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Drawing on his extensive experience in Sales and Marketing, Wessex Press Chair Noel Capon co-authored an article featured in the March-April 2021 issue of Harvard Business Review.
The HBR article, “When CEOs Make Sales Calls,” explores how top-management involvement in B2B relationships can drive -- or kill – deals, by boosting revenue and strengthening ties, or by damaging and even destroying relationships.
https://hbr.org/2021/03/when-ceos-make-sales-calls
HBR: “When CEOs Make Sales Calls”
Professor Capon and co-author Christoph Senn describe five distinct roles that senior executives play when they interact with their most important customers:
The authors explore the risks and rewards of each type of interaction, and the impact each has on business performance. They make the case for why CEOs should commit to becoming truly customer-centric as an essential driver of growth and success.
“Top executives need to move this off of their to-do lists and put it into action,” says Capon, who also is R.C. Kopf Professor of International Marketing at Columbia Business School, and a member of the board of directors of the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA).
Professor Capon and Senn, a co-director of the Marketing and Sales Excellence Initiative at INSEAD, based their article on 30 executive education workshops they conducted from 2012-2018 with 515 strategic and global account managers in New York, Rotterdam, St. Gallen (Switzerland), and Singapore.
SAMA webinar: Does Top Management Help or Hinder Strategic Account Management?
Professor Capon also discussed his recently published HBR article at a SAMA webinar: “Does Top Management Help or Hinder Your Strategic Account Managers?”
Does Top Management Help (or Hinder) Your Strategic Account Managers (VIDEO LINK)
In the webinar, he stressed that senior managers can be extremely effective in supporting key strategic account managers, but only if their involvement is well-designed.
No matter how well-intentioned, uncontrolled senior management involvement can have negative consequences on a key account. He recommends assessing senior management involvement regularly so any necessary adjustments can be made.
To access the HBR article and the SAMA webinar, please click on the links below:
