IMPORTANT NOTE: There are many different levels of sales. For convenience sake, we might think of it as a spectrum from transactional to complex, enterprise-level sales, with many variations in between. This post addresses more complex versions where “breaking in” to an organization and multithreading to higher levels and decision makers is key.
There are many reasons why quota attainment for account executives have hovered around (only) 42% for the past couple of years. A huge contributing factor is the failure to do adequate research and planning in the beginning, and to complete a thorough and complete account plan for each target account.
Where do you start?
Prioritization
Let’s say you’re tasked with selling to fifty target accounts. Where do you start? Maybe you can create the best email ever and send it to someone at each of the fifty companies. Better yet, you could create a sequence and automatically send email after email. And sprinkle in cold calls?
I’ve seen it done.
Results from this approach–especially in 2024–are less than stellar.
Instead, what if you target the top twenty percent of your target accounts (ten, in this case, for starters), with strategic and relevant outreach?
Which accounts are in your top 20%?
Here’s a quick but way to rank your target accounts:
Create relevant criteria, assign a weight to each one, and score each company on a scale of 1-10. Based on the scores in the fictional scoring shown above, Citibank would easily be my top target of the three.
Rank all fifty accounts using the same criteria. Pick your top ten accounts and then start researching them.
Creating the Account Plan Starts with Indirect Research
The point of the research is to develop a deep and thorough understanding of the business. This, of course, includes basics like:
- How do they make money?
- Are they winning?
- Are they the leader in their category? Or eighth? And do they care?
- Are they profitable?
- Regulatory environment?
But it also includes deeper insights like:
- What do they care most about?
- What are their biggest initiatives for the next year?
- What are their biggest priorities right now?
- What metrics are most important? How are they doing against them?
- What are their biggest challenges?
- What do they see as their biggest opportunities?
Each list is a brief sample of the kinds of things you’ll want to discover.
Examples of places we might start finding needed information include (but certainly not limited to) 10K and 10Q reports, investor presentations, earnings calls, news articles, job boards (not only whether or not they’re hiring, and for what, but what do employees say about the company and its problems?), podcasts, speaking engagements, and so on. Dig!
Why do we care?
Thorough research and deep understanding of the target company will make outreach more effective. You’ll be seen as someone with credibility. You can approach people in the target company as a consultant rather than a salesperson. You’ll truly be someone worth talking to.
It’s the first step in positioning yourself on the same side of the table as your client, there to solve problems and not just to sell things.
More importantly, though, this is the beginning of gathering the information you need to truly solve problems for your client company. The more you know, the better positioned you’ll be to truly solve important and difficult problems.
Want to differentiate yourself from competitors? Give advice and solve problems better than anyone else.
Crafting an Initial Point of View (POV)/Hypothesis
Based on all the indirect research done so far, how can we help them?
- This isn’t a sales pitch or an elevator speech
- Instead, it’s a unique perspective on their operation and how we can help.
- It should be thought provoking. If the customer hears it, how will they react?
- Challenges their beliefs and understanding of the situation.
They are changing the CRM from X to Y for more than 1,500 people on (date). Others I have worked with who have made similar changes have had it blow up on them. The CRM part is fine, but the way they communicate with customers is completely different. And the CRM itself doesn’t give management the capability of making rapid changes to communication and policy on the fly. This will be a major risk for them.
- When policy changes, how long will it take them to implement for 1,500 users?
- How quickly will the changes take effect?
- How will they know all 1,500 have made the change?
- Etc…
This, again, isn’t a sales pitch. Instead, it’s my thinking on a big problem that they may not even realize at the moment, and which we could solve for them.
Part of creating the POV is identifying every potential area where they have a problem and we can help.
Direct Research
To this point, it’s all theory. How do you know it’s accurate?
Rather than start at C-level with an unconfirmed POV, I prefer to validate by making direct contact with lower-level managers and people within the organization:
- They’re often easier to contact.
- There’s lower risk, i.e., they say you only get one chance with the CEO. You don’t want to approach decision makers with an untested POV set.
- There’s a strong possibility that these people will be more in tune with the problems we solve and our POV will resonate more strongly with them.
- The people closest to the action will often know about problems that don’t show up in indirect research.
Remember, problems and our POV will resonate differently at various levels of the organization:
- Company/Leadership Level – The Board, the Leadership Team, C-level, highly-placed executives.
- Organization Level – Departments, e.g., Sales, Support, HR, etc.
- Individual Level – How hard is it to get their work done? Where do they feel pressure? What are their key frustrations?
Problems and our POV will resonate differently at each level of the organization. Understanding the difference gives us leverage and the possibility of providing clarity to key problems to all three levels.
For example, Support teams often experience high turnover due to stress. This can be exacerbated by the lack of functional tools to get their job done correctly and in a normal workday. There are many ways high turnover impacts a business, obviously. When approached from the perspective of all three levels, a solution becomes that much more appealing.
How can you tell–during direct research with lower levels of the organization–that your POV is on target? You start to hear things like this:
- “We talk about this in every team meeting we have!”
- “Our CEO won’t shut up about this!”
- “It’s like you understand us better than some of the people who work here!”
Who to Contact
This is highly situational. What will work for this particular client? That said, here’s a general flow:
- Start with an outline of key functions that may be influential given the problems we solve. Sales? Support? HR? IT? And so forth.
- Who are the key players in each department?
- Move low-to-high in each area.
Create an organization map, showing each key area and key players within. If one target person isn’t responsive, have a second choice in that area.
What’s next? Reaching out!
This post has gone on long enough, but I’ll give a preview of the next:
- What worked just a couple of years ago is much less effective now.
- To maximize effectiveness, you have to use every possible channel.
- Think, “More channels, less in each one.”
I’ll add much more detail in my next post, but armed with in-depth research and a thorough understanding of your target company, you’ll be much better equipped for success, no matter your outreach.
That said, let’s maximize results by using quality outreach as well!