Why Strategic Account Planning is Necessary for Sales Success

Being prepared for a sales opportunity is a critical component of being a successful sales rep. Now, more than ever, being educated on your target account in preparation for an important meeting, presentation or call can be the deciding factor in whether or not the sale moves forward and the prospect becomes a customer. Account planning helps you to effectively prepare and stay focused on the prospect’s business objectives and goals to ensure that you achieve your planned results, create a consistent experience for the prospect, and ultimately identify how your product or service can make a positive impact on their business.

Strategic Account Planning

This need for preparation and planning is especially important when selling enterprise technology solutions. You need to know the account inside and out, what technology is currently installed, if your competitors in the account, who the decision makers and influencers are, what their business drivers are, and what their budget is. All of these components can be determined through the research required to create a strategic account plan that will guide you through the sales process.

An account plan should be your blueprint to guide you through the account. It should answer the 5 W’s: who, what, where, when and why, and it should assist you throughout the course of the sales cycle. The account plan should be continuously updated with information you uncover throughout the sales cycle and help you connect the dots to win the sale.

Account planning takes a lot of time and research. The first thing you need is a well-designed account plan template, as the template is your roadmap for the sale. Once you have a template, you then need to fill in your roadmap with different routes and eventually connect the routes to your final destination: closing the sale.

The most difficult part of account planning is performing the research to start mapping your route. Sales intelligence tools can help you answer the 5 W’s and create a logical roadmap for your sales process. As discussed previously in this blog, sales intelligence is critical to achieving best-in-class sales results. Companies using sales intelligence have shorter sales cycles and have more sales reps hitting their quota. Using sales intelligence research in conjunction with account planning gives you the map and the routes for the sale. After that, it is up to you to execute the plan and follow you guide.

Unfortunately, like using a GPS to find your way, in selling there is no one telling you where to turn or when you have reached your destination. But, there are great sales intelligence resources out there for you to take advantage of, and coupled with account planning, you can outrun your competitors.

-Mark Kilens
mkilens @ salesquest.com
978.749.9999 ext. 118