The SAMA Podcast

Joining us on today's episode is Ron Davis, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Customer Management at Zurich Commercial Insurance. With over 30 years of experience in the industry, Ron has implemented customer management best practices across Zurich's commercial insurance business, making significant contributions to the field. Ron began his journey at Zurich in 2000 and has held various...

Joining today’s episode is Rita McGrath, a bestselling author and distinguished faculty member at Columbia Business School, where she’s the Academic Director in Executive Education. Rita's groundbreaking book, The End of Competitive Advantage, challenged traditional thinking and offered a new playbook for navigating the ever-shifting business landscape. As a globally recognized expert in strategic...

Geoff Williams, longtime SAMA Board Member and Corporate Member, boasts a distinguished career in international sales and global strategic account management. Having shaped successful programs at Schneider Electric and Danfoss, Geoff’s new role as SAMA's interim CEO brings a clear and precise vision for the future of strategic account management. In this episode, Williams’ wealth of experience and...

Adrian Davis — President & CEO of management consulting firm Whetstone Inc. — contains multitudes. He’s an inspirational, thought-provoking speaker, an author, and a trusted advisor to CEOs and sales leaders alike. As a longtime friend of SAMA and frequent presenter at our conferences, Davis’s true gift is his passion for storytelling. If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing him speak, you’...

In today's interconnected global economy, organizations need to move beyond the geographic-area model that is proving inadequate for customers that operate globally. To address this challenge, organizations must design an organizational structure that interfaces more effectively with their global accounts, including providing support to global account managers (GAMs). In our latest episode, host H...

Strategic accounts represent a market of one — in and of themselves — with a wealth of opportunity far beyond what most account teams realize. But how can strategic sellers unlock this door, and step into a world of co-discovery with their most essential customers? Dave Irwin, Founder & CEO of Polaris I/O joins SAMA President & CEO Denise Freier. Together, they discuss how to unlock the hi...

Every SAM dreams of having customized insights that identify, eliminate, and replace flaws in the delivery process with in-depth solutions. Finding the bandwidth to make that a reality — that’s a different story. However, that’s exactly what Prajwal Gadtaula, founder of Business Brainz, promises to deliver — a bespoke market research firm that does all the deep-dive analysis that your sales and ma...

Any organization aiming to create a world-class SAM organization wants to see great results on growth, profitability, and customer satisfaction. SAMA has shown to deliver on these. Today’s extra special episode welcomes Max Walker, Director of Strategic Account Management – EMEA at Medtronic, as he illuminates why he’s such an evangelist for SAMA's Certified Strategic Account Manager (CSAM) progra...

Ready to be inspired? In this incredibly moving episode, Joe Machicote, the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Premier, Inc., reveals his formula for being extraordinary, so you can become the best version of yourself. Tune in as he shares his extraordinary insights on how to build stronger customer relationships by embracing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Whether you’re a vete...

There are a lot of nuances in industries. Yet engaging with your most strategic customers is the same across the board despite these nuances, and that's the beauty of the Strategic Account Manager. SAMA's Certified Strategic Account Manager (CSAM) program represents the highest mark of achievement when it comes to professional development for strategic and key account managers. Join Libby Souder,...

The world has become a much smaller place, due in large part to the widespread digital shift that transformed just about every industry. What once felt global in scope now feels distilled at national, regional, and local levels. Everything feels seemingly in the palm of your hand. But the more things change, the more they stay the same, especially in strategic account management. Year after year,...

The global COVID pandemic and subsequent supply chain issues have dramatically changed how SAMs (Strategic Account Managers) do their jobs. We in the SAM community and SAMA know this, as much has been discussed about how SAM’s lives have changed. However, these same forces affected Procurement/Purchasing professionals too, which begs the question: How have procurements’ lives changed? How have pro...

To learn more about Birkman and The Birkman Method: www.birkman.com To order the new book, "Creatures of Contact": https://www.amazon.com/Creatures-Contact-Need-More-Personality/dp/1946633445 To purchase a questionnaire/report: https://direct.birkman.com/sales/

Jerry, Kate and Dominique are the creators and facilitators for a new training course being offered through SAMA Academy, "Account-based Marketing: Customer-led, team-enabled." Course description and registration link are here . http://valkre.com/ https://cosawi.com/ https://kateburda.com/

A post written by Ed for the SAMA blog Short videos and articles about sustainability aimed at the sales and marketing profession A good introduction to ESG and how to measure it A great book on how we need to rethink the world linkedin.com/in/edmundbradford

Learn more about Finlistics here . Learn more about the book here . This week only, buy the ebook directly from Amazon for just $1.99.

SAMA will host a virtual symposium featuring Michael on Sept. 15, "The Challenge of Selling Expertise, Not Product: Transforming SAMs into high-value advisors supported by engaging digital content." Register here . LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mthomas01/

Download Tim Pollard's white paper "The Seven Ways COVID Changed Sales Forever" here . (There are also three excellent videos on the linked page.) Tim and SAMA will co-host an interactive next-practice symposium April 29 to go even deeper on the subject. Register here .