What do you think? I was speaking with several clients lately and when they see the "job description" of a "Best-in-Class" SAM they shake and wonder where they are going to get these "top-performing" business resources - and when we do identify them how do we know they are really the right ones!
Couple of clients are looking outside the sales team for resources, some have suggested taking a "Farm Team" approach, developing a feeder system, some others have suggested recruiting and hiring like skills and from different industries - others are now incorporating assessment tools to find the "diamonds-in-rough".
Nothing worse than people challenges! And now a shrinking work force - tell all those "Boomers" to hang in there for a few more years and build up their private retirement funds! And a SAM position can be FUN!
Any ideas on what's working for you that you would like to share!
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Finding the right set of selling skills in a Strategic Account Manager presents a great challenge. After working with one software client, I found that one killer sales skill could be found in an attibute that very few managers know to uncover: empathy.
ReplyDeleteIn February, I wrote about how one salesperson used this skill and became a top performer at her company. To your point about the ability of boomers--this salesperson is over 60!
Here's the link:
http://www.customerthink.com/article/octopus_50_means_nothing_empathy_matters
Andy Rudin,
Managing Principal
Outside Technologies, Inc.