Account Plans (sales B2b):
- There are several formats, lengths and designs of Sales Account plans, most of them far too heavy, complex and useless.
- An account plan isn’t a corporate memory document but a defined approach of protecting and/or grow a customer.
- On a nutshell define where you stand, your vision, your strategy and timeline. Who, why, what, when, how.
- What is the aim of the account plan in itself? is it worth to spend time building it?
- To answer that you need to have a clear picture of your customer portfolio, dividing customers per segment:
- Opportunistic
- Regular/spot
- Regular/contracts
- Partners
- Key accounts
- But that segregation isn’t a fixed label, it’s linked with how your company sees them and their potential of growth as well as your ambitions. This analysis must be done almost every year, as very likely there will be some shifts (upgrades and downgrades) within the portfolio.
- There is much more to talk about customer classification and account management, but that’s not the purpose of this post so let’s stick to its aim, sharing account plans.
- Surely there are much more complex Account plans. Do they make sense or will they just be a “tick in the box” exercise? in my vast work experience in big corporate world, in the end it becomes a frustrating “tick in the box” exercise and therefore I decided to not add any version of those.
- Important to underline the difference between “normal but important accounts” and “Key accounts” also demanding different resources, time and approach.