Techniques for Identifying and Targeting Key Accounts

"Let's just divide accounts evenly among reps." Famous last words from every sales leader who's never done territory math. Six months later: Rep A closes $800K, Rep B closes $200K. Same quota. Same comp plan. Different territories. Folks - territory planning isn't about fairness. It's about math. Here's the formula to always keep in mind: Territory Value = (Account Potential x Win Probability x Coverage Capacity) - Competitive Density. So, how do you apply the formula? Let's bust out our TI-82s and break this down... Step 1: Calculate the true account potential. Don't use company size alone. Use buying indicators: - Recent funding rounds (+50% potential). - Executive hiring sprees (+30% potential). - Tech modernization projects (+40% potential). Example: 500-employee company = $50K base potential + $10M Series B = $75K total. Step 2: Determine the win probability by account type. - Green field (no solution): 25-30% win rate, 4-6 month cycle. - Competitive displacement: 15-20% win rate, 6-9 month cycle. - Expansion accounts: 60-75% win rate, 2-4 month cycle. Step 3: Eval the coverage capacity reality. Each rep can effectively work: - 25-30 ENT accounts (15-20 hours/month each). - 50-75 MM accounts (8-12 hours/month each). - 100-150 SMB accounts (3-5 hours/month each). Step 4: Inspect geographic efficiency. - Dense metro: 8-10 meetings/week (1.0x capacity). - Regional spread: 4-6 meetings/week (0.75x capacity). - National territory: 3-4 meetings/week (0.6x capacity). Step 5: Measure the competitive density tax. - Low competition: +20-30% win rates. - Saturated markets: -25-35% win rates. Here's an example of how to score territories: 1. Territory A: 40 enterprise accounts x $90K potential x 25% win rate x 0.8 geography x 0.9 competition = $648K. 2. Territory B: 60 mid-market accounts x $35K potential x 35% win rate x 1.0 geography x 1.1 competition = $809K. As you'll see, territory B wins despite LOWER account values. Once you've run the math, don't treat all accounts equally. Allocate effort thusly: - Tier 1 (20% accounts, 60% revenue): Weekly touches, exec relationships. - Tier 2 (30% accounts, 30% revenue): Bi-weekly touches, manager relationships. - Tier 3 (50% accounts, 10% revenue): Monthly touches, inside sales. At the end of the day, good territory planning is applied mathematics, not office politics. Equal doesn't mean fair when account potential varies 10x. Run the math. Weight the factors. Track the results. Because the rep with the better territory will always outperform the rep with more accounts. Remember that math doesn't lie, but territory assignments definitely do. :)

If you're a founder or revenue leader with 10-100 customers and $20k+ price point... bad news. You have WAY fewer great prospects than you think. Let me explain. An exercise we've done for several GTM teams is we look at their current customer base and have them tier their customers from A to C. We throw those customers into Clay and ask: 1. What do 80% of ALL customers have in common? 2. What do 80% of A tier customers have in common? Look at department headcount, industries, technologies (PredictLeads is huge here), potentially website traffic and other vertical specific data. Getrev.ai is a shortcut here. If you do that right, you're in for a surprise. You probably have 500-2000 A tier accounts. Yeah, that's not what you put into your sales projections. Not fun... but also liberating. Here's why. 1. You do NOT need a lot of headcount right now 2. Outside of that target account list, it does not make sense to do any manual prospecting. I would say run Trigify or something similar and call it a day 3. You CANNOT just rely on triggers and signals to reach this target account list If you only have 1000 great A tier customers (probably 3k-5k contacts), you have to balance 2 competing priorities First, they should hear something insightful from you every month. My personal preference would be 1 new lead magnet each month, phone validation + monthly call blitz, automated Linkedin connects into manual videos or DMs, an a 2 email Clay personalized sequence to that whole list. For bonus points, add custom audience ads with RollWorks, a division of NextRoll (thx Christopher Nault), & weekly Linkedin posts with Letterdrop Second, once you DO find someone that is likely ready to buy, they need a personalized buying experience. Find WHO is ready to buy here: Warmly, Clay, Retention.com, useaware.co, Trigify, or even just Apollo.io can work. Next you have to engage. This is NOT your standard Agoge sequence. I like Jamie Shanks's spear selling framework a LOT for this, and Justin Michael's ABSD framework. Jacob Karp has some great content here, as does 💜 Will Allred. You need a point of view on this account, and have 1-3 personalized touchpoints to every key stakeholder at every engaged/activated account weekly. There will likely be 2 models for this A. SDRs take over this process, and actually are responsible for multithreading as the deal progresses. 🎁 Katie Penner has seen some success with this model. B. AEs self source from engaged accounts. Christian Retek has a very built out framework for this, and while I'm less familiar with it, Joey Gilkey does something pretty similar as well. So - if you're a founder/revenue leader with 10-100 customers... DON'T start hiring like crazy. Figure out how many great accounts you have FIRST, then build a scalable way to activate those accounts. THEN hire into demand. (DM if you want help with this)

After 13yrs in sales, I learned the best AE's aren't better at prospecting, they just focus on the "right" accounts. If you want to move from transactional to strategic selling, use this 3-step Account Planning process: BACKGROUND: The first time a sales leader exposed me to Account Planning, I didn't buy it. In my first two sales roles out of school, first as a Sales Engineer and then as a transactional AE, the value of Account Planning was lost on me. It felt like grunt work. I wanted to sell! But man, was I wrong. Account Planning allowed me to be 10x MORE effective and prospect way LESS. Here is my 3-step process for Account Planning: (1) It starts with Account Tiering This is ranking all of your accounts to find the best ones to pursue. First, think about this solely on the account level: -- Are they ICP? -- Do you have success in that industry? -- Do they look like similar customers? -- Are there use cases you can crush? Next, think about access to the company: -- Were there previous opportunities? -- Do you have a warm intro? -- Do you have previous buyers/users in that account? -- Is there a compelling event that should pique their interest? (2) Create an Account Plan This means researching your BEST accounts to find ammunition and create a plan to break in. This is where you move from a 30,000 foot view to the ground level. Your goal is to understand their business as deeply as their own employees do. -- How do they earn money? -- How do they go to market? -- Who is their ICP? What do they care about? -- What currently presents a risk to their business? -- What are their execs thinking about? (3) Build your POV / Hypothesis What stands out to execs is NOT that you did your research. It’s the synthesis of your research. Your job is to form a well researched hypothesis of their business that shows why it’s at least worth engaging with you and your organization. The best POVs pique interest, share relevant stories, and expand your prospects’ thinking. Here are a few frameworks for great POVs: -- Challenging their status quo -- Empathizing deeply with a current pain point they have -- Painting a bold vision with/for them -- Uncovering a problem they might not know they have -- Trying to get to the root cause of their challenges Remember RELEVANCE > PERSONALIZATION Your goal here is to pique their curiosity, show that you’ve synthesized a lot of research, and demonstrate that you’ve helped similar customers. TAKEAWAY: When it comes to prospecting as an AE, it’s easy to be busy. It’s hard to be strategic on a consistent basis. That's why you need a strong Account Planning process. You'll have better results if you spend 100% of your effort on the right accounts. And there's way fewer accounts that matter than you think.