In the build up to 2017, let’s explore a series of blogs on a topic that certainly gets every executive with a growth number to sit up:
How to replace leads with opportunities for sales growth.
Businesses with a small number of accounts that spend a lot find that demand generation and lead management programmes do not necessarily work for them. If you operate on such a model, revenue targets will be missed if you wait for dream accounts to come to you.
You basically live or die by the big deal. To stay ahead of the competition and grow revenues faster than your industry requires a shift to an Account Based Marketing (ABM) model.
It may be time to evaluate whether it’s worth the time, effort and 
money to implement Account Based Marketing. You need to evaluate how ABM could help you make your number.
If you need more help with Account Based Marketing, you can request a quick start guide with case studies of business leaders already executing on their strategies.
It is crucial to ask your business a series of questions to ascertain and validate if ABM is indeed a good fit for your growth strategy. Here are the initial questions every sales and marketing leader should ask to validate a fit for ABM:
- Do you have complex, long sales cycles with multiple stakeholders, decision makers and departments?
- Does your sales organisation sell to a list of targeted accounts?
- Is it critical for your sales team to penetrate wide and deep in their accounts, building multiple relationships?
- Will you hit or miss your revenue goal based on a few big deals throughout the year?
- Do you deploy an account expansion sales strategy?
- Is the lifetime value of a key/strategic/named account at least 2x that of a typical account?
- Would the working relationship between marketing and sales improve if marketing dedicated its budget to a list of dream accounts?
If you’ve answered yes to one or more of these questions, you can benefit from ABM. If you’ve answered yes to most of them, ABM should be an empiric strategic priority.
Evaluate your ABM Strategy at a deeper level by using an ABM guide. I’ll be happy to recommend one that gives you a sample ABM stack and helps you get an idea of the types of tools you need to effectively implement ABM.
I cannot emphasise enough that only the strongest alignment between sales and marketing, with compelling outcome (value) and revenue driven best practices, will allow B2B and high growth companies to win profitably.
What are your experiences of exploring or implementing an ABM strategy? Comment below and lets compare notes!
Picking up what what I’m sharing today? Grab your ABM Guide HERE and start get your strategy into gear for 2017 implementation fast!
Resources:
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Ref: SBI and Epipheo Studios
Maggie Sarfo
Strategic Sales/Marketing Adviser
Email: megsarfo@gmail.com
Instagram: @maggiesarfo
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