Account Based Selling – An Ultimate Guide

In a fast evolving B2B world, account based selling is the new buzzword on the rise. But is it relevant for you?

For the B2C world, this new hyper personalized approach might be too labor intensive, but if you’re a B2B account manager or marketer, then now is the perfect opportunity for you to learn about this multi-touch, multi-channel strategy.

This article will catch you up to speed on everything you need to know about account based selling in 2024.

So, without further ado, let’s get started with what account based selling means.

What is Account Based Selling?

Account based selling is a strategic sales approach in business to business or B2B sales and marketing that functions across multiple channels, targeting a decided number of high value accounts on a company wide scale.

Marketing and sales work hand in hand to close deals with the targeted accounts while customer service ensures that their onboarding experience is seamless. Then, marketing and sales collaboratively upsell and cross sell the targeted accounts throughout customer lifetime.

Is Account Based Selling Different From Account Based Marketing?

There isn’t a stark difference between an account based sales approach and an account based marketing strategy, and both terms can be used interchangeably. 

However, terminology wise, it is important to note that Account Based Marketing (ABM) is a slightly older, more well established approach than Account Based Selling (ABS). This is because the latter arose as a way to better delineate the ABM process.

Whereas ABM is primarily led by marketing and aims to generate leads for sales, ABS focuses on converting those leads into paying customers. Keep in mind that marketing and sales alignment is absolutely necessary for both processes!

Usually, this difference is not stressed, because it follows that ABM leads to ABS, and ABS requires an ABM strategy – they are part of the same process of converting high value accounts with revenue potential into valuable customers.

What is the Account Based Selling Model?

The account based model, known interchangeably as Account Based Sales (ABS), Account Based Marketing (ABM), or Account Based Sales Development (ABSD), follows a streamlined approach to get marketing, sales, and other relevant teams such as customer support, to close high value individual accounts with a uniquely targeted strategy.

A list of teams and personnels relevant for cross functional collaboration might include:

• Customer success managers
• Sales development representatives (SDRs)
• Marketing team
• Content producers and developers
• Business Executives and C suite professionals

Thus, the ABS model thrives on maintaining account level focus even after the sale, as it does not assign individual responsibility but aims to close the targeted account collectively.

But how does one implement this strategy? Read on to find out!

How to Implement an Effective Account Based Sales Strategy

Misunderstanding the point of an account based sales strategy can make it seem intimidating. 

Making the switch from targeting a larger volume of accounts with a shorter sales funnel to a slower more specific approach is certainly not for everyone. The process gets much easier if you divide it into stages, ensuring a slow and smooth transition rather than a high octave frenzy.

Start by identifying the accounts that fit your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and divide thirty percent of your manpower into tiger teams. Once this gains some traction, you can go ahead and transition fifty percent of your team, then three fourths, and finally your whole team to the ABS model.

Again, keep in mind that you must have the best possible alignment between marketing and sales for ABS to be a success!

Some basic steps to follow to implement an effective account based sales strategy are

• Review your best customers
• Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer personas
• Develop a content strategy
• Create a target account list
• Divide your target account list into tiers
• Assign a third of your sales development team to engage these target accounts
• Decide which metrics to track 
• Assign half your team to ABS
• Analyze and modify your content strategy accordingly
• Assign three fourths of your team to ABS
• Review your key metrics
• Transition your whole team to ABS

Now that you have a clear idea of the steps to take, let’s clarify a few things. Read on to find out how to identify high value accounts and create your target account lists. Scroll further to know who should be using account based selling, and how to organize your sales team for the best results!

How to Identify High Value Accounts

In order to identify the accounts you will be targeting, be prepared to conduct thorough research, and consult your sales and marketing teams. 

Begin by defining your ICP to refine this process!

• Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

The Ideal Customer Profile or ICP defines your most valuable prospects and customers who have the highest chance of conversion for the purposes of ABS. It is a template of your ideal customer, used to determine product market fit. 

Having an ICP makes the process of shortlisting accounts for your target list easier and more consistent. The following pointers can help you conceptualize your ICP better:

• Be sure to consult your team members

Sales development representatives have valuable insights on the types of accounts that they can close. Marketing executives are experts at identifying customer pain. Finance teams have access to which customers generate the most revenue. Sales Ops keep tabs on your conversion rate, sales cycle, and close rate data.

Every organizational team has some important knowledge to contribute, and a good ABS strategy capitalizes on this.

The information learned regarding demographics will be useful in identifying accounts that you can target.

• Analyze firmographic data

Classify the characteristics of companies that you are most likely to close into industry, market, verticals, number of employees, revenue, financial performance, market share, type of business, location and number of branches, historical and predicted growth, etc.

This will make it easier to sift through and conclude which criteria should be included in your ICP.

• Study internal data 

Go through your customer relationship management (CRM) with a fine toothed comb and review your closed accounts, highest value accounts, accounts least likely to churn, etc., to further narrow down what your ICP is.

• Understand behavioral data and trigger events

Noting the common behaviors that your customers exhibit can help you pinpoint your ICP criteria. 

An easy way to spot these behaviors is simply by surveying your customers with questions such as

“What prompted your interest in our product?”

This will help you identify what attracts your ideal customer and how you can replicate that in the future.

To identify high value accounts properly, you can pair your knowledge of your ideal customer with the following steps!

• Measure First Party Intent

Use the account information you have gathered to pinpoint potential buyers likely to convert by studying their engagement with your company or brand.

You can find potential prospects by combing through 

• Business representatives who have attended previous events
• Digital users who have viewed or downloaded certain links or online content
• Interested parties who have filled out online forms

This part of identifying B2B high value accounts relies on finding people who have directly engaged with your business or brand so you can leverage their interest through your campaign!

• Measure Third Party Intent

Unlike first party intent, third party intent is a measure of potential prospects who have not yet expressed an interest in your company or brand. These people do not yet know how useful your product might be for them and need to be introduced to it.

Since these potential customers have overlapping pain points with your ICP, they can be found

• browsing websites of your competitors
• entering specific keywords on search engines

Thus, to find them you need to first define a set of keywords relevant to your business or product and cross check them with the help of an AI tool. Vetted high value target accounts can then be added to your target list!

• Use a Prospecting Tool

Marketing and sales automation tools have come a long way. Consider using tools such as Adapt Prospector to build your target list. You can find data on multiple stakeholders from specific organizations through their ‘company search’ feature and filter your search by department and level.

Using a prospecting tool will not only help to determine whether your potential target fits your ICP, but can also help you with targeted outreach later in your ABS campaign!

How to Order a Target Account List?

Once you identify the types of accounts you need to target and decide which relevant stakeholders and decision makers to approach, you need to create a target account list.

Once you have your target accounts list ready, all that is left is to prioritize them according to the order you will approach them.

Some tips to keep in mind as you organize your list are:

• Look for high value target accounts that are most suited to what your product or service offers.
• The closer your leads are to your ICP, the better!
• Prioritize accounts with a strong intent to buy.
• Don’t prioritize big businesses simply because they are well established. Make sure that they fit your desired profile.
• Be thorough with your knowledge of all target accounts so you are better equipped to compare and order them!

It’s best to create an ABS target account list with different tiers. This helps you adjust

• your level of resources,
• personalization, and
• attention

accordingly.

The following table is an example of how such a tier division might function:

Remember to structure your ABS team in a way that ensures the relevant accounts get the necessary attention. 

Ask team members from your sales development and sales teams if they think the accounts on your target list are a good fit because they are responsible for following up!

How to Organize Your Sales Team for Account Based Sales?

ABS Success depends on bringing together teams that typically function separately. This means that your dedicated account teams spans

• Product development
• Sales
• Sales development 
• Marketing
• Finance
• Customer service 

and other relevant cross functional teams.

Here is the brief tabular description of primary roles required in your ABS efforts:

Who Should Use Account Based Selling?

As mentioned before, a successful ABS strategy requires a company wide buy in. To determine whether your business is suited for ABS, try to answer the following questions:

• Who are your customers?

The account based selling strategy does not make sense if you only sell to small businesses or SMBs (small and medium sized businesses).

However, if your average deal size is greater than fifty thousand dollars, then an account based approach might be perfect for you!

Similarly, if your company provides complex solutions or enterprise, then you already have high value accounts in your roster, thus qualifying you for implementing an accounts based selling strategy.

• How well do you know your ideal customers?

Since ABS is a highly personalized and specific approach, you need to have hoards of data on your existing customers to justify transitioning to it. 

If you don’t have

• enough customers or clients
• product market fit in place
• enough data on your accounts

then you should consider waiting to implement ABS.

• How many customer stakeholders are part of your average deal?

Targeting every stakeholder in your targeted organization increases the chances of your closing the deal. 

Make sure that you have multiple points of contact with members of the decision making unit (DMU) while executing your ABS sales process for your target company. 

This will help you spot potential problems beforehand and increase your chances of conversion, which relying on one point of contact might not!

• How long is your average sales cycle?

Considering that implementing an account based selling strategy is a long term process, make sure that your average sales cycle is at least three months or longer, so that the transition is manageable for your sales reps.

Remember, closing deals for key accounts is a complex account based sales process that includes the DMU’s decision making process as well as the buying process.

• What is the nature of the product you’re selling?

The account based selling approach is particularly compatible with subscription based products, which makes it perfect for B2B companies selling softwares as a service.

Subscription renewals let you upsell and cross sell throughout the customer journey thus justifying the ABS efforts your entire team puts in for key accounts. 

If you only offer one time purchase products, reconsider using the account based model according to your average deal size and customer support capacity.

Account Based Selling KPIs and Metrics to Track in 2024

The account based sales process metrics you need to track often overlap with your lead funnel metrics. However, in ABS, instead of the leads, you simply need to switch to account focused metrics.

Thus, you need to ensure that your chosen key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics are equipped to answer similar questions:

How many accounts are you handling? Are these accounts in their buying cycle? How many accounts have you won? 

These questions can be dealt with by focusing on two main metrics: account coverage and account engagement.

Account coverage

• measures the depth of data you have on your targeted company,
• lists how many contacts you hold, and
• analyzes if you’re covering the right buyer personas in your sales process.

Account engagement 

• measures the frequency of leads within your targeted account,
• lists the leads you are interacting with, where they are placed, and
• analyzes if these leads are engaging with your sales and marketing programs

Thus, to calculate the overall success of your account based strategy, you need to track your average contract value (ACV) or deal size, as well as lifetime value (LTV), which will let you know how much revenue your closed deals will generate. A substantial increase in these metrics, that is, over 65 percent, means that you are on the right track!

Ideally, you should also track your customer acquisition cost (CAC), which will rise when you dedicate more resources to personalized outreach as part of your strategic approach. 

Try comparing your pre ABS LTV to CAC ratio to your post ABS implementation one. If the value of LTV is significantly higher than your CAC, then this means your profit margin has more than made up for your cost! 

Key Takeaways

• Account based selling (ABS) is a multi channel strategic B2B sales approach that aims to convert a selected number of high value accounts on a company wide scale.
• Marketing and sales alignment is essential to developing a successful ABS strategy.
• The ABS model maintains account level focus even post sale, since trained professionals across all business verticals are invested in the lifetime value (LTV) of targeted accounts.
• Ideally, a slow and steady transition of your sales development team to the ABS model is necessary, as the strategy has a long gestation period before you can see tangible results.
• To identify high value accounts, you need to identify  your ideal customer profile (ICP), measure first party intent and third party intent, and use a prospecting tool to arrive at a list of target accounts. You can then divide your target account list into tiers.
• Organizing your sales team for ABS plays a crucial role in ensuring that cross functional lines of communication are seamlessly connected.
•  Ensure that your average deal size is large enough, that you have enough customer data, and a clear idea of product market fit before you implement your ABS strategy.
• Make sure that you establish multiple points of contacts with decision makers within your high value accounts for the best results.
• Account coverage and account engagement KPIs and metrics are the most important ones to track while executing an ABS strategy. Average contract value (ACV) and lifetime value (LTV) seeing a rise is a good indicator that you are on the right track!