Subscribe
    Subscribe to The Art & Science of Complex Sales

    How to supercharge your account growth - 10 articles to read

    New Call-to-action

    If you’ve been following me, you may have noticed how much I have been talking about account planning–or, rather, account GROWTH.

    At Membrain, we don’t believe you should just be PLANNING. You should be GROWING.

    I’ve been talking and planning for so long, that it’s hard to believe our account growth module is finally here. It is truly the culmination of years of study, planning, and hard work to bring you what we believe is the most flexible, most practical, and most effective account planning workflow platform ever (OK, I might be biased... so to help you decide for yourself, we offer you to try it out for free)

    And now that our account growth module is here and ready for you to launch into, I want to make sure you also have valuable resources at your fingertips to make the most of it. Whoever you are, whatever role you play in your organization, and whatever tools you may be using for account planning…

    ...here are 10 must-have resources to help you supercharge your account growth in the new year:

    1. How to stop failing at account management
      What if the way you talk about account management were actually undermining your ability to grow your accounts? Learn why “account management” fosters the wrong mindset, and how to shift your outcomes by shifting your language.
    2. 6 common account planning challenges you need a solution for
      This piece identifies the 6 most common challenges sales teams face with account planning, and suggests solutions for each. Challenges covered include knowing where to focus, accessing critical information at a glance, making your planning actionable, and making that all-important connection to customer success.
    3. Some customers are more important than others
      We like to think that every customer is important, but when it comes to account management and growth, the reality is that there are only so many hours in a day. To be effective, we must be able to prioritize where we are spending them. This piece presents a framework for understanding which customers are most important to your organization, and how to go about prioritizing them.
    4. How to turn your account planning outside-in to grow faster
      Traditional account growth focuses on winning more “wallet share” through cross-selling and upselling. This inside-out (i.e., from inside your organization looking out) approach can be alienating to customers and fails to provide your salespeople with a competitive advantage. Instead, try the outside-in approach described in this piece.
    5. How to grow your accounts the sunflower way
      For those who appreciate a good metaphor, this piece will show you the lessons we can learn from paying attention to sunflowers. It explores why we chose the sunflower as the image to represent our account growth module, and provides a list of 6 ways you can improve your account growth by following the lead of these beautiful plants.
    6. How to sell more with the trust-align-grow framework
      Trust-align-grow is my own personal approach to account management and relationships in general. It's a simple framework that has been very helpful to me. There are many possible methodologies available, and they can all be used in concert with this simple, human-centered framework.
    7. How to get closer to your clients during downtimes
      Downtimes present challenges for salespeople, but they also present opportunities. When the economy struggles, it’s important for account managers to deepen and broaden their relationships with existing customers in order to reduce losses and improve account growth. This is your guide.
    8. How to use account planning to improve customer success
      A step-by-step guide to create a positive feedback loop that benefits both account growth and customer success, at the same time. This piece walks the sales leader through 5 account planning steps that will improve customer success and help grow accounts at the same time.
    9. How to create outstanding sales growth with channel partners
      Many organizations include channel partners as a large part of their growth strategy. One of our customers pointed out to us that our account growth module is an ideal tool for helping them manage and collaborate with their channel partners and they haven't seen anything like it. This piece provides a step-by-step guide to gaining more transparency and better collaboration with your channel partners.
    10. What if outstanding service is stunting your account growth?
      We often think that if we provide outstanding service to our customers, they will naturally want to buy more from us. A recent study by Gartner shows otherwise. Here’s why overspending on customer service can actually undermine your account growth efforts.

    What do you think of these resources? Have I left out any important topics? Is one of these your favorite? Is there one that sticks in your craw? Let me know!

    Please bookmark this page if you liked these articles. There’s a lot of meaty information in these posts, too much for most people to read in one sitting. I encourage you to come back often to enjoy the juicy details on the other side of each link.

    Subscribe
    George Brontén
    Published November 25, 2020
    By George Brontén

    George is the founder & CEO of Membrain, the Sales Enablement CRM that makes it easy to execute your sales strategy. A life-long entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. With the life motto "Don't settle for mainstream", he is always looking for new ways to achieve improved business results using innovative software, skills, and processes. George is also the author of the book Stop Killing Deals and the host of the Stop Killing Deals webinar and podcast series.

    Find out more about George Brontén on LinkedIn