Account-Based Selling / Account-Based Sales (ABS) Tools
Account-Based selling is no easy feat. It’s a complex, time-consuming process that can take your team months to perfect. But once you’ve cracked the code, it can be a compelling way to grow your business.
Thankfully, advances in sales technology are making it easier than ever to implement an account-based selling strategy. Today, account-based sales tools empower sales leaders to understand the nuances of customer interactions with the proper context of their accounts. And the end results are no less than significant boosts in the CLV of each account.
Account-based sales tools are software or technology solutions that support the execution of an account-based sales strategy. These tools help sales teams identify, target, and engage with high-value accounts by providing insights and intelligence about the accounts and their key decision-makers.
But all this is only possible if account managers can overcome the involved limitations of traditional CRMs such as not being equipped enough to execute account planning to its full potential. This is primarily because traditional account planning execution happens offline with an increased reliance on PPTs and spreadsheets. This often leads to the absence of a single source of truth for data and reports along with a missing systematic link between Account-based Management and Account-based Selling.
Thus, this calls for a system that empowers account managers to paint a comprehensive account picture and collaborate with every account stakeholder. Fortunately, new sales tools are emerging that help account managers overcome these limitations. These account-based sales tools provide a centralized platform for managing customer interactions and account data. They also offer features specifically designed to support an account-based selling strategy.
8 crucial must-have capabilities in account-based sales / account-based selling tools:
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Account Intelligence :
The ability to surface insights about individuals and companies that can be used to identify new opportunities and create a strategy for targeting these accounts.
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Relationship Mapping :
The ability to see how different individuals within an account are connected and track all interactions between team members.
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Whitespace Identification :
The ability to find and target new prospects in accounts with the most growth potential.
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Account Planning :
The ability to map out essential information about prospects such as the decision-makers, competitive position, and the core strategic components to win these accounts, among others.
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Opportunity Management :
The ability to track all interactions with an account and all related opportunities and identify which deals are most likely to close starting from the first to the last stage.
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Pipeline Management :
The ability to manage all deals in an account and their associated stages and values.
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Forecasting :
The ability to predict future sales outcomes by understanding which deals are most likely to close and estimating the value of those closed deals.
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Collaboration :
Identifying and updating contact and account data by unlocking a holistic picture of every key account. Creating coaching content alongside, such as process playbooks is also crucial.
Once you have the right account-based sales tools in place, it’s essential to ensure everyone on your team is using them effectively. That means appropriately training sales reps on using the tools and giving them the tools they need to be successful.
The best account-based sales tools make it easy for sales reps to identify and target key accounts, build relationships with key stakeholders, and track all interactions with those stakeholders. This information can then be used to create targeted content and sales pitches relevant to each account.
How Account-Based Selling Tools Help Maximizing Account Revenue
Account-based selling tools are vital to maximizing the revenue from every key account by bridging the gaps between intent signals and growth opportunities. They do this via
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Connected Apps Ecosystem :
Account-based selling platforms integrate with existing data and tech stacks to drastically improve forecasting accuracy. Predictive analytics can help identify which deals are most likely to close by analyzing past customer interactions and current account data.
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Sales Enablement :
Account-based selling tools provide the sales team with the right content at the right time to help them close more deals. This content is tailored to the specific needs of each account and is delivered through channels that the customer is most likely to use.
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Account-based Selling Strategy :
The right account-based selling tools can help sales leaders to develop a detailed account-based selling strategy and an account-based selling framework. This strategy will identify the best path that best integrates with the existing complexity of tech stacks.
We are proud to share that DemandFarm has been recognized as one such leading account-based sales tool from a globally leading Independent Research Firm in the space of Account-based Sales Tools.
Forrester Recognizes DemandFarm as a Mature Vendor in Account-Based Sales Technologies
The report gives insight into what companies that use Account-Based Selling tools can expect. DemandFarm is mentioned as one of the few vendors that can provide account insights, opportunity tracking, and relationship mapping. For more information on how to maximize account revenue, please contact us. We would be happy to discuss our services and the many benefits of using an account-based sales tool!
