The Vital Importance of AccountAccount Account refers to a record of primary and background information about an individual or corporate customer, including contact data, preferred services, and transactions with your company. Planning

The key to nurturing and growing long-term customers
Account planning is a high priority for accounts

Account Planning

High-Priority Accounts

Each company must decide the criteria for assessing what are high-priority accounts – such as size, revenueRevenue Revenue is the amount of money a business generates during a specific period such as a year or a quarter; also called sales., longevity & future growth potential

At the beginning of the fiscal yearFiscal Year Fiscal Year is a financial accounting period of one year (that may or may not coincide with the calendar year), which is used by governments and businesses for taxation, budget planning, performance assessment, strategy formulation and other purposes., you need look at where revenue came from in the previous year, and where you believe it will come from this year.

To predict revenue from existing accounts – calculate your average churnChurn Churn is a term that describes the percentage of customers that leave or cancel a service or product within a given period of time. rate over 2-3 yrs and then calculate predicted revenue from existing accounts for the coming year and then reduce it by the average churn rate for a more realistic prediction.

“Net new sales” usually refers to new customerCustomer Customer is an individual or an organization that purchases a product or signs up for a service offered by a business. acquisition, but it should also include cross-sellingCross-selling Cross-selling B2B is when a customer purchases a product and they are offered a second product at a discount or as a reward. and up-selling to existing accounts.

You also need to consider whether there are any factors such as a coming price increase that would result in increased revenue from existing accounts without necessarily upsellingUpselling Upselling is a selling technique where a seller introduces a more expensive, an upgrade, or add-on to a buyer to increase the average order value. or expanding them.

Account Planning › The Basics…

Analyze Your Accounts in your CRM

Analyze Your Accounts in your CRM

  • Does a specific account have real growth potential?

  • How much revenue did the account produce last year?

  • Is there potential to upsell or enlarge the account?

  • What is the strength of the relationship with the account?

  • Are there subsidiaries, other business units, or departments that could be good targets?

Account Planning › Specifics…

Customer Satisfaction

Have you reviewed the latest scores?

Support Tickets

Does the account have any outstanding issues that need resolving?

QBR

If you do Quarterly (or other) Business Reviews, have you reviewed the notes?

Account Research

Has the company received an injection of capital or announced any new initiatives?

Aligning Your Offering

Based on your research can your products or services be positioned to support their new initiatives or challenges?

Unidentified Problem/Opportunity

Can you add more value by solving a problem or identifying an opportunity that the account is not currently aware of?

Additional Resources

Practical Market, Territory & Account Planning by Brian Sullivan

Practical Market, Territory & Account Planning by Brian Sullivan

In this Off the Cuff Instant Interview, we asked Brian Sullivan for some practical tips for doing market, territory and account planning.

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KPIs to Focus on Customer Value in 2021 by Mark Boundy

KPIs to Focus on Customer Value in 2021 by Mark Boundy

Happy New Year; now let’s get to work…working on the right things. Good Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are useful management metricsMetrics Metrics  are quantities that are measured and used to:, but great KPIs drive elite behaviours. In Radical Value, I observe that every company exists only to deliver more value to customers than it costs to produce. So, do your KPIs reflect value’s importance? I find that few do. Customer satisfaction.

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Acquisition and Retention: The Yin and Yang of Customer Strategy by Andy Rudin
Acquisition and Retention: The Yin and Yang of Customer Strategy by Andy Rudin

Which actions do companies often take for customer retention? Provide outstanding service and products Maintain loyalty programs Engineer high switching costs Design arduous processes for terminating services All of these The correct answer, of course, is e) All of these. People mistakenly assume that retention efforts benefit customers. But as customers who have attempted to.

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Getting Customers Who Never Leave by Roy Osing
Getting Customers Who Never Leave by Roy Osing

It’s all about creating a customer base that is addicted to your organizationOrganization Organization is a cohesive group of people working together and formally bound by a shared identity (e.g., one team, company, club, etc.) and a common purpose (e.g., business growth, athletic victory, etc.).. Addiction isn’t a casual interest or a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. When customers are addicted to a particular organization they are “all in” as long as they continue to receive the value that converted them to raving fans in the first place.

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Continue on your Account Management journey…

Innovation      Understanding Your Accounts      Application Integration      Quotas and Forecasting
Adding Value      Project Management      Account Management Review