Chapter 24. Resources

Where Value Lives • Chapter 24 Companion

Making SAM Work in the Real World

Strategic Account Management does not need ideal conditions. It needs enough clarity, discipline and rhythm to create customer-recognised value inside an imperfect organisation.

Welcome to the Chapter 24 Companion Page

The real world is not a defect in the implementation plan.

People are busy. Systems are imperfect. Functions have competing priorities. Politics exist. The urgent has a habit of eating the important, usually before breakfast.

The answer is not to wait for perfect readiness or build a magnificent SAM architecture that nobody has time to use. It is to start small, establish minimum-viable disciplines and learn through practice.

A programme is launched. A discipline is repeated.

Fred’s Comments

Do Not Scale Confusion

Strategic Account Management often looks marvellous in the launch presentation.

The accounts have been selected. The sponsors have been named. The templates have been uploaded. The governance meetings are in the diary. Everyone appears committed, particularly while the photographer is still in the room.

Then the real organisation returns.

The SAM is pulled into an urgent proposal. The sponsor has three other priorities. A function agrees to help but cannot release anyone. The account plan grows steadily older. Meetings become updates rather than decisions. The customer notices very little.

This does not mean SAM has failed. It means implementation has revealed the truth.

The practical response is to begin with a small pilot and a minimum-viable discipline. Choose a manageable number of accounts. Clarify why they matter. Give SAMs a real mandate. Map the customer context and stakeholder system. Make explicit investment choices. Build living plans. Use sponsors where they can be useful. Establish a rhythm that produces decisions. Capture the first evidence the customer would recognise.

Ninety days will not transform the organisation. It can, however, create momentum, expose barriers and teach leadership what the next stage genuinely requires.

The uncomfortable findings are valuable. If account selection is weak, learn it now. If sponsorship is decorative, fix it before expansion. If nobody owns cross-functional action, make the gap visible. If customers cannot feel a difference, stop admiring internal activity and change the work.

The temptation is to scale quickly because scale looks like success. Resist it. Do not scale unclear choices, unused plans, ceremonial governance or unsupported SAMs.

Scale what has become useful.

— Fred

“Make SAM simple enough to use, disciplined enough to matter, and human enough for customers to feel the difference.” — Fred Mills, Where Value Lives

Key Takeaways

  • The real world is not a defect. SAM must be designed to operate amid pressure, politics, imperfect systems and limited capacity.
  • A programme is launched; a discipline is repeated.
  • Start smaller than the organisation’s ambition. A focused pilot produces better learning than a premature enterprise-wide rollout.
  • Minimum Viable SAM means using enough discipline to improve choices, alignment and customer value without over-engineering the system.
  • The purpose of a 90-day sprint is to activate core disciplines, create early evidence, expose barriers and learn—not to complete the entire transformation.
  • Pilot accounts should be chosen through strategic fit, mutuality, readiness and available capacity—not revenue alone.
  • Every pilot account needs explicit strategic intent and an investment choice: Protect, Grow, Incubate, Repair, Maintain, or Exit or simplify.
  • The SAM needs a clear mandate, decision rights, cross-functional support and enough protected attention to perform the role.
  • Customer context and the real stakeholder system must be understood before internal activity is planned.
  • The account plan should be a living decision surface, not a completed document waiting for its annual refresh.
  • Executive sponsors are useful only when their attention has a defined purpose and they are properly briefed.
  • Governance should improve decisions, remove barriers, allocate attention and preserve learning—not merely generate updates.
  • Early measures should include customer-visible change, recognised value evidence, stakeholder depth, better conversations and stopped low-value activity, alongside commercial indicators.
  • The most uncomfortable pilot findings are diagnosis, not failure.
  • Customers should experience better preparation, relevance, follow-through, alignment, executive attention and value reviews.
  • Tools support implementation only when they improve behaviour and judgement. Otherwise, they become business wallpaper.
  • AI can support summaries, briefings, stakeholder-gap analysis and evidence capture, but it cannot manufacture maturity or replace human judgement.
  • Scale only after learning. Do not scale confusion.

Chapter 24 Download

90-Day SAM Activation Sprint Workbook

This 21-page implementation workbook turns Chapter 24’s practical doctrine into a focused 90-day pilot discipline.

It guides teams through ten activation steps and includes a minimum-viable toolkit coordinator, governance and action tracker, early evidence dashboard, twelve-trap diagnostic, 30/60/90-day reviews, pilot learning review, customer-visible change checklist and executive summary.

Download the 90-Day SAM Activation Sprint Workbook

PDF implementation workbook • Primary supporting resource for Chapter 24 of Where Value Lives

Questions to Take Back to Your Organisation

  1. How many accounts can we genuinely support as strategic relationships with the capacity currently available?
  2. Which small group of accounts would create the most useful pilot learning?
  3. Can leadership explain the strategic intent for every pilot account?
  4. Which accounts should we Protect, Grow, Incubate, Repair, Maintain, or Exit or simplify?
  5. Do our SAMs have a clear mandate, decision rights and cross-functional support?
  6. What do we know about each customer’s changing context—and what are we merely assuming?
  7. Does our stakeholder map explain how decisions, adoption and value recognition happen in practice?
  8. Are our account plans alive in real conversations and decisions?
  9. Would the customer notice if our executive sponsor disappeared?
  10. Which governance meetings make decisions or remove barriers, and which merely exchange updates?
  11. What early evidence would show that customers are experiencing something different?
  12. Which low-value activities should stop to create capacity for strategic work?
  13. What organisational barrier is the pilot already revealing?
  14. Where are we in danger of confusing completed tools with SAM maturity?
  15. What would customers say has become more relevant, reliable or useful?
  16. Which parts of the pilot should be scaled, adapted, continued, paused or stopped after 90 days?

Try This With AI

This prompt can help a pilot team review its 90-day implementation evidence. Remove confidential and personally identifiable information before using an external AI service. Require the AI to distinguish evidence from inference, assumption and unknowns.

Act as a rigorous Strategic Account Management implementation reviewer. Using ONLY the information I provide, assess whether our 90-day SAM pilot is creating a practical operating discipline and customer-visible change—or merely producing internal activity and completed tools. PILOT ACCOUNTS AND SELECTION RATIONALE: [Insert] STRATEGIC INTENT FOR EACH ACCOUNT: [Insert] SAM MANDATES, CAPACITY AND SUPPORT: [Insert] CUSTOMER-CONTEXT EVIDENCE: [Insert] STAKEHOLDER AND REAL BUYING-CENTRE INSIGHT: [Insert] INVESTMENT CHOICES: [Insert] LIVING ACCOUNT-PLAN USAGE: [Insert] EXECUTIVE-SPONSOR ACTIVITY AND OUTCOMES: [Insert] GOVERNANCE MEETINGS, DECISIONS AND BARRIERS REMOVED: [Insert] CUSTOMER-RECOGNISED VALUE EVIDENCE: [Insert] COMMERCIAL AND RELATIONSHIP SIGNALS: [Insert] TOOLS USED, IGNORED OR DUPLICATED: [Insert] IMPLEMENTATION BARRIERS AND RESISTANCE: [Insert] For every material statement, classify it as: DIRECT EVIDENCE REASONABLE INFERENCE ASSUMPTION UNKNOWN Do not invent customer views, strategic intent, stakeholder influence, sponsor usefulness, governance decisions, commercial outcomes, capability or maturity. Review the ten activation disciplines: 1. CHOOSE PILOT ACCOUNTS 2. CONFIRM STRATEGIC INTENT 3. APPOINT AND BRIEF SAMs 4. MAP CUSTOMER CONTEXT 5. MAP STAKEHOLDERS AND THE REAL BUYING CENTRE 6. CLARIFY INVESTMENT CHOICES 7. BUILD LIVING ONE-PAGE ACCOUNT PLANS 8. APPOINT USEFUL EXECUTIVE SPONSORS 9. ESTABLISH A GOVERNANCE RHYTHM 10. CAPTURE FIRST VALUE EVIDENCE AND NEXT ACTIONS For each discipline provide: – a provisional maturity rating from 1 to 5; – the evidence supporting the rating; – what is working; – the most important gap or contradiction; – the likely effect on customer-recognised value; – and one practical next action. Then test the pilot against these twelve implementation traps: 1. Too many accounts 2. Revenue-only status 3. Account plans as documents 4. Decorative sponsorship 5. Governance without decisions 6. Value without evidence 7. Sales-only ownership 8. Over-engineering 9. Impatience 10. Tool-first implementation 11. No customer-visible change 12. Weak leadership reinforcement Finish with: – a concise diagnosis of the pilot; – the five strongest pieces of evidence; – the five most important unknowns; – the three greatest implementation barriers; – low-value activity that should stop; – leadership decisions required now; – customer questions needed to test our internal story; – a 30-day action plan; – and a recommendation to SCALE, ADAPT, CONTINUE THE PILOT, PAUSE or STOP, with reasons. Apply these final tests: “What is the customer experiencing differently?” “Are the tools improving decisions and behaviour?” “What has the pilot taught us that we did not know before?” “Are we scaling useful discipline—or scaling confusion?”

Keep Exploring Where Value Lives

Chapter 24 brings the discipline into the imperfect conditions where it must actually work. A focused pilot turns theory into practice, exposes organisational truth and creates evidence for the next decision.

The final chapter returns to the simple idea that has held the book together: products, plans, technology, governance and activity matter only because of what happens in the customer’s mind.

The five inches between the customer’s ears is the only place where quality and value exist.

Chapter 25 explores Learning to Live Where Value Lives—bringing the principles together and asking how they should shape everyday judgement, attention and action.

← Back to Chapter 23 Continue to Chapter 25 →