How do account plans get created and Align to Business Strategy — Align your account Measure — How do you know if your account plan updated? planning efforts with the customer’s Goals, is working? You need to be able to measure that the Here are 12 best practices you should think about Pressures, Initiatives and Obstacles. plan is complete, and we recommend automating as you look to how your existing customers can this measure. You also need to create a scorecard contribute to your revenue goals for the coming Build Trust — Trust is the foundation on which you to assess whether the objectives you set for the year (with a focus on Salesforce users). create, develop, pursue, and win business that plan — the target revenue, the pipeline goal, the delivers mutual value for you and your customer. penetration of the strategically important business Research — ABM is really all about research, Promise what you can deliver, and deliver on what units in the account, etc. — are all on track. research, and research. Slow down your natural you promise. inclination to pursue the deal now. Account planning is a long-term play. Analyze Whitespace — Once you understand the people and their business problems you can Customer Focus — Your role is to create value for identify areas of opportunity — the whitespace in the customer, not just to communicate information the account — where your solutions can add value about your company or your solutions. to the customer. Integrate — Integrate data, knowledge and Maintain Cadence — Account Planning should information to achieve velocity. not be an annual event. It is not about reporting what you know; it is about discovering what you Target — Select which business units in an account don’t know, and then acting to uncover the are in your ‘sweet spot,’ where you can uniquely missing information to inform your subsequent and competitively deliver true value. activity, and should be integrated into your overall business cadence. Map People and Influence — Business issues are always owned by people. It’s important to understand the political landscape in the organization. 104