Successful account managers show leadership with their customers: they do not adapt their business practices to those of the customer, but select and shape their customers. To achieve this goal, account managers should engage in account planning in unconventional ways and then influence and shapeshift buying center members through networking. Verbeke clearly explains what he means by this shaping and outlines various shaping techniques. He further emphasizes that shaping is only possible by using account systems. Finally, he pays attention to what he calls street-smartness and to emotional competence, both essential skills of today's account manager. With this book, Verbeke offers a refreshing vision of the profession that no account manager will be able to ignore.