Everything You Need to Know About Account Based Sales [Guide]

Account Based Sales (ABS) is hardly a new concept but many business leaders are giving it more than just a second look.

Gartner predicted it will become the default selling framework for most tech vendors that exceed $5 million in annual revenue. Moreover, 7 out of 10 surveyed corporate leaders revealed they are increasing their budget to improve their account-based strategies.

There are many factors driving the dramatic shift towards account-based selling:

1. Customer centricity, which is a key tenet of ABS, has become the new mantra.
2. There has been an uptick in the required number of approvals, especially in enterprise sales. Thus, making the sales process more complex.
3. The ROI on ABS adoption has been clearly demonstrated over the years. Interdepartmental alignment, process improvements, and brand loyalty are among the key benefits.

If you think your sales teams can improve their performance, perhaps it’s high time for you to give ABS a second look.

1. What is Account Based Sales?
2. Is ABS for you?
3. When is the right time to implement an ABS strategy?
4. How to implement ABS in your organization
5. What is the role of Marketing in ABS?
6. How important is lead nurturing in ABS?
7. How do you align ABS with the customer journey?
8. What tools do you need for ABS?
9. Your own ABS checklist

What Is Account-Based Selling?

Account-based selling is a hyper-personalized customer engagement strategy. It provides optimal focus and resource allocation to every valued customer. Every account — and the decision makers who lead it — is treated as a market of one.

The goal is to manage each valued account as an independent and scalable revenue stream to be nurtured over the long term.

Using ABS, entire teams engage with multiple stakeholders at a single prospective company. This is in contrast to the usual selling approach of assigning one salesperson to engage a customer.

The idea is to use laser-precise tactics and multiple touchpoints to catch a single high-value customer. We remove the whole idea of casting a wide, generic net to catch plenty of low-value customers.

Given its cross-functional applications, the “account-based model” spawned near identical terms. It now spans account-based marketing (ABM), and account-based sales development.

Is Account Based Sales for You?

Implemented within the right conditions, account-based sales consistently delivers on its revenue-boosting promises.

But ABS is NOT for everyone. In fact, a mismatch between your business model and account based sales can do more harm than good.

A lot depends on the type and purchasing behavior of the customers you engage. As a rule of thumb, account based sales matches the goals of many B2B companies where:

• Sales interactions are complex and involve lengthier cycles
• Major purchases require the tiered approval of several decision makers
• Opportunities for upselling, cross selling etc. are unusually high.

Account Based Sales in B2C sales

On the other hand, the hyper-personalized focus required by account-based selling is a massive overkill in a B2C environment. ABS applied in such environments will likely just ramp up the metrics you’d like to trim. These may be opportunity costs, operational expenses, and attrition rates.

In addition to significant resource reallocation, ABS also entails a paradigm shift in your company culture. Obviously, that means any mismatch will negatively disrupt both people and profit at your company.

Start by defining your ICP

Hence, it is important to clearly define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and the different buyer personas you need to engage.

If your ideal customers are mostly small businesses whose transactional behavior is relatively simple, then ABS is not for you.

On the other hand, if you’re scaling your startup, you might want to consider alternate strategies. One small cross-sectional team may implement ABS for high-value customers.

When Is the Right Time to Implement an ABS Strategy?

Ask yourself these questions:

• How ready is your organization to adopt this new sales approach? Do your sales teams have experience/the business acumen to tackle target accounts?
• Do you have both corporate and cultural buy-in?
• When it comes to customer data, do you have sufficient information to build out your ABS strategy?

How to Implement Account Based Sales in Your Organization

Here are some basic steps you can build on.

Assess the cultural fit of ABS in your company

A team’s attachment to conventional selling methodologies might cause resistance to any shift from the workflows they are familiar with. Break that resistance by demonstrating the overall benefits of change.

Create your ideal customer profile (ICP)

Conduct a thorough research involving your CRM and top management to categorize your customers. Estimate who will likely generate the best value for you.

Establish the key attributes like:

• Industry
• Annual revenue
• Location
• Employee size
• Current subscriptions etc.

that will help you in creating effective customer segmentation.

Establish the buyer personas your team expects to engage

These personas represent the key stakeholders, influencers, and decision makers at your target enterprises.

Form the relevant units to execute the ABS strategy as a single team. Define roles and set expectations for each unit and team member. Typical roles in a crack ABS team include:

• Account executives
• Sales development reps
• Marketers
• Support representatives
• Customer success managers

Identify and set relevant metrics to assess performance

Common metrics include the following:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) — the cost you incur on the average to convert one account.
• Average Deal Size (ADS) — the average value of the sales or service contract you have with customers.
• Lifetime Value (LTV) — the value generated from each customer over time.

Determine the sales tools, marketing assets, sales enablement materials, etc. required to achieve your performance benchmarks.

Create the required ABS resources

Messaging and content creation in account-based selling is highly customized per target account/decision maker. Spend time researching and determining each stakeholder’s goals and pain points.

Sales and marketing should collaborate in developing compelling content for each milestone in specific buyer journeys.

Execute

Create meaningful experiences for customers and orchestrate their success through hyper-personalized solutions. Align your engagement with their customer journey — offering value at every stage of the cycle.

What Is the Role of Marketing in ABS?

Successful customer engagement requires action generated primarily by marketing-related processes.

In a typical ABS cross-departmental team, marketers develop content and experiences aimed at guiding prospects towards a purchase. Marketers also analyze and predict prospect behavior by studying the results of these account-specific interactions.

Marketing is what fuels the emotional incentive to get your prospects to opt in, download, watch, subscribe, buy, etc.

How Important Is Lead Nurturing in ABS?

Lead nurturing typically applies well with small businesses led by a maximum of three decision makers. But it doesn’t mean you can’t apply lead nurturing tactics for bigger accounts.

Account-based nurturing can still work in a B2B environment. Moreover, account-based engagements delivered by highly customized marketing content are often triggered in the right context.

In account-based nurturing, you need to engage multiple stakeholders in an organization with differentiated messaging based on their buyer personas. You also need to consider which stage each occupies in their specific buyer journey. Then respond dynamically to their actions and behavior and slow the pace if the buyer journey decelerates.

How Do You Align ABS with the Customer Journey?

While they may have different needs, every stakeholder in an organization typically goes through the same stages in the buyer journey. Depending on the framework you use, this journey often includes Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Purchase, and Advocacy.

The attention of a chief financial officer (CFO), for example, might be captured via messaging that highlights a product’s moderating effect on operational costs.

Meanwhile, messaging that presents a product as a competitive advantage within a niche might compel a CEO.

The trick is to gather adequate customer data about each stakeholder. Then, generate insight from this data and strategically engage these decision makers.

What Tools Do You Need for ABS?

Technology can help you execute account based sales with better precision and broader scale.

You can start with addons and APIs that can enhance your existing CRM. From there, you can improve your process with the right sales automation tools to make it repeatable.

A Checklist to Get You Started

Given the continually shifting business landscape, your organization might need to take its own journey as well. Here’s a checklist to tick off in case you decide to take the ABS route:

1. Meet all criteria (customer demographic, organizational readiness, etc) for ABS adoption
2. Identify target high-value accounts
3. Spot decision makers and influencers in each account
4. Define Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
5. Determine buyer personas
6. Form cross-departmental team, assign roles, and set expectations
7. Establish relevant performance metrics
8. Create inventory of existing tools
9. Compile a list of required tools for ABS implementation
10. Collate list of seed B2B marketing, sales, and customer success collateral
11. Vet initial list of staff training requirements
12. Compute required initial budget for ABS Implementation
13. Estimate timeline for sales transformation

Originally published at Sales Hacker.