There was once a time when account planning mattered more than anything else.
In traditional account planning, your business would conceptualize an account’s potential future. From there, you’d write where you wanted to take a new account or prospect. This all-inclusive document would lay out the various details about an account, contact information, account history, and more data. When used correctly, account plans could serve as excellent account starting points.
However, differences have emerged regarding account planning vs. account growth. Account planning is a much older method in spreadsheets, PowerPoints, and Word documents. In an account plan, information remained siloed and dependent upon manual entry. Account growth modules are more robust, integrated into company operations, and incorporate changing data.
This begs the question: What is the difference between account planning and account growth? How can planning for account growth impact your market insights and analytics? And what tools can you use to maximize your account growth opportunities?
Improving Sales Strategies
Investing in account growth strategies can only work if your technological tools incorporate different sales strategies and approaches. An account growth module will enable your business to track the success of sales strategies. From there, you can determine which ones make the most positive impact. You can then alter your account growth better understand of customer intent.
This example is a fantastic demonstration of the difference between account planning vs. account growth. In account planning, your data may note what sales strategies and methods you will utilize. However, if your business didn’t capture which information was most useful, it’s ineffective. Instead, you need a robust data tool that can perform in-depth data analysis, then use that data to better inform your business going forward. What sales strategies worked best? What did the best job of helping you accelerate your sales pipeline and bringing in additional revenue?
Improving Your Sales
Every business seeks to increase revenue from customers. Accordingly, the landscape regarding account planning vs. account growth has changed, and your business must focus on account growth.
What does this mean? Simple: A database of contacts isn’t enough. Instead, you need to focus on platforms that can help you:
- Identify white space and opportunities to grow the revenue you gain from each account.
- Build complex relationship maps that help you identify key players, potential touch points, and who to speak to.
- Creation of AI-informed engagement scores that can help you identify who on an account is most engaged in the sales process. From there, you can figure out who you want to talk with to complete a sale.
- Guided sales paths that can ensure you know exactly what to do to land a sale, accelerate your sales pipeline, and improve your sales forecast.
Improving your pipeline can only happen if you have an account growth module — like Next Quarter — focused on account growth.
Cross-Selling and Upselling
Cross-selling refers to selling related products or services to the same company. Upselling means selling them more or a higher quality of your products. The challenge is this: How can you generate the opportunities to identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities?
Improving cross-selling and upselling is another place where account planning vs. account growth matters. In account planning, you may have a list of potential products or services you can use to increase your sale. However, there is no data-informed way to complete these sales. An account growth focus ensures you have the data to determine:
- The products or services in which an account may have an interest
- The best time to make a pitch
- How to customize a proposal so that it meets the needs of your customer
- Who on an account you can talk with
This data ensures that you do more than simply plan for account growth. Instead, it provides you with the necessary information to enable you to achieve it.
Partner With Next Quarter
Account planning vs. account growth is more than a difference in wording. The two perspectives significantly impact how you plan for the future. They also impact how you can improve sales forecasting and obtain financial clarity. To plan for account growth, you need the best data tools. That’s Next Quarter: We’re the first AI-based account growth-oriented tool. In addition, Next Quarter is native to Salesforce. As such, you don’t have to enroll in any new platform: You can simply continue to operate in the highly effective program that your business has used for years.
Don’t wait another day — get your business the best. Schedule a call with Next Quarter, and learn how we can expand your business.
