Drive revenue and customer satisfaction with great account planning

If you want to deliver more value into your strategic or key accounts, effective account planning is foundational.

And…account planning is distinct from an account plan.

Account planning is an ongoing process, involving multiple players — the KAD or SAM or lead sales person, the CSM, other pillar reps, relevant SEs and key customer stakeholders.

I explored the topic of account planning with Ulrik Monberg, CEO of ARPEDIO, last fall, for the Thoughts on Selling Podcast.

We have similar views on the topic of account planning, including the value of relationship maps and action plans. I also recorded a “Short Bytes” session on account planning best practices. Both are available via Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Full disclosure…when I first launched the Acelera Group, focusing on account planning and pipeline development, I didn’t have an account planning platform strategy. In my prior experience, facilitating over 300 account planning sessions, and more than 30 key account planning sessions, at Oracle and Google, PowerPoint (and Google Slides) was my platform of choice. (Ulrik got a chuckle from that!)

It took only a few customers to ask “how do we scale this” for me to search for…and find…ARPEDIO as the answer to that question. Now customers can scale a highly effective account planning process across their entire organization, providing similar value and functionality for each sales team chartered with account planning.

By the way, late Q2 or early Q3 is a great time to conduct account planning sessions with customers to ensure a strong close to 2024. Let me know if you’d like assistance in developing a formal account planning framework or need facilitation for important customers.

Thanks!

Lee

Abandoning the Hero Sale

When companies first get started, the founders may do most or all of the selling. They have the vision, the passion, the depth of knowledge of the service or product and connect well with early adopters.

At some point the Hero Sale risks becoming the Hero Fail. The challenge is that as the business expands, the founders (the heros) need to focus on running the business, managing the growth, courting investors, hiring managers, etc., and they have less time for selling.

So...they hire sales people. 

And they expect sales people to act and perform in their image, with the same depth of knowledge, passion, and ability to connect with mainstream customers.

I've seen and experienced it first-hand.

When I sold predictive analytics to some of the largest tech companies in the industry, the company president and founder expected the sales team to leverage his 100 page slide deck...to go deep into the technical details of the what and how of the platform. Much of our sales training focused on this technical deep dive, and only lightly touched on personas and messaging.

Conversely, my mainstream customers were only interested in the benefits of leveraging the platform - could they increase pipeline velocity, improve pipeline size and shape,  bolster their customer acquisition rates, meet their quota and revenue targets. The decision makers didn't care what was under the hood, only whether it would bolster their marketing results and how difficult it would be to integrate the predictive analytics platform and workflow into their existing marketing processes.

IBM wasn't even interested in the platform...they had their own...they were interested in our curated third party data. And we discovered this not through a detailed review of the CEO's slide deck, but in an extended white boarding session focusing on work flows. (White boards are my favorite selling tools.)

In talking with clients I hear many facing this same challenge...as the company grows, expected sales productivity fails to increase as experienced sales people are hired. And the founders question the new hires, the selection process, the target markets, everything but their own outsize influence in setting sales strategy.

Moving from a hero-driven revenue model to one that is sustainable and scalable requires a fundamental shift to a traditional selling model -- a formal selling methodology, selling processes, SFA and CRM platforms, formal onboarding activities. Dedicated sales managers will provide strong leverage for additional growth, particularly if a coaching methodology and mindset is part of the structure.

When I joined BAO, the outsourced inside sales organization, as its first sales leader, I implemented a formal selling methodology and spent a lot of time coaching my sales team on value selling techniques. Many had come from the delivery side of the organization and had been accustomed to a highly transactional sales approach...making up to 250 calls each day. The investment in time and effort paid off...we signed a number of key accounts that had been chased for fifteen years.

We also drove an increase in revenue of 75% over that first 18 month period.

Moving to this scalable selling model requires both support and patience from all of the key stakeholders. It won't happen all at once, and it does require a substantive shift in approach. The founders must step back and give the hired managers the space and time to do their job.

A formal approach to change management...and specifically...setting expectations with the key stakeholders will prove useful.

And maybe, just maybe, that hero can take their first vacation in four years.

Thanks!

Lee

Leading Sales Indicators

Selling a complex solution is a lot like running a marathon. To be successful, you can’t just walk up to the starting line and start running. Success in the marathon takes months of preparation. For each mile of the marathon, a runner might run 20-30 miles in direct preparation. Similarly, a good enterprise sales person will dedicate 10-20 hours of preparation (research, discovery, planning) for each hour of face to face with the prospect or customer.

The successful marathoner will have a comprehensive race plan, mapping out the goal pace for each mile. Many apply these plans as temporary “race tats” on their arms, so that they can keep track of their plan while on the road. Similarly, good enterprise sales people develop detailed opportunity or pursuit plans that include both their actions and those of their teammates (other sales people on the account, sales engineers, etc.).

Marathoners carefully watch the leading indicators that help them to determine whether the individual race will be worthy of a Personal Record (PR) or perhaps just a long, slow run. For the runner, some of these leading indicators include their Heart Rate Variance (HRV) and sleep patterns in the days leading up to the race, the temperature and humidity on race day, how they feel at the start line and more.

If the racer sticks to their race plan (slower pace in the first half of the race, faster in the second), a good day is possible. Toss that race plan, run too fast in the first half of the race, and all the prep in the world won’t save you. Trust me…I know!

Similar dynamics exist in the complex enterprise sales environment. While sales management typically watches portfolio coverage as a primary indicator, it is not a leading indicator. Pipeline coverage will tell you that you are in trouble. It won’t tell you why you are in trouble…and it doesn’t give sufficient warning for early correction.

The Acelera Group Sales Productivity Framework incorporates ten rep-focused leading indicators, along with a single first line sales manager (FLSM) indicator. These indicators provide the early warning signs for a decline in sales performance, at the rep, group and region level, and point strongly to specific actions to be taken for course correction.

The ratio of prep time versus face time, as mentioned earlier, is one of these leading indicators. Depending on the specific business problem, level of prior customer intimacy and complexity of the environment, the sweet spot may be 5 or 10 to 1. When reps (or teams) diverge from the sweet spot, we can expect a looming drop in sales results.

A second leading indicator – whether a business value analysis (BVA) has been conducted – holds a similar power of predictability. Curiously, despite its significant positive impact on customer intimacy and satisfaction, deal profitability and overall sales results, the BVA is not widely used.

Complex enterprise selling should not be an ad hoc series of unrelated activities. Good preparation and effective plan execution will help the runner to complete the race and the sales rep to drive great sales results.

What are your leading indicators telling you?

Thanks!

Got a Plan?

How Are You Treating Your Largest Accounts?

Strategic accounts warrant investment and relationship rigor. They spend more, have been customers longer, and have made specific long-lasting platform, technology and relationship commitments. A company’s top five customers alone may account for 22% of all revenues and 21% of  annual profits! (Source: Sales Executive Council).

Most large companies have a strategic account strategy, providing additional technical, business, product resources, and occasionally targeted investments in those accounts. Some provide “concierge” access to technical or development resources. Executive sponsors are assigned to these accounts.

Yet day to day management of the relationship is largely left to chance. Few companies hire true strategic account managers (SAMs), choosing instead to promote their “best” individual reps into a role that requires significant team and process management skills.

While SAMs may be compensated on multi-year revenue attainment, share of wallet gains and occasionally customer satisfaction scores, the other sales people on the account, called specialist, pillar, or portfolio sales people, typically retain their quarterly and annual quota targets, and frequently are re-assigned year to year.  These portfolio sales people don’t typically report to the SAM, usually have competing business imperatives for their own product sets and may even compete with one another, as multiple products from the vendor may solve individual business or technical problems.

In short, a primary driver of disappointment in strategic account programs is that the planning process typically focuses on sales planning rather than relationship planning. 

Developing a Plan Isn’t Sufficient

SAMs are typically expected to develop an annual account plan, and some collaborate with their portfolio sales people to do so. Others just wing it. In most cases, the output is indeed a plan…a written document that is revisited annually…an artifact that provides no guidance for the day-to-day governance of the account. It is a sales plan with detailed lists of potential opportunities, alignment of products to perceived business or technical problems. The plan typically lacks a thorough analysis of the influence map within the account or any plans to bolster relationships with important internal and external (partner) stakeholders.

A recent survey conducted by the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) found that, even within their membership, a mere 11% of account plans are “effectively executed.” That’s a pretty dismal adherence rate, given that these plans should be the primary pathway to better customer relationships and higher revenue generation! 

What to Do?

If your organization is serious about strategic accounts, the first step is to ensure corporate support for a multiyear investment in the process of account planning, management and governance. While results will appear almost immediately, the full impact of an effective strategic account program will not be seen until the second or third year of the program. If the program is maintained, those results should be long-lasting!

The next step is to set up a framework for success, including:

• Hiring SAMs with strong team management skills
• Developing programmatic analysis of customer financials, industry growth trends, key stakeholder profiles, installed base, competitive SOW and more…
• Enrolling management of each portfolio sales organization in the process and creating a consistent set of rules of engagement
• Developing a process for thoughtfully identifying the strategic opportunities and challenges within the customer organization
• Installing a team governance process to ensure success on an ongoing basis

Team Governance?

In my experience…and I’ve driven strategic planning for more than $2B in revenues…the last item in the framework is the real challenge. Teams gather to conduct the planning process…and then scatter to the wind. Individual reps receive conflicting directives from their management, sometimes in conflict with the team. Occasionally they go “rogue” in an effort to land revenue this quarter or fiscal year, upsetting a much larger, more strategic deal.

To address this issue with one very large software company, we established the concept of sales team “program management” for their Account Team Unit (ATU). Initially, the function of program management was handled by an existing team member, with the goal of providing dedicated headcount to take on that function as necessary. As we developed the strategic account program at another company, one core team member owned team facilitation and took on governance as necessary to support the strengths (and challenges) of the strategic account manager. 

Thing One – Visibility

The SAM must have visibility on the activities of each portfolio rep (and their sales consultants), ensuring consistent team/account messaging across all initiatives and engagement; and whether individual reps are engaged. That visibility would also help the SAM to know where a rep needs help with access or organizational support. Reps gravitate to where they see opportunity, leaving broken promises of supporting the SAM and the strategic account. “If it’s not closing this quarter, I’m not wasting my time pursuing it.” 

Thing Two – Customer Participation

However, even if your organization successfully designs and implements a strong planning and governance framework, this only provides the “inside-out” view. It’s a series of hypotheses around “what we think the customer might be interested in…” And here’s where most companies fail in their strategic account planning process. They neglect to include the single most important stakeholder in the process — the customer.

Sure…it can be challenging to include the customer in the process, and sometimes the customer’s strategic focus doesn’t align with what we want to sell. Go figure! Yet, deep engagement with the customer in the planning process leads to more involvement by the customer, better “time and access” for discovery and relationship building, faster decision cycles, larger, more profitable deals, and higher customer satisfaction. That planning process, by the way, is a cycle rather than an event…a series of regular engagements with relevant resources, and commitment to action and investment on an ongoing basis.

Many companies leave the participation of the customer to be handled by the SAM. A few formally drive a “co-creation” process with the customer, ensuring that the customer has a seat at the table in the planning process. I’ve facilitated strategic account planning in F100 customers’ boardrooms, with active participation of key customer stakeholders throughout the process. Their participation provided valuable direction for our sales investments and led to the identification of significant new opportunities. Once a good context is established for the joint team, everyone looks forward to the regular discussions. We’re helping our strategic stakeholders to address significant business challenges and they have a sense that we’re “in the boat” with them, that we are truly committed to their success. 

Strategic Account Planning and Governance as Competitive Advantage — Actions to Take

If you believe that your strategic account program could drive more value for your organization (and for your customer), a key area of focus is individual sales rep activity, messaging and governance. We are exploring a new approach to better manage this area and am interested in partnering with a couple of organizations to pilot that approach.

And the second key area is customer involvement. If you’re not actively, routinely involving your customer in the strategic planning process, you’re leaving significant money on the table and wasting valuable time and resources on unqualified opportunities.

Thanks!

The Late Apex is the Fastest Line to the Sale

In auto racing, the fastest line through a corner is usually a “late apex.” Rather than braking, turning early, and then accelerating after the corner, a late apex takes a straight line deeper into the corner, braking, turning and taking another straight line through the corner and out. It’s typically faster because the car is at speed longer down the straight and faster through and out of the turn.

In sales, the late apex is also the preferred line. Most sales people, as soon as they sniff an opportunity, start “turning into” it (the early apex). They give up on the initial line of discovery – learning about the prospect, their needs, pains, challenges – and turn into it – pitching and presenting. This pitching and presenting takes the salesperson off-track and the sale is lost.

Experienced salespeople will continue on the initial line of discovery until they find the right moment to turn in (the late apex). At this point, they know where they are going with the conversation and it may well be a straight line through the corner and on down the track…or in sales terms, they have found a good match between the prospect’s key issue and their ability to address that issue. At this point they are “co-creating” the solution with the prospect in a linear way.

This way of driving (or selling) feels odd at first. It doesn’t follow the natural contour of the road (or sales conversation). It requires intestinal fortitude to drive deeper into the corner and then turn, or to continue to probe on issues without talking about capabilities or features.

With experience, this different approach becomes more natural. You enter the corner later, you spend less time in the turn, and you accelerate out of the turn more quickly. Similarly, you develop a better understanding of the prospect’s challenges and environment and once you move to develop the solution, it’s a straight line to complete the process…often with the prospect asking “how do we get started?”

Music to every sales person’s ears!

Thanks,

Lee