Account Planning in Salesforce by Donal Daly

Author:Donal Daly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oak Tree Press

In CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FOR INSIGHT, I list the research that you may want to complete as you build your plan. One of the sections relates to Customer Profile, and as you can see in Figure 13, this is a great place to capture (manually or programmatically) the information from Data.com as it relates to Customer Business Profile, Company Structure, and Customer Financial Condition.

Knowledge of the (Whole) Team: You know that Account Planning is a team sport. Each of your Account Team members need to be able to contribute the knowledge they have and constantly update the plan as they acquire new pieces of knowledge. All other team members will benefit if they receive these updates in real time. Making your Account Plan easy to share with your team members during both the planning and execution phases delivers uncommon organizational velocity. This is the third important integration component – the integration of your whole team. Remember that the Account Plan is your roadmap for success in the Account and everyone on the team needs to know which direction to take.

Integrating your Account Plan in Salesforce is the best way to leverage all of the assets of your company, not just the formal Account Team. Perhaps there is a role for the product management function to share your company’s product roadmap with the customer. There is surely assistance you can get from your marketing colleagues. If you need partners to complement the services you provide, you could turn to your business development or strategic alliances team. Get your workmates over in the finance department involved – I know you have friends who are accountants – they can help you analyze the financial benefit you expect to deliver to the customer through your plan. You might even have them meet their counterpart in the customer’s organization – it would be good for them to get out!

But, seriously, integrate all of the relevant resources in your company to keep things moving quickly. They do want to help.

Information from the Customer: The most important constituency that contributes to the success of your plan is the customer. The information they share is the foundation on which each of the other pillars stands.

You can learn about the customer’s Goals, Business Drivers, Customer Initiatives and Critical Success Factors only from her. I recommend building a Strategy Map (as shown in Figure 14) with the customer to involve her in the process and to confirm that your understanding of her business is complete. As with all elements of the Account Plan, the Strategy Map is attached to the plan and, as part of the plan, is attached to the Account Record in Salesforce.

Once you have the information, it is critical that you share it with all Account Team members. Dealmaker will follow all of the account sharing rules in Salesforce so that everyone who is supposed to see the plan can do so. Together, you can work to devise the correct approach to guide the customer to validate that the plan you have developed will deliver the impact that she needs.

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