Rudy Dillenseger is a global leader in sales strategy and enablement. Currently working in the Business Applications business at Microsoft, he believes an ambitious, outcome-based approach to account planning can help business customers achieve more.
Keep your plans fresh
Rather than annual account planning, consider continuously refreshing your account plans based on changing customer needs. If you want to create opportunity, you have to think differently and emphasize business outcomes. It’s what I call an evergreen planning approach because something is happening with your customers every day.
Ditch the quota mentality
Salespeople should be encouraged to think beyond quotas. Inspire a mind shift and get salespeople thinking about solving the customer’s business problems. Workshops are a great way for account teams to think outside the box and encourage them to make the sky the limit.
Partner with customers
You must share what you are trying to achieve with your customer if you want to make real progress. This will help you find the best solution for them. Some customers come with a preset idea of what they want and how it should work, but if you are not challenging your customer’s thinking, then you are just going to be another vendor.
Be ambitious
My philosophy is that it’s always easier to sell the next million, than the first million! You need to be ambitious with your existing big customers and propose doing more with them. There is usually room to expand the budget if you can demonstrate tangible business outcomes, so be sure to evaluate your total addressable market into the account.
Read Rudy Dillenseger’s full Viewpoint in Account-Based Growth by Bev Burgess and Tim Shercliff, published by Kogan Page
