to prepandemic management habits that put profits over people.

If your organization values sustainable high performance, these basic human needs should be prioritized. Failure to do so is strongly correlated with worse mental health and lower sales performance.

How important are these 13 factors?

The more sellers feel like a core need (e.g., vulnerability, boundaries, career pathing, etc.) is being met, the better they rate their mental health and sales performance.

The top five core needs not currently being met in 2022 are:

1. Vulnerability

2. Boundaries

3. Career Pathing

4. Achieving Targets

5. Meaningful Work

Here, we look at these five core needs, plus the crucial role of time off from work in ensuring sellers’ mental health, and offer recommendations to address each of them.

1. Vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness

Vulnerability is often portrayed as a sign of weakness within

sales, but what if the opposite is actually true? A growing body of research continues to prove that psychological safety is one of the greatest predictors of high performance within teams. When salespeople can express themselves without experiencing fear or shame, they are better equipped to deal with failure and feel more confident approaching challenging goals.

For example, among salespeople who strongly agreed that they could be open and vulnerable with how they were feeling at work, 75% rated their mental health as good or better. Among sellers who strongly disagreed that they could be open and vulnerable while at work, only 16% rated their mental health as good or better.

What this means is sellers who feel like they can be open and vulnerable with how they’re feeling at work are almost five times more likely to rate their mental health as good or better compared with those who feel stigma about opening up.

More vulnerability was also correlated with better sales performance. This was seen with improvements in the quality of sales performance and a greater proportion of sellers rating their sales performance as excellent or very good (73%) when they could be open and vulnerable with how they were feeling at work.

The main takeaway here is vulnerability within sales is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. Fostering an environment in which sellers can authentically express themselves is critical to being able to navigate difficult emotions that arise within sales and mitigate the impact these emotions can have on

13 CORE NEEDS OF SELLERS THAT SALES LEADERS NEED TO FOCUS ON

Recommendations & examples

1. LEAD WITH VULNERABILITY

Leaders must lead with vulnerability and be vulnerable first. No one wants to have a vulnerable conversation with a judgmental perfectionist. Share your story(ies) of hardship.

2. VULNERABLE

CONVERSATIONS

Learn how to have vulnerable conversations with sales reps.

3. EVERYONE HAS BAD DAYS

We’re all human and have bad days. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, then tell your team. For example, if you’re a new parent and your newborn kept you up last night, let your team know you aren’t at your best today. The more vulnerable you are, the more you show your team you believe in creating a safe place for everyone.

4. CONSISTENCY BUILDS TRUST

Trust and safety are built when consistent actions are taken over time, not by simply telling your team to be more vulnerable.

5. IDENTIFY YOUR BLIND SPOTS

All leaders have blind spots that can impact trust and vulnerability within their teams. Regularly ask your team how supported they feel from a mental health standpoint. Asking them to submit feedback anonymously through a Google Form can help reps feel safe providing honest feedback.

2. It’s about boundaries, not work-life balance

We all know boundaries are important, but many leaders and sellers neglect them on a daily basis. Doing so has a direct impact on mental health and sales performance.

Among salespeople who strongly agreed that they had strong boundaries with work, 75% rated their mental health as good or better. Among those who strongly disagreed this need was being met, only 16% rated their mental health as good or better.

Therefore, those who feel like they have strong boundaries with work are almost five times more likely to rate their mental health as good or better compared with those who have trouble creating space.

Better boundaries also correlated with better sales performance. This was once again seen with improvements in the quality of sales performance, with a greater proportion of sellers rating their sales performance as excellent or very good (62%) when they had strong boundaries with work.

Ultimately, better mental health and performance are

achieved when sellers can add stress and offload stress in equal parts each day. Enforcing strong boundaries makes this possible.

Recommendations & examples

1. SIGNS OF BURNOUT

Educate your team on the signs of burnout.

2. CREATE BOUNDARIES

Share how you create boundaries with work and activities that help you recharge.

3. CREATE ROUTINES

Teach your team how to bookend their day with a self-care startup routine and shutdown routine.

4. SHORTEN MEETING DURATIONS

Change 30-minute meetings to 20 or 25 minutes and change one-hour meetings to 45 or 50 minutes so your team has a chance to reset before their next call.

5. CLEAR EXPECTATIONS

Set clear expectations of when team members need to be available, and promote email/chat blackout periods after hours and on weekends.

6. CALENDAR BLOCKING

Teach your team how to block their calendar for some breaks during the day.

7. NO AFTER-HOURS COMMUNICATION

Do not send emails or chat notifications after hours, EVER. If you must send a message after hours, schedule it. This can be done in email and chat software.

3. Clear career pathing provides direction & focus

When building a culture of accountability, discussing career paths is a no-brainer, as it sets clear expectations for leaders and sellers. If people know where they want to go, it can make it easier for them to feel good about themselves and selfmotivate on days when they’re struggling.

Among salespeople who strongly agreed that they had direction and clarity in their career path, 81% rated their mental health as good or better. This was seven times higher than those who felt like they had very little direction in their career.

Clear visibility into a path forward was also correlated with better sales performance. When sellers strongly agreed they had direction in their career, 75% rated sales performance as

very good or excellent. This was 38% higher than those who felt unclear about how to move forward in their career.

In the famous words of football coach Lou Holtz, “In this world you’re either growing or you’re dying, so get in motion and grow.” Sellers need that next career milestone clear and visible, so they have something to grow toward.

Recommendations & examples

1. CAREER GROWTH DURING INTERVIEWS

Include career growth as part of the interview process and ask candidates about their career goals.

2. CAREER GROWTH IN 1:1s

Include career growth conversations in your 1:1s. Have this discussion monthly. Assign sellers “homework” of reading a book or taking an online course that addresses one of their weaknesses. Have them present this information to the team.

3. CLEAR GUIDELINES

Provide clear guidelines on what sellers need to do to advance to the next level and stick to them. Meritocracies keep career paths clear, while company politics make everything less clear and everyone unhappy.

4. DROP OLD-SCHOOL ATTITUDE

Drop your old-school attitude. Career advancements happen at an accelerated rate today, so swap your perspective of “entitlement” with “career-driven” individuals. If they don’t see a clear path forward with you, they’ll find it elsewhere — and fast.

5. DELEGATE

Delegate small projects appropriately. If a seller wants to be in management, give them a new hire to mentor and/or the opportunity to lead aspects of team training.

6. PRAISE

Praise your team members to other executives and leadership.

4. The importance of setting achievable sales targets

The main purpose of a sales target is to provide a seller with a challenging, yet achievable goal to work toward each month or quarter. Like any goal in life, when these targets feel unachievable, we’re more likely to lose hope and feel defeated.

This was captured in the data, which showed that among salespeople who strongly agreed their sales targets were achievable, 69% rated their mental health as good, very good, or excellent. When sales targets felt out of reach, this number was much lower and only 19% rated their mental health as good or better.

Achievable targets also correlated strongly with better sales performance. When sales targets felt achievable, the quality of sales performance improved and 90% of sellers rated their sales performance as very good or excellent. This is significantly higher than among the group of sellers who strongly disagreed their sales targets were achievable, in which only 31% rated their sales performance as very good or better.

Sales is a marathon and not a sprint. High performance is only achieved when leaders set targets that reps feel are within reach and therefore are motivated to work toward.

Recommendations & examples

1. REGULARLY CHECK IN

Regularly check in on how reps are perceiving the “achievability” of their targets.

2. START WITH A MENTAL HEALTH CHECK-IN

Any goal feels less achievable when we’re tired, stressed, or experiencing burnout. If a seller feels like their sales target is unattainable, start with a mental health check-in first.

3. REASONABLE ACTIVITY LEVEL

Determine if it is humanly possible for sellers to hit their target. Calculate this by using conversion rates and average deal size metrics to determine the top-of-funnel activity required to achieve the target. Is this level of activity reasonable?

4. DAILY & WEEKLY METRICS

Create meaningful daily and weekly metrics using the math from step three that provide a clear plan for sellers to follow each day.

5. HELP INCREASE ACTIVITY

Coach reps on how to increase deal size, improve conversion rates, or invest in technology that helps increase activity throughout the sales process.

6. QUOTA RELIEF

Provide quota relief for reps on vacation so they don’t feel punished for taking time off to decompress.

5. Meaningful work matters in sales

When was the last time you pushed through adversity to reach a goal you didn’t care about? If you did, we bet it was not much fun. When sellers are emotionally connected to their work and feel like they’re making a meaningful difference in the lives of others, their mental performance improves.

From a mental health aspect, among salespeople who strongly agreed they felt like they were making a difference in the world, 67% rated their mental health as good, very good, or excellent. When salespeople felt their work was having little impact on the world, only 8% rated their mental health as good or better.

Meaningful work also correlated with an improvement in the quality of sales performance. When salespeople felt strongly that they were making a difference in the world, 74% rated their sales performance as very good or excellent. This was roughly 2.5 times (+40%) higher than those who felt most disconnected from their work.

Far too often sales leaders and organizations over rely on sales performance incentive funds (SPIFs) and incentives that lead to inconsistent performance, when in fact a simple conversation that helps deepen a seller’s connection with work is what’s required for sustainable growth.

Recommendations & examples

1. CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE WHY

Ensure all sellers have a clear understanding of WHY the products they sell are changing the lives of buyers and making a difference in the world.

2. ALLOW PAID TIME OFF

Allow your team to take paid time off to volunteer for causes that are important to them.

3. REGULARLY REVISIT CASE STUDIES

Regularly revisit customer case studies that highlight the impact of products being sold.

4. CONNECT SALES METRICS & CLOSED DEALS

Regularly connect sales metrics and closed deals to the impact these actions are having on the growth of individual sellers and the company.

5. FOCUS ON HOW TO IMPROVE, NOT OUTCOMES

Put less emphasis on the outcomes and more focus on how salespeople are improving through learning new skills and developing their craft.

6. SERVANT MINDSET

Help sellers adopt a servant mindset in which they put their clients’ needs and challenges ahead of their desire to make commission.

7. OFFERING SALES SABBATICALS

Consider building optional paid sabbaticals — offered to sellers every 3-5 years — into your employee experience. Extended periods of time off help individuals refocus on their purpose and hold leaders accountable for creating environments that sellers want to return to.

Stigma around requesting time off and vacations

In a world with companies touting perks like unlimited paid time off (PTO), it can still feel impossible for sellers to use this time and take vacation. There is stigma surrounding taking time off to manage burnout because sellers and leaders feel sales performance will suffer. But what if the opposite were true?

Among salespeople who strongly disagreed that they would be viewed negatively for taking time off to manage burnout, 71% rated their mental health as good or better. When salespeople strongly agreed they would be viewed negatively for taking time off (strong stigma), only 16% rated their mental health as good or better. If stigma exists and people feel guilty or ashamed for taking time off, then it’s not surprising to see that burnout will be exacerbated.

The presence of stigma doesn’t only chip away at a seller’s mental health, but their performance suffers as well.

Within teams with the least amount of stigma, 21% more salespeople rated their sales performance as very good or excellent. This is a major finding for any sales leader who desires peak performance from their sales team. Unless reps feel comfortable taking time off to manage burnout, it will be extremely difficult for salespeople to perform consistently over time. Enter the importance of vacations.

Vacation time continues to play an important role in helping salespeople manage their burnout and mental health. The data showed that the more vacation a salesperson had taken, the better their overall mental health.

Among salespeople who had taken zero vacation over a sixmonth period, only 22% rated their mental health as good or better. When salespeople take one or more weeks of vacation during a six-month period, the rate of those describing their mental health as good or better doubles to 45% and above.

It’s important to note for sales leaders that more vacation time had very little effect on how salespeople rated their sales performance. In fact, it was the salespeople who had taken the most time off (more than two weeks) who rated their sales performance the best overall (52% described their sales performance as very good or excellent).

Recommendations & examples

1. MANDATORY TIME OFF POLICIES

Add a mandatory vacation/time off component to unlimited PTO policies. For example, make it mandatory for sellers to

take two weeks of vacation per year.

2. ENCOURAGE MENTAL HEALTH DAYS

Encourage sellers to take mental health days when needed.

3. BOOK VACATION IN ADVANCE

Ask sellers to book their next vacation before leaving on their current vacation so they have recovery periods booked in advance, so you as their leader can plan accordingly.

4. ACKNOWLEDGE EBBS AND FLOWS

Acknowledge the ebbs and flows of your business. If the Christmas season is typically slow, provide additional time off or consider company-wide “summer vacations” that align with slow periods, so employees are well rested for busier seasons.

5. PROVIDE QUOTA RELIEF

Provide quota relief (mentioned earlier) and set the expectation that sellers do not need to respond to email and chat messages while on vacation.

6. SHARE VACATION HIGHLIGHTS

Have leaders and team members share one favorite vacation story from their return. This shows everyone that vacations are important.

How does remote working affect mental health?

The pandemic changed the way in which sales teams operate. As leaders grappled with what environment works best for optimal sales performance, tough questions arose: Does fully remote working work? And if not, should sales teams move toward a hybrid model or return to the office full-time? Keep in mind the data below is self-reported data and shows correlations, not causations.

The survey data showed that salespeople who were working in hybrid environments were the ones who rated their mental health the highest. Among salespeople who were working from home most of the time, with some days in office, 45% described their mental health as good or better. Fully remote employees were not far behind with 37% of salespeople rating their mental health as good or better. The biggest discrepancy was in the group of sellers who were back in the office full-time. Only 22% of these salespeople rated their mental health as good or better, with none describing their mental health as excellent.

What was interesting, however, was that the salespeople who were back in the office full-time were the ones who rated their sales performance the highest. Among this group, 59% of sellers rated their sales performance as very good or excellent,

which was roughly 15% higher than for salespeople working in remote or hybrid environments.

It’s important to note that leaders should not use this data point to rush salespeople back into the office. Society has spent the last century or more learning how to optimize performance within an office environment. It’s only natural that salespeople and leaders would know how to perform well in a familiar setting.

Many of us are only three years into this global experiment of learning how to work partially or entirely from home. Change and adaptation takes time. As employees learn to adapt to this new environment and new technology is created to resolve remote working challenges, we expect performance to steadily improve given the mental health benefits working from home provides.

Imagine where we’ll be 100 years from now after learning how to integrate our work and home environments more effectively.

Conclusion

Mentally well and engaged sales teams can make or break a company. No other department has a more direct influence on your business’s bottom line. Simultaneously, no other team feels the same level of pressure to perform. This has a high emotional toll on the individual. Protecting and supporting your company’s best assets is critical to growing your business and outperforming the competition.

The good news is that more and more organizations are investing in mental health initiatives. The bad news is that the stigma around mental health in sales exists. As a result, research shows that employees don’t use these initiatives or see the value in them.

We’ve conducted this research to demonstrate the value of supporting mental health in sales. It is not just at the financial level, but also at the human level. You can have it both ways — but you must be willing to face your discomfort. So, what are you going to do about the mental health of your sales team? n

Adapted from the 2022 Mental Health in Sales report, published by Sales Health Alliance, The Harris Consulting Group, and UNCrushed. Jeff Riseley is the Founder of the Sales Health Alliance, author of the book “Stress Less, Sell More,” and a mental health advocate. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/jeffriseley

The

High-Performing SAM Series

THE STRATEGIC ACCOUNT MANAGER AS VALUE CREATOR

Developing approaches to create and deliver customer value

By Javier Marcos, PhD Professor of Strategic Sales Management and Negotiation Cranfield School of Management (UK) Director Key Account Management Forum

Strategic accounts always ask for more from their suppliers, often in the form of added and distinctive value. Strategic account managers (SAMs) are crucial in building long-term relationships with key customers and in creating value for them.

In previous articles on high-performing SAMs, I outlined how SAMs develop account strategy. In this feature, I describe approaches SAMs can adopt to create and deliver customer value in ways that foster loyalty, advocacy, and profitability.

The approaches that I will outline in this article are based on several premises I want to share with you up front. First, a key assumption is that multilevel relationships are established. Strategic account managers are the architects of building strong relationships with various functions of their customers in ways that enable regular communication, understanding their business challenges and needs and often their personal interests and constraints. So, if your customers are willing to do business with you exclusively via requests for proposals (RFPs) or online auctions, these value creation principles do not apply.

The second premise is that you, as the SAM, have some leeway in personalizing the solutions you sell to your strategic customers and how you sell them. Each customer has

idiosyncratic needs and specifications, and the extent to which you tailor your products and services to your customer’s unique requirements creates value that is more relevant and impactful. If you are in a commodity business, characterized by a single delivery channel, then little can be done to create value beyond the product or service.

The third premise is that your organization values both what and how you sell. If your sole KPI is sales revenue, and it is focused on the short term (e.g., quarterly sales quota), then establishing trust, enhancing your customers’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, and helping the customer “get their job done” will likely become secondary priorities in your agenda.

So, assuming that you interact with multiple stakeholders in your customer organization, that your product/service solution and customer engagement processes can be tailored to address meaningful customer interests, and that you and your business care about multiple dimensions of customer success, the remainder of this article aims to address the crucial question: How can strategic account managers co-create value for their key customers?

Surfacing hidden needs

Customers place significant value in your ability to help identify unrecognized needs.

Neil Rackham’s influential book “SPIN Selling” demonstrated how real benefits are perceived by customers when sellers help them convert latent needs into explicit ones through structured questioning of their customers’ situation, problems, implications, and need-payoffs.

Strategic accounts often take for granted that their SAMs will identify their needs through the analysis of their business and that they will identify their needs and pain points. By understanding the customer’s challenges, suppliers can better tailor their products and services to meet customers’ specific requirements. The problem is that just meeting requirements is not enough in today’s competitive business environment. To deliver the solutions that customers document and specify is necessary but not sufficient. Thus, SAMs need to find new ways to surface hidden customer needs.

One approach to address hidden needs is the perspective of the customer’s “jobs to be done,” a theory developed by the late Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School. This concept asserts that customers “hire” products and services to get “jobs” done rather than purchasing them based on their attributes and buying behaviors. A “job to be done” is a problem or opportunity somebody is trying to solve.

In order to identify these jobs, account managers need to spend time with their customers, and live and breathe their contexts and situations, as Christensen eloquently describes in the example of Milkshakes – Understanding the Job.¹ In that instance, he explains how his research team spent 18 hours in a fast-food restaurant to gain insights about when, how, and with whom consumers “hired” milkshakes. This ethnographic approach, that is, the systematic study of individuals in their culture and context, provides nontrivial insights about needs and motives of which even consumers may not be aware.

For quite some time, the innovation management field has analyzed hidden needs that are hard to identify or that customers cannot easily articulate. Keith Goffin, an emeritus professor of innovation management at Cranfield School of Management in the UK, argues that traditional market research methods such as focus groups and surveys cannot identify hidden needs. Thus, businesses have to adopt newer, non-traditional research techniques.

Goffin and his colleagues advocate for methods such as observation, contextual interviewing, and ethnographic market research.² They have also pioneered the repertory grid, a technique to identify customer attributes based on the personal construct theory, a well-established method in psychology to understand people’s preferences. All these methods have the potential to provide novel perspectives. Although they may be time-consuming and the data needs systematic coding, these techniques address the fundamental issue that respondents are often unable to identify their needs, may not be able to articulate their thoughts and views, or may be unaware of their problems and interests.

Key customers demand a superior experience from their suppliers. SAMs orchestrate multiple relationships to enable a positive total experience . So with multiple interactions and experiences (e.g., specifying, procuring, using, and disposing of the product), how can you trace and measure the experience? Traditional methods do not address this multiplicity of touch points, so you and your organization need to consider other more nuanced approaches.

For instance, some leading companies like Ford and Kimberly-Clark use empathic design to tease out the most wanted features of items such as cars and disposable diapers. Unilever and Whirlpool embed ethnographic research to develop soaps and baths & showers, respectively, that better respond to their users’ unstated interests. Other firms, such as 3M and Hilti, regularly employ lead-user research methods to develop innovative medical devices and industrial tools. Finally, Bosch and Hewlett-Packard have adopted novel ways of using the repertory grid technique to inform the design of production lines and medical equipment.

Identifying sources of value for the account

In the same way that strategic customers establish multiple contacts with their suppliers, there are multiple ways in which value can be created.

Eric Almquist and his colleagues revealed in a thoughtprovoking study³ that there is a full range of rational and emotional factors that business customers consider when buying from suppliers. SAMs can use these factors to tailor their value propositions and differentiate themselves and their companies. These sources of value can be clustered into five dimensions:

• Table stakes: Typically objective criteria such as price, warranties, and service levels that the customer expects.

• Functional: Elements of your offering that address the client’s need to optimize cost reduction and achieve higher levels of scalability.

• Ease of doing business: These are traditional customer productivity concerns, often materialized as demands for time savings, reduced effort, or improvements in operational performance.

• Individual value: Elements in this dimension typically address the individual priorities your customers have, whether they are personal (peace of mind, design, and aesthetics) or career-related (knowledge, innovation, and social capital).

• Inspirational value: The final source of value refers to elements that address the customer’s hopes, deep motivations, and vision of the future. These factors help companies anticipate changes in their markets or enable them to enhance their ESG aspirations.

Is it enough for the strategic account manager to be able to identify the sources of value for customers? Not quite. Customers need to perceive those elements of value themselves, which often happens as a result of engaging in a structured process of co-creation. The SAM becomes instrumental in facilitating the space and the process to help key people in the strategic account become aware and address value drivers across the five dimensions outlined above.

Designing the end-to-end co-creation process

I see co-creation as an encompassing process that includes nuanced practices with one thing in common: the account puts into the process a similar amount of effort and resources than the supplier (if not more).

A study I conducted with some colleagues⁴ revealed that co-creation often starts from co-diagnosis , the collection and organization of information for collaborative use. This can be articulated in a customer forum, where the strategic account manager engages key customers in problem formulation. For instance, Interfood, a leading manufacturer of high-quality dairy ingredients for industrial applications, would involve Danone in high-level discussions to find ways to better address the nutritional concerns of their consumers. This would then lead, often using design thinking methods, to the co-ideation or generation of ideas, and a more granular definition of the nature of the problem to address.

Typically, a well-defined purpose leads to a phase of codesign , in other words, developing concepts and knowledge that help the customer succeed. For instance, another leading food manufacturer, Unilever Food Solutions — known by the slogan “Created by Chefs for Chefs” — co-designs with customers a comprehensive set of menus that are nutritious and healthy, but also profitable.

Other approaches that help co-create customer value relate to co-testing, that is, prototyping and improving the offering, and co-evaluation , commenting and generating insights for further improvement of value propositions. For example, software company SAP co-creates knowledge and new solutions not only by involving customers, but also by deliberately bringing together several different partners from their ecosystems such as universities or governmental groups. This results in a co-creative process with a pronounced emphasis on connecting stakeholders with complementary capabilities.

Articulating and measuring the value created

Most companies know the features of their offerings and develop a detailed understanding of their customers’ challenges. However, fewer than 5% make it truly meaningful for their customers, according to the analysis of 55 sales

pitches from 29 different companies in Europe by Business Acceleration, a Dutch consulting practice.

The SAM needs to translate value co-creation practices into concrete evidence of value using examples such as:

• Top-line growth value indicators (sales/quarter, market penetration, budget growth, consumer satisfaction).

• Bottom-line value indexes (reduced break rates, reduced employment costs, reduced energy costs).

• Business reputation and continuity measures, such as those intended to eliminate accidents and reduce rejects due to quality issues.

• Strategy value to achieve new market entry and diversify into a new product range.

Moreover, a convincing articulation of value and value propositions captures an improved future scenario for the strategic customer in compelling ways. It describes how unique combinations of products, services, and a particular relationship ethos will help the customer “get the job done.”

Thus, I argue that developing approaches to co-create value is a necessary but not sufficient skill for the SAM. It’s important to measure the results of your efforts to co-create value with your strategic customers. Joona Keränen, an associate professor at RMIT who specializes in shared value creation, developed a framework for assessing customer value in B2B markets that includes five processes.⁵

The first — value potential identification — comprises identifying the customer’s explicit needs, understanding the customer’s processes, and understanding the financial implications for the customer’s business. The second process includes conducting a baseline assessment, determining customers’ current performance, specifying mutual outcomes, and conducting trial runs.

Once value is created, the ensuing processes involve performance evaluation, specifying the value impact for the customer’s performance, followed by long-term value realization. This requires verifying and documenting the realized customer value.

What I have described demonstrates approaches SAMs can adopt to create and deliver customer value in ways that foster customer loyalty and profitability. In concluding this article, I would like to share an insight that a colleague, Jesus Gomez, a former sales director for Mondelez International, offered when I asked him⁶ how he identifies ways of adding value to his key customers. He replied, “Before talking about adding value, you have to cover something as basic as the agreed level of service. To keep and maintain key indicators for delivery and demand fulfilment is crucial.”

If strategic accounts always ask for more from their suppliers, particularly in the form of added and distinctive value, then SAMs need to incorporate into their work systematic approaches to identify and deliver value. The approaches described above can help make a difference. n

¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfGtw2C95Ms

² Szwejczewski, M., Goffin, K., & Baxter, D. (2011). Identifying customers’ hidden needs: An exploratory study. Cranfield School of Management. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://rb.gy/ n366k.

³ Almquist, E., Cleghorn, J., & Sherer, L. (2018). The B2B elements of value. Harvard Business Review, 96(3), 18.

⁴ Marcos-Cuevas, J., Nätti, S., Palo, T., & Baumann, J. (2016). Value co-creation practices and capabilities: Sustained purposeful engagement across B2B systems. Industrial Marketing Management , 56, 97–107.

⁵ Keränen, J., & Jalkala, A. (2013). Towards a framework of customer value assessment in B2B markets: An exploratory study. Industrial Marketing Management , 42(8), 1307–1317.

⁶ Marcos, J., Davies, M., Guesalaga, R., & Holt, S. (2018). Implementing Key Account Management: Designing customer-centric processes for mutual growth . Kogan Page Publishers.

Javier Marcos, PhD, is Professor of Strategic Sales Management and Negotiation at Cranfield School of Management (UK) and the Director of the Key Account Management Forum. Javier can be contacted at www.linkedin.com/in/javier-marcos-phd-438395/.

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- Denise Juliano, Group VP of Life Sciences, Premier Inc.

THE EXTRAORDINARY SAM: BUILDING STRONGER CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH THE LENS OF DEI&B

In conversation with Joe Machicote, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Premier, Inc.

SAMA President & CEO Denise Freier spoke with Joe Machicote, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Premier, Inc., for SAMA’s podcast. As Machicote revealed his formula for being extraordinary, he shared key insights and advice that helped him find clarity in the face of tragedy — to harness his resiliency, motivate himself and others, and apply the lessons learned to all aspects of life, including diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) initiatives. The following conversation took place in February 2023 and has been edited for length and clarity.

Premier Inc. is a healthcare improvement company that unites all alliances of US hospitals, health systems, providers, and other organizations. As Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Machicote partners with senior leaders and other stakeholders across Premier, enhancing and formalizing a culture of DEI&B within the company, as well as creating an expansive vision and strategic plan. He serves as the organizational leader in the company to drive the development, implementation, and integration of best practices, resources, and trends around DEI&B and cultural proficiency. He is also a personal leadership coach, an accomplished speaker, and an author.

Denise Freier: Let’s get right into it. Tell us a little bit about your story. You’ve shared with me that you strive to be extraordinary. What does that mean?

Joe Machicote: I’ll start by saying that extraordinary is a journey. It’s not a destination. As we wake up each morning, there’s a reminder that we have to activate: How am I going to be experienced today?

Once we adopt this particular mindset, all of our behaviors action themselves through.

That became important to me because there was a time in my life and my career when I was truly unaware of my impact on others, not only in my professional life but in

my personal life. I met my late wife in high school. We had an amazing relationship for years. We had two boys together. In 2007, she was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, which changed our lives.

She wound up losing about 60% of her mobility because it attacks the nervous system. She was in the hospital for about a year. I had a realization that life was going to change for all of us. I needed to be the best person I could possibly be for her. Both of us were in our 40s at the time. All of a sudden, I had a wife for whom I’d become a caregiver. It was an instant wake-up call for the way I was “being experienced,” because I didn’t handle the change well. I blamed her illness on her, on our children, on the doctors, and everyone. I was not performing as my best self.

That was the beginning of my journey. I got myself an executive coach. I started asking others, “How do you experience me on a regular basis?” Life started to get good. While we were in a new place, it was different. We had to experience each other very differently. Our whole relationship changed and became better. In 2010, things were getting into our new flow. We were accepting the change in our life, and she got diagnosed with cancer.

At that moment, I realized that my behavior started to go backward again. This time, I had a new tool, and I was able to catch myself and say, “This is not acceptable.” Once the doctors caught the cancer, they gave her about four months to live. Our positivity and relationship expanded that to eighteen months. She was with us for an additional eighteen months. It was some of the best times in our marriage.

I wrote down, “How do I want to be experienced by my wife, my children, and others? How do I want to be experienced at work?” That became my life plan, and that’s what I called “being extraordinary.” It all goes back to something my mother taught me when we were growing up. She said, “Leave everything a little bit better than you found it.” I’m sure she meant pushing the chair in when you leave the table and putting the toilet seat down when you’re done. For me, I took it to the next level, which is to wake up in the morning and change your mindset to leave everything and everyone a little bit better than you found it.

Even in a difficult conversation, my goal is to leave people better than I found them. That became the beginning of what I now teach about being extraordinary. For a quick way to think about it, imagine that there’s someone at work, where you drive up into the parking lot and you see that person’s car. You think to yourself, “They’re here today.” Or in the remote world, you’re looking at who’s going to be a participant in the meeting, and you see that name. We’ve all had that experience, and we know that the experience is going to be less than stellar with this individual.

The challenge that I want you to think about is, what if when I asked that question, that person was thinking of you? What if you are that person? Do you want to be the person who, when I see your car or your name at a meeting, I think negative thoughts?

DF: Amazing and heartbreaking stories — my heart goes out to you. And how brave it was for you to ask people how they are experiencing you. I recall from previous conversations, you mentioned the term “cultural engineer.” What

does that means to you and how does it help you become passionate about the work you do?

JM: There’s no company in the world that writes their mission statement, vision, and values, that says, “We’re going to strive to be awful people.” Instead, we write these amazing things and we put them on the wall. In a lot of cases, there’s no way to hold people accountable for what that is. To me, cultural engineering is about making the organizational culture a critical and strategic piece of the business as accounting, marketing, or any of the other pieces.

There’s truth to that saying that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It doesn’t matter what your strategy is. If people don’t know how to wake up in the morning, interact, and play well with each other, your strategy is all chewed up. It’s not driving what you want it to drive. We all know that when people have a positive mindset, positive things happen. When people have a negative mindset, that’s when things begin to explode.

Ninety percent of the time, it has something to do with the culture in which you are engaged. If the culture is such that you don’t enjoy working there, there’s no way you can deliver it. As a SAM, it’s important to not only love your product but love where your product is coming from. Love the mission and values behind why that product exists.

When we love and know our product, it’s so much easier to sell, instead of selling something that we don’t connect to. Cultural engineering is about that. Raising the level of intentionality around culture is a business driver. Let’s focus on it. Let’s be intentional about it, and let’s make a plan for it. That plan begins with each of us as an individual showing up because we can’t control anything on this planet except ourselves.

What if we had a population of people that understand that the mission, vision, and value start with each one of them? It’s not for the company to own. The company did a great job of writing it on the wall. It’s up to each of us to own it and be intentional about the way we execute that mission, vision, and strategy.

DF: I love the phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” because it’s true. I bet we’ve all had that experience. Do you have a cultural model?

JM: I gave a little bit of it away in my last answer, but there are three realms of leadership and culture. It’s self, team, and culture. Start by leading yourself. Leading yourself leads to leading the team. Leading the team leads to leading the culture. Not only does it start with yourself, but as you think about the second part of that — leading the team — how are you holding

one another accountable for the way you’re showing up and the way that you’re being experienced?

Human interaction is critical to the success of any organization. The Super Bowl is one game. For us, it’s a couple of hours. These teams have spent hours together. What’s the quality of those relationships? What’s the quality of the communication that they have to share or real-talk communication about what’s going right or wrong, not holding back, and being able to say, “How do we show up as our best selves every single time?”

These conversations are in practice. They’re in the locker room. What we get to see at the Super Bowl is the final output. These two teams were so good that, every time one team had the ball, they were pretty much scoring. What won the game was finally who kicked the field goal first with the least amount of time left on the clock because it was a tie. The tiebreaker was the field goal kick. That’s the way extraordinary high-performing teams work. It’s when you have a bunch of individuals that are all committed to the same goal. They have those same conversations and communications, and they all drive towards the same outcome. It was a master class in exactly what I’m talking about — extraordinary individual, team, and culture work every single time.

DF: There is nothing more true than strategic account management being a team sport. How can we help each other stay in that mindset? Are there competencies that make a SAM more apt to be extraordinary?

JM: Yes. It has to start with self-awareness. It’s having the courage to accept feedback. Another high-performing team is the Blue Angels. In my research with that flight team, as well as the Thunderbirds from the Air Force — they have a pre-flight mission brief, and they have a debrief when they get back on the ground.

In that debrief, they go into a room and all of their titles sit outside the door. They talk about what went right and wrong. They give full information. Communication is key. When we communicate with people, we give them 90% of all the stuff they want to hear. Sometimes we hold back that last 10%, which is the hard stuff because we’re afraid we might offend somebody, or they may feel bad, or they may see you in a different light.

What if we create an environment where we’re able to say these things with safety and trust, where we all have a mindset that says, “The reason we’re getting this feedback is because we’re trying to make each other better.” The first competency is self-awareness. The second one is how we communicate. How do you have real or straight-talk communications? It’s

straight talk in such a way that you can deliver information, but you can hear information, too. It’s two-way communication, a critical competency.

Another competency is believing in the mission of your company and your product. Competency number four would be integrity — doing what you say you’re going to do because that helps to build trust. If you have a pen and paper, you’ll want to jot this down because this is the formula that will save who you are and make you an incredible, extraordinary SAM. It’s to understand that respect plus trust equals influence, R + T = I. When people respect and trust you, you’ve earned the right to influence them. If any of those two pieces — respect or trust — are missing, good luck trying to influence them. Having that competency is critical.

Finally, the last competency is change capability — your ability to change. Change is hard. Think about the last time you moved from one home to another. That wasn’t easy. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was painful in the middle of it. The great thing about change is you get to a better place ultimately. We tend to forget that when we’re going through the hard part of the change. As a SAM, you’re going to deal with change all the time. Having conversations with your customers and teams is an exercise in change. Bringing your best self and team helps make that change go smoother.

DF: What role does DEI&B play in becoming an extraordinary SAM?

JM: There are many different mindsets and experiences that lead us to think differently about the definitions of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Our society has so much focus on what those definitions are. We get into conversations about race and all of the isms — racism, sexism, and all of those things, on which we have such a negative spin and connotation. No matter where you sit, you’ve got a very strong opinion of it. For me, that’s the content . When we look at the context of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, what it says is “How are we creating the most high-performing team we can possibly have that is equitable in an environment of inclusion that also makes you feel like you belong?”

That happens — not by having those conversations about racism, sexism, and everything else — but by having conversations about dignity and respect. Do you wake up every morning thinking, “How am I going to leave individuals better than I found them?” It shouldn’t matter what that individual’s background and everything else is.

We have to start with the contextual conversation of “Where

I work, do we start with plain old dignity and respect? Do we speak to each other like we’re human beings?” I’m not saying we shouldn’t have conversations about those other things, but those are secondary conversations. If you don’t have dignity and respect, those conversations are going to be hard and DEI&B programs will all fail.

DF: How does somebody like a SAM or a SAM leader get their organization involved? How do we move this forward to create that culture?

JM: We have a tendency in our organizations to feel like, somehow, it should start at the top because, as the leaders go, so goes the organization. We have to develop the courage to have conversations around “Here’s the stuff that’s written on the wall. How are we living that? Is there truth in all of these values?” If there is, how have we intentionally worked to hold people accountable for living those values? High-performing teams start with a bunch of high-performing individuals that have each made the choice to be high performing.

Before looking at how everybody else is living the values, you have to question yourself first. As we bring that conversation forward, speak to your leaders and teammates. Try to fix your little area of the world. I’ll tell you a funny quote from the greatest philosopher in my life and the world — my mom. She said to me, “If you want to get the whole neighborhood clean, you got to start by sweeping the front of your own house.” You have to set an example. Once you set the example, you can bring that to your first circle of influence, and then your second circle of influence — that’s the way these things begin to grow.

DF: The word that you used that is so important is “intentional.” Let’s all make appointments with our leaders and CEOs and discuss whether we are intentionally putting forth our values and executing individually. It’s great advice for all of us. Any last words of wisdom?

JM: You couldn’t have planned your last statement any

better. Sit down and be intentional. It is very similar to what I did when I realized my life had to change with my relationship with my wife and my family. Sit down and create a leadership journal. We all have different sayings, quotes, and things that we try to live by.

What if you created a leadership journal where you write not how you’ve lived your life, but how you want to live your life? Capture those pieces and write them down as your plan. I have a journal. It has at least twenty different pieces in it for the way that I live my life. When I share it with my mentees and the people that I coach, they laugh a little bit. They’re like, “What does it mean?” The one that I love that seems to raise the most eyebrows is “No one can take your birthday away.”

No matter how bad things go on a particular day or what you’re doing, allow yourself the ability to be gentle with yourself, make mistakes, and learn from the mistakes. At the end of the day, nobody is going to take your birthday away because you made a mistake. Live to your highest potential and realize that sometimes you’re going to trip. It’s one of my favorites. I may mess up today, but I’m going to go home tonight. I’m going to speak with my children, watch some Netflix, hold my wife’s hand, and move on because no one was able to take my birthday away. Take the time to write down what you’re committed to in order to be an extraordinary human being.

This is going to play into not only your work life with your team. This is also going to be reflected in your customer because you’re going to have some tough customers and conversations. It’s important after a tough customer conversation that you realize nobody can take your birthday away. What you did was give the best of yourself. You gave your best effort and best energy. Make sure that you’re committing to that on a regular basis. That is going to make you an extraordinary SAM in not only your personal relationships but your professional relationships as well. n

CALL FO R VELOCITY SUBMISSIONS FOR 2023 AND BEYOND

Why Submit an Article?

Velocity is the official publication of SAMA. It provides a forum for the exchange of information relating to the practice of strategic account management and is the vehicle that enables SAMA members to be the best community of practice.

Thousands of account professionals, SAM managers, and C-level executives at the world’s largest and most forward-thinking companies read Velocity to learn about best practices and next practices from professionals who are facing the same challenges they are.

By having an article published in Velocity, you’ll be recognized as having expertise on the topic, and you’ll elevate your visibility within the community and your own organization. Your organization will benefit by having its name brought to the attention of the wider community as a thought leader.

But you’re not a writer, you say? Not a problem. Your professional knowledge is more important than your writing skills. The SAMA editorial staff can help with grammar, organization, and style. If you can write a business letter, you can author an article.

If your firm has a public relations, marketing, or communications department, they may be able to help you document your knowledge and experience. Do make sure, though, that you provide them with in-depth information and that you review their documentation of your knowledge and experience for accuracy and to ensure it meets the article requirements below.

Case Studies

Case studies are particularly welcomed, answering the questions and following the format of:

• what was the issue;

• what were the steps taken to address the issue; what resulted for the SAM, the SAM’s

organization, and that of the SAM’s clients?

Article Requirements

Articles must be directly applicable to strategic account management (not just sales). It helps to keep in mind that SAMA’s audience consists of those who work in complex, highly matrixed organizations and focus on building strong and mutually beneficial relationships with a company’s most important customers and partners.

Articles must avoid directly promoting a product or service.

Velocity articles range between 2500 and 3500 words, covering three to five pages. These ranges are approximate; somewhat over or under these word counts is fine if justified by the content.

Articles from consultants and academics are welcome, but bringing aboard a practitioner co-author will get you to the top of the pile. If that’s not possible, please consider adding concrete, real-life examples from your work with clients.

Graphics that aid in understanding an article are also welcomed. In addition, please consider contributing original research in graphic form to Velocity’s Data Watch column.

If you’ll be working with graphic designers or printers, have them contact halverson@ strategicaccounts.org for the more technical requirements for graphics.

Who We Want To Hear From

3 SAMs and sales executives, managers, and account managers at all levels

3 Procurement, strategic sourcing, and supplier relationship management executives

3 Independent consultants and academics working with strategic account organizations. Articles co-authored by a consultant and a practitioner, or an academic and a practitioner, lend credibility to theory.

Key Subject Areas

While authors may choose a topic most relevant to their own experience, some of the topics most relevant at this time are:

• Organizing and running the SAM program central office

• Going deep: uncovering strategic information from and about the customer

• Leveraging technology, data, and/or analytics to change the way you drive significant revenue with your customer, working internally and/or collaborating externally

• Implementing innovation

• Deploying disruption

• Quantifying and validating customer value in a case that resulted in a valuebased price solution or that prevented losing a deal and/or the customer

Elements of a Successful Submission

An article doesn’t need to contain ALL of the following, but the more boxes it checks off, the higher priority it will be given.

3 Practitioner author or co-author

3 If written by a consultant or academic, must incorporate practitioner point of view

3 Real, concrete business examples that exemplify the concepts discussed in the article

3 Hard data

3 Innovative concepts/“Next practices”

3 Human element

How To Submit

If you already have a white paper, case study, or article ready to go, send it to Velocity associate editor Nic Halverson at halverson@strategicaccounts.org. You will be notified that your article has been received and is under review. If you just have an idea for an article, send a brief description and any supporting materials to halverson@strategicaccounts.org.

C ongratulations

2023 Award Winners

Systematic Enablement of the SAM Program

Innovative Value Co-Creation

C-Suite Support and Engagement for the SAM Program and

Strategic Customers

Outstanding Young Program of the Year (<5 years)

Outstanding Mature Program of the Year (5+ years)