Gut instinct drives a lot of account planning. Sales teams get busy. Suddenly, year-end arrives and management wants to see an account plan. Now.

So what are you going to do?

When you’re laying the groundwork for a major sales initiative with your most important account, yes, you can rely on your gut to tell you where to focus an account plan that will impact your selling success for the year.

And this may be sufficient.

But what if it’s not? What if you and your team outline a very strategic game plan but it’s based on a set of assumptions that turn out only half right? Or not correct at all?

Maybe your customer is looking for a serious business change, but your game plan has them settling for basic maintenance.

If you haven’t identified and validated your customer’s business initiatives, you risk working on issues important to you, but not your customer.

Research First, Plan Second

To avoid such mistakes, when you evaluate account planning, employ Executive Focused Selling skills at the front end.

Developing and maintaining an account plan is a bit like strategic planning for executives; you’ve got a lot of information sources to consider and analysis to conduct before you actually start allocating resources.

Just as a sound strategic plan is an essential foundation for solid shareholder relations, an account plan is a vital engagement roadmap that enables you to maintain value-based relationships with both the client and the account team – ultimately allowing you to leverage your good work to sell more.

So regardless of which planning method you use, the traditional account planning process begins with a sales team identifying a customer’s business priorities. But let’s be honest here; what you often get is a visceral response based on gut feel or opinion rather than qualitative research.

When that’s the case, here’s what can happen:

1. A golden opportunity is overlooked
2. A non-priority is mistakenly identified as a key focal point

In other words, you find yourself trying to sell an upgrade when you could have sold a major enterprise-wide solution – all because your account plan was created without sufficient analysis.

It’s focused on an invalid business initiative, and that means time spent supporting that invalid initiative is unimportant to your customer. One, you’re not going to realize success; and two you’re out a nice chunk of change. Keep in mind your personal ROI is in play here!

Fortunately, there is a better way. And it’s all about really understanding your account through due diligence. But keep this in mind: You’ve got to validate customer business initiatives before you roll up your sleeves and start account planning. That way you have a filter with multiple data sources to help guide the account planning process and ensure your game plan isn’t based on faulty assumptions.

Poor account planning can derail your entire sales strategy. It’s time to give your account plan some muscle (no spinach necessary)! Here are 6 exercises to truly build effective account plans.

1. Develop your value statement.

Who is your value statement about, you or your customer? Your plan needs to accurately reflect the customer’s priorities and business drivers. Otherwise, when you fast forward from account planning to execution, you’re not going to connect with executives in a meaningful way.

2. Target key business units.

Do you have a solid understanding of your customer’s business structure? For example, do you know what units are stars, which are cash cows, and those to avoid? Before you develop your sales strategy, pinpoint your customer’s target business units.

3. Identify potential solutions.

Do you know enough about your customer’s strategic initiatives to credibly align your solution to the customer’s needs? A successful account plan goes beyond describing your products; it presents your solution in the context of the positive business change it will deliver.

Make sure your account plan is about how investing in your solution will improve your customer’s business performance, not about the line items detailed in your proposal.

4. Motivate executive sponsorship.

Do you understand what motivates the executives you’re targeting? Have you read the executive compensation section of the customer’s proxy to get a sense of their financial incentives, bonus opportunities or long-term compensation components? If not, do your homework! Use this information to gain an executive’s personal sponsorship of your solution. Tangible research trumps your opinion or gut feel for what an executive cares about.

5. Quantify impact and ROI.

Metrics are crucial to an effective plan, so you need to make sure you’ve identified metrics that are meaningful to your customer. Have you cross-referenced against industry metrics, such as those covered by the analyst community? You may also find useful insights in recent management presentations to the investor community or statements in the Letter to Shareholders. Remember, the right metrics sell.

6. Determine past value.

Take a look at your account from an historic perspective. Is there an opportunity to assist your customer and jointly conduct an ROI assessment of your targeted customer’s past projects? Might you identify a positive outcome that the customer hasn’t fully realized yet? If you can show positive results from past contributions, you just might win new business.

–If your account plan has all the right ingredients, everyone stands to win. Your customer gets a proposal that will boost business performance with solutions that align with his or her priorities. Your company gets a revenue spike. And your personal ROI gets a lift!