Relationship Drift for Fun and Profit...But Watch Out

Have you carefully mapped the key relationships that need to be maintained with your strategic accounts? Are you willing to bet the farm that you have captured all those relationships and that someone on your team is managing each of those relationships? Because like it or not, you have bet the farm.

You’ve bet the farm on your strategic accounts

One of the savviest strategic account managers I ever knew loved to come into a prospect that was being served by a competitor and draw up his own map of the critical relationships. He would then bring something of value to each person on the list and, more often than not, he found relationships that the competitor had neither identified or covered very effectively. If that relationship was high enough, he would use his better management of the relationship to steal the account away. Relationship drift is what happens when you do not map or do not effectively serve all critical relationships. In too many cases, by the time you realize that the account relationships have drifted away from you, it may well be too late to keep the account.

By the time you realize drift has happened, it may be too late to save your account

Of course, you’re just as smart as that strategic account manager. Why not see if you can create some account drift away from your competitors. But while you’re doing that, make sure that your own relationships are covered. JSperry