Account Based Selling

What is account-based selling, and why is it crucial for your company? Because it’s still a fairly new concept for some people. The definition of account-based selling changes depending on who you are asking, which is why we asked Winning by Design Managing Director Shari Johnston, one of the industry’s most top experts, to boil it down for us. “An account-based sales strategy can have a big impact on your organization,” she said. “It aligns your entire go-to-market team around winning and growing accounts that will be your next best customer.”

Johnston, who leads the industry-leading teaching and coaching programs at Winning by Design’s Revenue Academy, said that moving to account-based selling means that all of your customer-facing teams — including marketing, sales, and customer success — have to work together effectively. This requires more than just holding regular meetings that bring together various teams. It can mean rethinking how you organize your entire sales operation. “To really move the needle, there needs to be a team effort across go-to-market teams to unify who you’re targeting, how you’re orchestrating, and how you’re measuring,” she said. “That way we can deliberately ensure that all your teams feel involved in the whole process.”

Why is account-based prospecting and selling so important? Because when marketing and sales are in alignment, your team can focus on the high-value customers that are the best fit for your company. You can tailor all your campaigns, content, and communications to make them resonate with these companies. All of this pays off by increasing the number of deals you are able to close. According to research by Gartner 48% of organizations using account-based selling experienced a higher average win rate.

Not surprisingly, this sales methodology also improves customer lifetime value. When the term was first coined in 2004, account-based selling focused on bringing marketing and sales together. But with the rise of the recurring revenue model, customer success has become an equal partner in account-based selling. That’s because in today’s market, up to 93% of a customer’s lifetime value happens after the initial sale. Johnston said that incorporating customer success into the mix leads to sustainable growth. “Expansion of existing customers who you have built a trusted relationship with is the key to growth,” she said. “That’s especially true in today’s economic climate.” 

Wondering whether your company should invest more in account-based selling? Instead of spending a lot of time researching account-based selling templates or account-based marketing examples, you should turn to the experts. At Winning by Design, the leader in accelerating and optimizing recurring revenue, we use science-backed strategies to help you grow your revenue. We look for ways to incorporate account-based selling throughout your entire organization, then design and implement a plan to get you there. Wondering what is account-based management and how it can strengthen your operation? Need help figuring out how to incorporate account-based selling into the CRM system your team is currently using? We are experts at helping companies use the tools they have to up their game.

Blake Menezes, Director of Marketing at Bright Machines, said his company worked with a team from Winning by Design to up their game in terms of account-based marketing. “We had a project where we needed to develop an account-based approach as a part of our sales and marketing go-to-market efforts,” he said. “We brought in Winning by Design to help develop the high-level strategy and the account-based plays that we could use to reach our target accounts.”

Winning by Design helped Menezes and his team understand what was and wasn’t working with their current playbook. “I appreciated that the Winning by Design team was quick to provide direct and honest feedback on our existing campaigns,” he said. “This high level of candor and transparency was essential as they were building the strategy for our account-based marketing and selling plays.”

Menezes said the result was being able to provide customers with the impact they were expecting. “Winning by Design helped solve a few problems around our account-based marketing and selling approach,” he said. “Specifically, their team helped us figure out how to pace out a cadence of communications with a prospect to not only nurture them, but help them along their sales journey.”

Account Based Selling Strategy

Not long ago, our recurring revenue customers frequently asked us questions like: “What is account-based selling?” or “What is account-based engagement?”

But today, most sales experts already understand that an account-based selling strategy brings together members of your go-to-market team in order to pursue high-value customers. By this point, most companies have adopted some form of account-based sales. According to research by Terminus, the percentage of B2B companies that use account-based sales jumped from 77% to 94% in a single year. That’s a pretty significant increase. 

But most of these companies are fairly early in the process of account-based sales development. The Terminus study found that 43% of companies are still putting a program together, while another 8% are running a pilot program. That means more than half are wondering whether the strategy will work for them in the long run. 

Many companies are gradually implementing a named-account sales strategy. That’s understandable, because moving to account-based sales is a massive undertaking for any organization. But according to Winning by Design’s Johnston, that’s often not enough to see real results. “A lot of our customers have sent direct mail to some executives, and they think that’s account-based selling,” she said. “I think that moving to high-value channels is a great component of account-based selling. But without the messaging, without the orchestration, without the targeting, a lot of sales teams fall short because they are just using that one piece of the puzzle.” 

Winning by Design helps you implement an account-based sales strategy across your entire organization. We don’t just provide account-based selling examples — We put together a plan that’s tailor-made for your sales team. It’s all codified into your own playbooks, processes, and systems. Our consulting and training programs arm your team with the skills they need to succeed, and our coaching keeps them at the top of their game.

Leah Allen, VP of Marketing at Model N, said Winning by Design was an indispensable part of her team’s transition to account-based sales. “Winning by Design helped us develop and roll out a cross-functional account-based selling strategy across marketing, business development, and sales,” she said. “They helped with getting alignment at the leadership level first, then worked with us to develop the training materials and content. They have amazing frameworks and templates to guide the team’s learning and ensure the execution of the program is aligned and optimized.” 

Allen said her team gave her great feedback on Winning by Design’s approach throughout the training process. “Winning by Design consistently went the extra mile to ensure that we had the best possible content and that everyone was brought into the process,” she said. And the proof is in the pudding: We have already gotten engagement from some of our top key accounts.” 

Winning by Design helped her company deal with several challenges implementing an account-based strategy. “The primary challenge was getting more effective at engaging our top prospect accounts, which are large enterprises,” she said. “We needed a coordinated approach to be successful. Another key challenge was alignment across all our go-to-market teams, including marketing, business development, and sales. With Winning by Design, we gained a common language and structure so we could execute an account-based approach.”

Account Based Selling Vs Account Based Marketing

Are you working to implement an account-based selling cadence? Trying to understand the difference between account-based selling versus account-based marketing? Wondering how marketers can scale an ABM campaign successfully? With a team of sales and marketing professionals that has plenty of hands-on experience with account-based sales development, Winning by Design can help put together a successful named-account sales strategy for your company. 

The wide range of courses available through our Revenue Academy helps you take advantage of the benefits of account-based selling. They are great for onboarding new team members and bolstering the skills of those you already have. For example, Account Management for Growth assists your account executives and customer success managers in uncovering opportunities, planning strategically, and building and deepening relationships with customers. Managing for Leadership transforms your frontline managers into coaches who can lead your teams in account-based marketing services.

Brianna Haag, Director of Account Based Marketing at Hopin, said courses from Winning by Design made the difference for her organization. “Our company had always seen value and results from a more targeted approach when it came to our prospects and clients, and Winning by Design’s training really helped us refine our approach and roll out a more formal program for the company,” she said. “I liked that the training was structured in a way to encourage participation from everyone on the marketing team. We knew going into the training that it was important to listen attentively, participate, and actually understand the material. The “homework” after each training was helpful to make sure we understood the material, and the cadence of the sessions worked well with our regularly scheduled work week.”

Hagg said that Winning by Design helped her sales and marketing teams align around a new account-based marketing approach. “We’ve already seen a huge spike in engagement with our key accounts in the first few weeks since the rollout of the new program,” she said.

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