03/11/2016
SAM Enablement™ versus Sales Enablement
Filling a Market Gap: SAM (Strategic Account Manager) Enablement fills a gap in the marketplace. The gap exists with the 3 million Account Managers who are not served by Sales Enablement, CRM or any of the enabling technologies built for Sales.
Value Creation is the Difference: The fundamental difference between Account Managers and Field Sales is Value Creation. Field Sales tend to go after deals with existing products and services. Account Managers do this too, but they also get deeply engaged as the quarterback of Value Creation. They quarterback the activities of figuring out customer challenges, convincing their companies to dedicate resources to solve challenges and collaborate with customers to execute solutions and achieve outcomes. In Account Management these activities lead to lifelong relationships and business growth between companies and their customers. Account Managers serve the largest, most strategic customers who set the tone for an entire company. In this role the dramatic difference is Value Creation.
Value Creation is a Process not a Box: Account Managers know that the work of Value Creation is not a box that gets typed into once a year but is constant, everyday work. Work that follows a continuous process of understanding customer challenges, decisions on challenges to pursue and ex*****on. Account Managers do this work in collaboration with teams of people within their companies, within their customers, across business units and across continents. So, when the Account Manager opens up CRM or Sales Enablement and finds a box to type in a few paragraphs, they are in no way being enabled to get the work done. There is no workflow, there is no place to quantify and track the value delivered, and there is nothing to share with their customer to collaborate on the Value Creation work. The work of Value Creation ends up a hodge-podge of PowerPoint and spreadsheets that wastes the account manager’s time and severely limits Value Creation and growth.
Enough is Enough! Time for SAM Enablement: The Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) and its large community of Account Managers understand all of this. SAMA has been the center of gravity for training and best practice sharing for over 50 years with leading companies all over the world. The community has risen up and said enough is enough; we need our own form of enablement, SAM Enablement.
SAM Enablement: SAM Enablement includes the critical elements necessary to achieve world class Account Management.
• Training: a SAMA specified and controlled set of training modules, resulting from 50+ years of learning, are targeted at developing the skills most important to the SAM community.
• Technology: Purpose built technology that reinforces training and enables the account manager’s work to bring Structure, Speed, Sustainability and Scale to the practice of account management.
• Coaching: With Training and Technology in place the ability to provide real time coaching is dramatically improved. This is the lynch pin to ensuring accountability, continued improvement and results.
SAMA Amsterdam Conference March 14th thru 16th: As for Valkre, we have been collaborating on the technology piece within the SAMA community to bring SAM Enablement into the world.
We are excited to introduce and present SAM Enablement at the upcoming Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) conferences:
• Amsterdam March 14th thru 17th https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/146847
• Chicago May 23rd thru 26th https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/144160
Hope to see you there!
