Remember that account plan you built at the start of the year for your Key Accounts? Have you continued to work it? This would be a good time to refresh it, check your progress against the initial objectives, and update your plan for the balance of the year. Now is the time for your booster shots.
One of the shortest paths to hitting your quota is to maximize revenue from your existing customers. Acquiring business from an existing customer is six times more profitable than pursuing new customers and your win rate with an existing customer is seven times greater than when you are trying to capture that new logo. I have written about this extensively in my book Account Planning in Salesforce – but you know this already and that’s why you built the account plans for your key accounts in the first place.
The winners in sales, particularly the top performing account managers, are those who stay the course, those who know that account planning is not a one time exercise – a short 100 meter dash, but a series of connected sprints that combine to put you in the lead in the marathon that is key account management.
To keep your account plan alive and get the return from your efforts here’s what you need to do.
Booster Shot #1: Update Your Research
Things are moving really quickly. If you are hoping to maximize revenue from your large accounts, you have to know what is going on in the account today. The world has changed a lot in the last few months, and it’s likely that your customer is impacted. Take what you’ve learned from the interactions you have had so far, any insights from the deals you have been working, and enrich that with the macro trends that are evolving. Start again with a beginner’s mind. Read that 10k again, look for recent news events. Update yourself on what is going on in the industry – things are moving at such a pace now that the landscape has probably changed since your built the plan. Apply the experience you have gained to bring additional insight to your customer.
Booster Shot #2: Stay Customer Focused
Remember that the impact on a customer of a poor buying decision is usually greater than the impact on a sales person of a lost deal. Your role is to create value for the customer, not just to communicate information about your company or your solutions. Before you position your value, a prerequisite is having a deep sense of what the customer values today. When you have updated your research, you can once again feel comfortable in the customer’s shoes. Question your initial assumptions – but most of all don’t let the focus on a current deal blind to you the bigger picture.
Booster Shot #3: Update Your Data, Systems and Account Plan
Make sure that the data in your CRM and your Account Plan is fully up to date. That’s the only way you can measure if you are making progress against the plan. Everyone on the account team should have played their part and it is important to measure that, see where the gaps are, and take the necessary actions. Hopefully you are using a common platform so that you are able to work together. If you can’t see what’s happened thus far it will be hard to know what to do next.
Booster Shot #4a: Revisit the People
Depending on industry and function, the average tenure of a senior executive can be as little as two-years. That means that every six months or so 25% of the key influencers in your customer will have changed role or will be considering a change. The Relationship Map you developed when you first built your plan needs to be re-confirmed. According to the Business Performance Benchmark Study, sellers who successfully access the right people in the account achieve a win rate that is 28% greater than those who don’t. You need to make sure that you are still talking to the right people and that they still have preference for your company.
Booster Shot #4b: Revisit the Problems
In the Business Performance Benchmark Study, the key strategic imperative for 2017 is Customer Retention, but only a few of the planned projects had Customer Retention elements. This will probably change. Also, the continuing impact of Digital Transformation as a key disruptor and driver of change will cause companies to review current initiatives and will likely lead to a change in prioritization. Reconfirming that you are connected with the right people and that you understand the projects that are uppermost in their minds will help you to stay aligned and guide their actions.
Booster Shot #5: Update the White Space
Your objective is to maximize your penetration in the account in a way that maximizes Mutual Value. Once you understand the people and the problems and have developed a trusted relationship with your customer you can identify areas of opportunity – the white space in the account – where your solutions can add value to the customer. This is a key way to develop new opportunities and build your plan for the remaining period of the account plan.
Booster Shot #6: Maintain / Re-establish A Regular Cadence of Account Plan Reviews
Account Planning should not be an annual event. It is not about reporting what you know; it is about discovering what you don’t know, and then acting to uncover the missing information to inform your subsequent activity. Account Planning must live and breathe as part of how you run your business. It needs to become part of your culture, and should be integrated into your overall business cadence.
Booster Shot #7: Update your Objectives, Strategies and Actions
While the plan in itself can be hugely valuable – it all comes to life when you define Objectives, Strategies and Actions that describe the specific tasks you need to execute everyday to make progress. Having revisited the research, refreshed your knowledge of the People and Problems, you should now refine the Objectives, Strategies and Actions to plot your path towards achieving your account plan goals.
Planning is important, but it is the sustained execution of the tasks and actions everyday that determines the level of progress you make.
Time to take the booster shots.
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Donal Daly is Executive Chairman of Altify having founded the company in 2005. He is author of numerous books and ebooks including the Amazon #1 Best-sellers Account Planning in Salesforce and Tomorrow | Today: How AI Impacts How We Work, Live, and Think. Altify is Donal’s fifth global business enterprise.