Account management is universally acknowledged as important and almost never taught.

Most account managers arrive in the role from sales or category management and learn the work in front of a buyer who has no particular interest in their education. The knowledge that results is real but uneven, held privately, and difficult to transmit.

This book sets that knowledge out in an order a reader can follow: what the role is, how to read the retail environment before acting, how relationships are built and planned upon, how deals are negotiated and measured, what to do when a partnership comes under strain, and where the trade appears to be heading.

Written for the practitioner who wants a map of the terrain and the working vocabulary that goes with it — an orientation, not a substitute for judgement earned in the field.