3 Keys to Successful Salesforce Account Planning

Donal DalyAre all of your sales reps maximizing revenue from key accounts?

Probably not. Only 53 percent of salespeople achieve this goal. The good news is that those who do are 41 percent more likely to make quota.

Donal Daly, CEO and founder of The TAS Group, says account planning is the key to maximizing revenue in a more consistent way across your team. He explained how to do effective planning in Salesforce during his presentation at the Inside Sales Virtual Summit.

Account planning can speed up the progression from prospect to customer to loyal customer and help you keep your customers longer.

View Daly’s presentation in the YouTube video below.

3 Keys to Success

1. Research for insight

You need to know things about your customer, your competitor and your company.

Discover new facts about your customers and their business problems:

  • What are their business goals?
  • What is their buying process?
  • What solutions do they need?
  • What business units do they have?

Take a good look at your competitor. Don’t dwell on the features and benefits of the competitor’s products. Identify the unique value in what your competitor offers that your customers will care about.

Honestly evaluate your own company’s strengths and weaknesses. Is it really a good fit for the account you’re trying to serve?

When you adopt your customer’s perspective, it gives you a sense of how you can apply your solutions to solve the customer’s problems.

2. Integrate for velocity

Salesforce is a powerful tool that will help you pull together crucial information.

You need to have all of your data in Salesforce. Integrate your account planning application and make sure that everyone can access it. Make sure it can be shared in real time so people can access it on their iPads and laptops.

Here are some of the things your team can discover from a customer profile:

  • Industry info
  • Location
  • Business units
  • Financial condition

Making this information available in real time can create incredible velocity in your organization.

3. Focus for impact

You look at all of your opportunities and you think, “I want to chase everything.” But of course you can’t. You must focus on the deals you can win.

To see how Daly uses these account planning practices in Salesforce, watch his presentation in the video embedded in this post.

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