Do Strategic Account Managers Require Superpowers?

A Formula 1 pit crew working on a race car, in black and white with a berry tint

By Kate Burda & Company · 2026.09.30

Time for account-based marketing to come to the rescue.

Ask any strategic account manager how the job has changed and you’ll hear the same story. More accounts. Bigger growth targets. Customers with harder, broader problems. And an organization behind them that keeps centralizing, adding to the plate without taking anything off it.

SAMs are being stretched thin from both sides, by the customer and by their own company. Some days it really does feel like the job takes superpowers.

How did we get here?

Three pressures show up in almost every account team we work with.

  • The problems got bigger. Customers aren’t asking suppliers for a product anymore. They’re asking for help with problems that cut across their whole business. To stand out, SAMs have to engage differently.
  • The data got louder. There’s more information about every account than ever, and less time to make sense of it. Turning data into real hindsight, insight and foresight is a skill most account teams were never given.
  • The relationship got deeper. As customers and suppliers integrate, trust takes longer to build and is easier to lose. One off-message email from headquarters can undo a year of work.

Every superhero needs a partner

So is the SAM alone with all of this? We’d argue the opposite.

The best SAMs don’t try to do it all themselves. They know when and how to bring the right people to the table to ideate, innovate and create impact for their customers. Like a Formula 1 driver, they get the spotlight, but the race is won by the crew.

Enter marketing.

But first, what we don’t mean by marketing

When you read the word marketing, you may picture branding, awareness campaigns, ads or a splashy launch. Account-based marketing done well is none of those things.

At its best, ABM is customer-led and team-enabled. The account lead is the tip of the spear. Marketing is the amplifier. The whole team wraps around where the customer is in their own journey, and the account plan and the marketing plan become the same document.

What each side brings

  • Marketing brings the persona and the emotional insight, market intelligence, the value proposition and messaging, proof points and the channel plan.
  • The SAM brings the relationship, the stakeholder map, the opportunity portfolio, solution fit and execution.

Together they deliver the right message, from the right person, at the right point in the customer’s journey. No algorithm can replace that.

Show up before anyone is selling

A SAM’s biggest advantage is proximity. They’re often the first to sense that something has shifted inside an account, before the customer can even name what they need. We call that the point of inspiration.

It matters because most of the buying decision happens without you. Gartner found that B2B buyers spend only about 17% of their buying time meeting with potential suppliers, and that time is split across every supplier they’re considering. Marketing’s job is to help the SAM show up in that early window with insight, not a brochure. Own the mindshare early, and market share, share of wallet and lifetime value follow.

Why it pays

The research on firms that do ABM well bears it out.

  • Forrester found that ABM accounts carry larger average deal sizes than non-ABM accounts in every region it studied. About a third of firms saw an 11% to 20% uplift, and nearly a third saw 21% to 50%.
  • In Momentum ITSMA and the ABM Leadership Alliance’s benchmark of 279 ABM leaders, 72% said ABM delivers a higher ROI than any other type of marketing.
  • The same study found only 17% of programs are fully embedded in how the company goes to market. For most, ABM still sits next to the account plan instead of inside it.

That last number is the opportunity.

So, do SAMs need superpowers?

No. They need a partner. When sales and marketing build the account plan together, around what the customer is thinking and feeling, the SAM stops carrying the whole weight alone. That’s thoughtware before software.

Want the full framework? Read our paper, Thoughtware Before Software.

Want to talk through your most important account? Book 20 minutes with Kate. No pitch.

This piece builds on “Do Strategic Account Managers Require Superpowers?” by Dominique Côté of Cosawi (cosawi.com).

Sources

  • Forrester, “Account-Based Marketing Results In Larger Average Deal Sizes Across Regions,” Daryl Wright, December 9, 2024.
  • Momentum ITSMA and the ABM Leadership Alliance, sixth annual ABM Benchmark Study, 279 ABM leaders and practitioners, December 2022.
  • Gartner, “5 Ways the Future of B2B Buying Will Rewrite the Rules of Effective Selling,” Brent Adamson and Nick Toman, August 2020.