The New Successful Large Account Management now in its third edition, is thoroughly revised and updated and takes into consideration recent changes in the industry. It provides comprehensive, practical lessons that will help readers to protect and improve their most crucial customer relationships.
I’ve read a lot of business books over the years and I have to honestly say that this was one of the worst ones I’ve ever read. For one, the book is dated. It’s over 30 years old. Also the business example they used in the book just didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. For an account like Datavoc that makes up 1/5 of annual sales for Precomm the sales rep should not have to sell any of the company’s executives on the importance of this account. The execs should already be intimately familiar with and heavily involved in working with this customer especially since Precomm also represents 1/3 of Datavoc’s supplier spend! I don’t think this book, because it is so dated, factors in the frequent transitioning of key decision makers in an organization which makes developing relationships with KDM’s more difficult and requires suppliers to have to continually resell the value of their products and services to customers.
The book seems to be an adaptation of Strategic Selling. The book also talks about setting goals of 1-3 years which is entirely inconsistent with how most companies set goals and compensation plans for their Account Managers and Sales Reps. The book also seemed very repetitive.
I like the mindset in this novel — customer centricity. I also thought the process of laying out an account’s health by sponsors, anti-sponsors, charters, etc was informative. I wish there were more examples of LAMP though... like with DTC or marketing or really anything other than just manufacturing.
Would I have read this book for fun? No. This was required reading for my company sooooo.... yeahhhh....
This book is quite dated by now, a lot of the groundbreaking thinking is now commonplace. Not a complete waste of my time because it did motivate me to discuss one of the principles in our weekly sales meeting, but it’s probably on its very last useful legs.
My professor at NYU told me to read the Miller Heiman series and i'm really glad I did. This is the third book I read. About large account management and I have to say its made me keen to get into the office on Monday and start planning for our major accounts. I think this is probably one of the better MH books I've read, but, i will say this, if you don't have long term happy customers, you might find this book less relevant for you. This is for major accounts really.
A well structured good book that takes a comprehensive approach to Account Management. It really makes sense. However it's more process -oriented but could have been more strategic.