What are the key skills and competencies of a successful account manager in the digital age?

You have to understand a client's business model, products, people and processes. Map your services and products into their value chain. That should be as is and future. Relationships are critical, build trust, listen, make your company easy to do business with, look for the wins for your contacts, make their life easier, help them be successful.

It’s still all about the humans in the equation. What do they need, in order to be successful? How can we as a seller help them do their jobs to achieve their company and professional goals? Curiosity and a desire to find the best way to solve their challenges. The digital age enhances the options to help- routes to connection, information and resources. But it’ll always be about human connection and understanding.

One thing I’ve found helpful is considering your internal customers as well. Aligning client needs with your enterprises ensures you are moving goals fluidly for both customers (internal and external). Creating a business case for each ask also helps set expectations and restate the value of the ask in a way that breaks down the actual impact or demonstrates true value .

A customer centric mindset comes from a customer focused business. Without businesses prioritising what their customers need or want, this makes the Account Management role even more challenging - square peg, round hole sometimes comes to mind. In my experience, a strong relationship and a mutual purpose will shape the success of an account .

Whilst I believe this is a given in terms of mindset, I think the value only truly comes once trust is established, and there’s a high degree of competence. The aim is to have a partnership. I believe reaching that true partnership status is where the magic happens.

Even if you don't know the answer, tell them that, and let them know that you will find out for them ASAP. You don't have to know EVERYTHING, but you do need to be able to communicate that as well as the things you do know.

A habilidade de comunica??o é fundamental para um gestor de Contas de Sucesso, especialmente na era digital. O fundamento dessa habilidade reside na capacidade de transmitir informa??es de forma clara, empática e eficaz, estabelecendo conex?es significativas com os clientes. Além disso, na era digital, é essencial dominar as ferramentas de comunica??o online, como e-mails, videoconferências, redes sociais empresariais e chats, a fim de manter uma comunica??o ágil e eficiente em um ambiente virtual.

Within communication needs to come accountability. Managing expectations (in both directions) based on clear and open communication, and then holding everyone accountable to those expectations, makes navigating the complexity of the digital environment much easier.

Practice active listening to understand and empathize with stakeholders. Use storytelling to make your message engaging and memorable. Seek and learn from feedback to continuously improve your skills. Adapt your communication style and message to different contexts and channels. Be confident and assertive when negotiating or handling difficult situations.

Improve your communication style by first listening on how your prospect talk - fast and fact based ? - Power-hungry ? - Slow and inquisitive? Whatever the combination is, you need to talk at the same method that they do to get alignment, while delivering value in every conversation. Never leave a conversation and have them think what did we accomplish?

Data storytelling is a huge portion of Account Management. Being able to make pretty graphs from data with the ability to speak on those graphs is one thing, but being able to take raw data, and deep dive into it in order to build a compelling narrative and influence a business decision is another. It’s what separates a good Account Manager from a great Account Manager.

You can’t make a decision without data; otherwise it’s just an assumption. I always remember a former CEO who told me to go and find him some quantitive data to back up my assumptions before we course-corrected on a client/ delivery plan. I still think about that interaction now when I’m reviewing accounts with my team.

Having up-to-date digital marketing knowledge to propose strategies that tackle the full consumer journey. Along with the ability to think in a 360 manner to align the online marketing efforts with the offline part.

I agree with @Richard Holling here. Data literacy is not as important from an account management perspective. While you should be able to read and understand account statistics and data, its more important to build a personal relationship with the account. You should focus on intangible objects like problems, pain points, successes etc. I think data literacy is just the basic skill to be used for visualizations as mentioned. But you must be careful to not solely rely on it to communicate with the account.

It's about decoding data, making informed decisions, and sharing insights effectively. To boost data literacy, learn the basics of data analysis and its application to account management

This has been true for 40 years. You customers will be adapting and changing in line with their chosen market. Understand those changes and adapt your companies processes and products to help your client succeed. Most of this comes down to client intimacy.

You need to be the customer's ultimate champion when it comes to adaptability within your organisation. Often, you may find your customers are adapting and using technology at a much faster pace than your organisation. Be the voice for your accounts, take notice of where they are online, who they are talking to and how, and advocate for your organisation's presence there, too.

adaptability is the superpower of the digital age account manager. It's about embracing change, learning from challenges, and staying ahead in a dynamic landscape. Adaptability is the compass that guides us through the ever-evolving digital world.

The digital landscape is constantly evolving, with new technologies and trends emerging regularly. Successful account managers need to stay adaptable and continuously update their skills to keep pace with these changes.

Adaptability is a key skill for account managers as they need to be able to adapt to changing situations and expectations. Especially in the digital age, this skill is crucial to deal with the fast-paced and dynamic environment. Account managers must be able to quickly understand customer needs and preferences and respond to new technologies and trends. This also includes flexibility, resilience and openness to new ideas, as well as a willingness to experiment and innovate. In order to increase your own adaptability, it's important to embrace change, face challenges and learn from mistakes.

Steward of the Business. Placing the client at the center is important, but that also needs to be balanced with understanding the business and even handedly representing those requirements ultimately creating a bi-directional mutual rewarding outcome for both parties.

This is soooo important. Accounts require many different stakeholders to run efficiently. Beyond the key account holder, you must consider who else is impacted by your solution/specialization, and how it affects all facets of the business account.

Collaboration skills are crucial for account managers as they need to work effectively with others inside and outside their organisation to achieve common goals. Especially in the digital world, account managers need strong collaboration skills to work with different teams and departments such as sales-support teams, marketing, product and service to build productive and long-term relationships with customers and partners. This includes sharing information, ideas and feedback and identifying and utilising the strengths and expertise of others to achieve goals. To develop collaboration skills, it's important to be respectful, supportive and responsible.

In the digital age, data-driven decision-making is paramount. Account managers should be able to analyze data from various sources to gain insights into client behavior, measure campaign performance, and identify opportunities for optimization.

Trust. You need to trust the process and your team. You are building your foundation brick by brick and it takes time. Instant success is few and far in between, but the overall foundation will require time, dedication, and relentless communication efforts and follow-ups. Never give up, it may not be the right time now but it could be down the road, so stay connected.

Treat each opportunity as a project for which you are the Scrum Master. I believe that every sales person should be a Project Scrum Master. It sums it all: you need to be organized, to have a clear communication, be able to align with stakeholders and manage the extended team, by the end, you need focus on the outcome for the project (which it should be solving a customer's problem). During this time, you gain trust. Trust is something that you need to acquire. It's a way to put it in a framework if there are people there that like me needs a very structured and rational way of doing things.

Keys to success are: - own your mistakes and delivery issues - be easy to work with/do business with - remember you are delivering to a price point, if they a buying bronze and deliver the best bronze service you can, but remind them they didn't buy silver. - work cooperatively with other suppliers to build more value - don't mention competitors and never criticise them,

Uma outra e imprescindível qualidade de um ótimo Gestor de Contas de sucesso nesta era digital, para além de toda essa proficiência em tecnologias, é o “Pensamento Estratégico”. Que consiste na capacidade efetiva de criar/implementar estratégias eficazes para fidelizar e expandir a base de clientes .

In the digital age, successful account managers need a blend of traditional relationship-building skills and digital acumen. Key skills include exceptional communication to convey complex digital solutions in simple terms, strategic thinking to align digital strategies with client goals, and adaptability to navigate rapidly evolving technologies. They must be data-driven, leveraging analytics to track performance and optimize strategies. Cultivating empathy helps them understand client needs deeply. Collaboration skills are vital for working across teams to deliver integrated solutions. Finally, a proactive mindset ensures they stay ahead in a dynamic digital landscape, anticipating challenges and opportunities