Account Planning: Creating Mutual Value with Customers
Good sellers distinguish themselves by winning important sales opportunities against the toughest competition. But great sellers create opportunities, and they win them before the competition even knows about them.
They do it by anticipating customer needs. The result is a long-term upward spiral of mutual value.
But like all creativity, ideas in selling come from focused effort, not random acts of genius. That’s why organizations that create opportunities use account planning as a key growth enabler.
Why then has account planning become such an extravagant waste of time in so many organizations? One big reason is that planning tends to get bogged down in analysis. We cast about in an endless sea of data with no hope of understanding it all. “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink”. Yet, with the right focus, it does not have to be that way.
Focusing on the Customer’s Critical Business Objectives
The System Selling approach to account planning helps teams focus on the few data points that are most important to the customer. The heart of the process is three simple but powerful questions.
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What is the customer trying to change: Current State?
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What is success: Desired State?
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How do our products or services help them address the gaps between current state and desired state?
The tension between current state and desired state is the birthplace of great ideas. We call these ideas value-added sales opportunities because they focus foremost on solving problems for the customer. It’s a powerful way to sell, and it’s also the right thing to do.
Base Account Planning Process
”Okay, but my salespeople are not business consultants.”
Most experienced sales professionals know it doesn’t pay to pretend you know as much about the customer’s business as they know. We would agree. But we would add that customers do expect us to learn as much as we can in order to show how what we sell can help them achieve their goals.
We tailor our standard account planning tool to suit your specific needs, starting with these standard sections:
Account Profile—influence network, revenue history, competitive set, etc.
Penetration—where we are currently being used in the customer’s environment.
Opportunity Creation—the core of the plan wherein the selling team finds ways to help the customer close gaps between current state and desired state.
Action Plan—summary of key activities for executing the account strategy.
