Managing Strategic Accounts

 R.I.P. Selling, you will be missed. Selling (date of birth – beginning of time / date of death – sometime between 1999 and 2009) sadly passed away at some point over the past 10 years. Selling had been with us as long as mankind existed. Selling impacted all of our lives and touched many of us through all of our sensory nodes. Selling also had a great sense of humor, like on the car lot, Selling would always play games with us and stir our emotions or during company workshops when Selling would come into our business as an outsider dressed in a sharp suit with all the right answers regardless of the questions. It was simply amazing how well articulated Selling was on his feet. Selling will be deeply missed by all mankind.

Now wouldn’t it be sad if that epitaph were true? That was purely fictional as it has been 100% confirmed that Selling is not dead, in fact, Selling was just spotted at a shoe store in Des Moines last Tuesday.

There’s this common misnomer that those of us that are in Business Development and Strategic Account Management should never “sell” our clients. There are several books on this concept and a wide variety of well publicized opinions at a library or internet connection near you. Well, is selling really dead or are we just packaging it differently? We have conversations, we build relationships, we show strategic value, we drive towards return on investments made in our product or services, the list goes on – but in essence, aren’t we really doing all of that with one end goal in mind – to sell something?

We dance around the idea of making sure that we are not making our clients or prospects feel as though we are actually trying to do just that. When did “selling” a product or service become a bad thing? Why is selling getting a bad rap? I mean, if you are successful at delivering value and positively impacting your target audience’s environment, wouldn’t it be a disservice NOT to sell them?

I think what we want to avoid is not the concept of selling, but the uncomfortable impact of “pressure”. You can sell me something without applying any pressure whatsoever and if successful in doing so, then we have just begun cultivating our relationship at another level. Pressure is replaced with Value and those that understand that Value just get it, they understand the impact that it can have on their life, their organization, their objectives, etc.

Selling is very much alive. Now what’s it going to take for you to drive this concept home today?

Michael Good

Vice President