Acting On Your Account Plan With Salesforce

As a living, evolving document, an ongoing account plan remains dynamic, requiring continuous modifications, result measurements, and strategic reassessment throughout the sales cycle—a cyclical process some sales managers often refer to as “wash, rinse, and repeat.”

What is Account Planning in Salesforce? A sales account plan is a detailed strategy for building upon existing relationships—the account—to uncover the customer’s needs, how to deliver the most value, and subsequently increase their customer lifetime value and likelihood of retention.

Account planning is the process of mapping out important details about a new prospect or existing customer, including information about their decision-making process, key decision makers, the companies you’re competing with to close them and the overall strategy to win them over, retain their business and grow them.

Implementing your account plan in Salesforce can yield significant benefits, such as:

75% better closes
72% improved customer understanding of your offerings
58% shorter sales cycles
55% higher customer loyalty
49% higher deal sizes

A well-constructed and executed account plan serves as a crucial tool for sustained revenue growth. Tectonic offers practical suggestions for maintaining momentum after initial Q1 implementation of an account plan:

Regular Check-ins:

While it might be impractical to engage in weekly or monthly conversations with all contacts, prioritizing the most strategic accounts is essential. Regularly reaching out to key customers signals genuine interest in their success and readiness to assist.

Grow Your Partnership:

Explore opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling with your internal team to enhance business profitability and establish additional connections outside the existing customer base. Capture key conversations or signals indicating an account’s interest in expanding vertically, broadening their footprint, or acquiring additional capabilities.

Reassess Your Strategy:

Account planning provides a comprehensive understanding of an account, enabling prioritization of tasks based on goals and requirements. As the plan unfolds throughout the sales cycle, a clearer picture emerges, guiding strategic decisions and identifying areas of potential reward.

The changing landscape of work demands a reimagining of sales processes for a more digital future. Integrate Salesforce account plans into Salesforce with Quip to provide your selling team with a robust view. By embedding living account plans into Salesforce, representatives gain contextual insights into the account alongside live CRM data, fostering collaboration and efficiency.

With Quip, your sales team can:

Log calls and tasks directly from the account plan.
View, update, and share live Salesforce data seamlessly.
Receive real-time alerts on record changes or updates.
Comment within the context of the data and work.
Standardize workflows and selling motions with templates.

With Quip, implementation is easy and user adoption is fast. Quickly implement and roll it out knowing you have a dedicated team by your side to ensure your success. And thanks to our intuitive user experience, your sales teams can get started on day one. Quip is the easiest way for Salesforce customers to transform processes like Account Planning, Mutual Close Plans, and Qualification Notes. And keep an account plan document in a single place, working as a single source of truth accessible by all the key team members working with the account.

A well-constructed account plan consolidates essential information, outlining tasks, timelines, responsibilities, success metrics, contingency plans, next best actions, roles, and goals. It serves as a comprehensive, actionable, SMART-goal-oriented, and measurable roadmap for success.

Beyond account management, the account plan also serves as a roadmap for opportunity planning. Documenting new opportunities within your Salesforce CRM allows for effective monitoring and management, preventing missed opportunities and ensuring customer satisfaction and increased revenue.

While various tools are available online for account planning or account management blueprints, Tectonic offers a tailored approach. Collaborate with our sales and marketing enablement professionals to create a customized account plan aligned with your business model and designed for scalable growth.

Choose Tectonic as your Salesforce partner, ensuring the account plan aligns seamlessly with your business objectives and contributes to your account success team. Initiate a conversation with Tectonic today to explore how they can be a vital part of your account success team.