What makes for an outstanding account manager?

David C. Baker has written an number of excellent books, one which I recommend everyone in professional services look at is The Business of Experience. In one his latest posts he makes some points about strengths and competencies of good account managers.

Some thoughts and one of my frameworks at the bottom.

1. Account managers aren’t necessarily bad at pricing — they often too easily say yes to scope demanded by client to build a relationship or make a sale. This is even more harmful in software delivery which follows a completely different PM philosophy than creative work.

2. Project Management may or may not be a stepping stone to account management. The tension here, following on the above point, is advocating for the client vs advocating for the team, and growing the account vs following the existing work. If a PM can make the transition to growth and client advocacy they can be successful, just as a strategist or product manager can be successful in an account role.

3. AMs and PMs shouldn’t be answerable to one another, and in fact some of the best work I’ve produced flowed from that positive 50:50 collaboration between the two. (hey Mike Phung hey Sanya P.)

David lists 3 criteria for hiring a good AM:

1. Can I stand a 9 hour flight with them?
2. Can I trust them to handle a client conflict on their own?
3. Can they grow the account?

It is difficult to hire a good account manager. There are no schools or certifications A good talker might make you believe you can share a beer with them, but rarely do interviews last 9 hours. On the flip side, just because someone doesn’t build instant rapport doesn’t mean they aren’t skillful at life-long relationship building.

One framework I’ve used is Rain Selling’s “Competencies for Strategic Account Managers,” both for individual AMs and for building successful account teams. There should be folks on the team that hit each of these points

Rain Group's competencies for account managers.

These are listed in Rain’s order for requirements for successful account managers:

1. Project Manager – surprisingly this is opposite of David’s advice
2. Innovator — can they bring innovative solutions, mapping to David’s “strategy”
3. Results Driver — can they drive to grow the account
4. Collaborator — can they drive the internal team to work to deliver for the client
5. Relationship Lead — notice here it is not the personal relationship building of the AM, but how they play the orchestra of individuals on the account leadership team, the executive team, and across both organizations
6. Technical Expert — do they understand what their company is selling

There are textbooks and frameworks for growing into a successfully key account manager. But because most people had to just fail upwards many of them are unknown and untapped.