Account Plans: Stop wasting your time
Yes, I'm talking to you.
Stop spending 3 hours (or multiple days) creating an enterprise account plan for a completely cold account. It's an absolute waste of time.
How to approach account planning:
⛔️ What's everything I could possibly find about this account?
✅ What's the minimum I need in order to land the first meeting?
If you haven't landed a meeting yet, ditch your account plan. Keep it minimal and the opposite of fancy.
And start creating "Reason To Meet" (RTMs) plans.
It takes a fraction of the time (15-30 min. or less). Bonus points if you leverage AI to help.
Here's what's included:
✅ 1) Problem
The basics. You have to find evidence of a problem in the business.
A lot of different ways to do this:
1) Find common triggers that could indicate a problem
2) Look for visual evidence of a problem (like a website issue)
3) Groundswell and speak to ICs/Managers on their team (the best way)
4) Dig through quarterly transcripts, 10-Qs, etc
The best info for your account plan isn't a webpage away—it's a conversation away. Go talk to people. The best reps nail this.
✅ 2) Stakeholders
Map out the potential buyers. Start with 3-5. Base it off of how your typical deals come together.
Then find your Best Path In:
1) Mutual connections, internal referrals, etc
2) Groundswell with existing contacts within the account
3) Go direct
Leverage Sales Nav, your CRM, etc to find the best strategy here.
✅ 3) Value
The most important (and overlooked) part. You need to give the buyer value in return for their time. It's the value trade Anthony Iannarino always talks about.
What are you going to teach the buyer?
Here are some ideas:
1) Experience the brand: If the account sells B2C, experience their buying process
2) Create a competitive analysis report
3) Share industry trends (they have to be non-obvious)
4) Share how you're helping their peers
5) Do a free analysis (website audit, etc)
6) An approach they haven't thought about
✅ 4) Differentiator
Specifics on how you solve the problem in a unique way.
Could be:
1) Feature differentiation (not great)
2) Similar customers you've helped
3) Differences in the approach or model
~~~
That's it. If you haven't landed an initial meeting yet—ditch those account plans.
Replace them with RTMs and stop wasting hours
What's missing from this list?