“Hi David – It’s good to hear from you and of the completion of your latest book.  After checking with my bosses I’m going to have to decline your request.  They don’t want me, or anyone else in the firm, endorsing others products including books. Best wishes on the release.”

That’s an email that you don’t expect to receive.  As many of you know, I’ve been working on the release of my 4th commercial book, Return on Impact – Leadership Strategies for the Age of Connected Relationships (ASAE, 2012).  As it’s customary, I’ve reached out to a dozen or so current and past clients with key insights about the book and have asked them for endorsements / testimonials of our work together.  Here are just two kind ones: Read the rest of this entry »

Exclusively for RENetworks Members…

Think of the concept of a trust barometer. If I am one of your channel or distribution partners, for example, you are asking me to put my reputation on the line to walk you into my end customers. That is huge on the trust barometer. Components of that trust start in an organization, but often come down to trust between individuals. We all start out with a certain level of credibility and, over time, can choose to dilute it by incongruence and inconsistency between your thought, words, and actions.

Trust, as an outcome of your competency simply defined, is…

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Reputation Capital is a measure of how effective you are in promoting and delivering value. As the delivery of that value is recognized, you start to accumulate Reputation Capital. The two fundamental pillars of Reputation Capital are competency and trust. This week’s tip is about some insight into the first pillar, competency.

Strategic business development involves a multitude of constituents and partners, and your success heavily depends on competency. Any alliance partner…

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There are two ways to think about strategy – the more common view is that companies should match current internal resources with external market opportunities. CK Prahalad’s , University of Michigan strategy professor, view was that companies should set their ambitions first and then expand the resource base to reach that ambition.

So what’s your strategic relationship intent?  What’s your huge ambition for the relationships you seek to develop? What resource base will you need to expand to reach that ambition?…

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LinkedIn just launched a new feature where you can follow key developments in a company’s profile.

Are you following your current or prospective clients?

Who’s following your company and how can you engage them in a relationship?

I’m humbled by what I learn on various social networking platforms every day!

Best,

David

An Executive Briefing by Ian Savage, Exclusively for RENetworks (http://renetworks.intronetworks.com/) Members

Organizations are increasingly deploying “Account Managers” at the customer/vendor boundary. Research studies have shown that, even with a huge increase in the number of account managers, a majority of companies are still reporting ineffectiveness in building relationships with their strategic customers.

The rise in focus in the account management discipline is being fueled, in part, by the growth of shared service functions within organizations. Information Technology departments are an excellent example. These functions are deploying account managers to increase levels of customer intimacy, to gain mindshare with their internal business clients and to stave off external competition. But are these professionals being adequately equipped to manage their business client “accounts”?

Traditional sales organizations are also discovering that the path to sustainable growth in their existing accounts cannot be realized easily, in spite of the almost maniacal transactional focus many have exhibited since the turn of the millennium. But are these professionals really behaving differently to any other sales professional the organization may have?

Regardless of which boundary is the focus, a good account manager must manage both internal and external stakeholders with the same level of professionalism. The time to look beyond the latest deal or project has arrived and Account Management initiatives are growing as a consequence.

Ian Savage is a Sales Effectiveness Consultant and Principal of The Nour Group, an Atlanta-based strategic advisory firm focused on developing the “art” and “science” of building long-term, value-based relationships.

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