• High-growth organizations are 60 percent more likely than others to have a central planning process with strong alignment across marketing, sales and product
  • Strategic account planning requires strong alignment between sales account teams and their marketing colleagues
  • A comprehensive sales account plan is the starting point for strategic account planning

You probably know by now that SiriusDecisions emphasizes the importance of alignment between B2B functions, especially marketing, sales and product. The more these functions are in sync, the more effectively the revenue engine works to reach its goals. According to data from the SiriusDecisions Command Center®, high-growth organizations are 60 percent more likely to have a central planning process with strong alignment across marketing, sales and product stakeholders.

group of business people busy discussing financial matter during meeting

Strategic account planning is no exception. At our upcoming 2019 Summit, Aaron Cullers and Bob Peterson will zero in on how cross-functional alignment optimizes strategic account planning.

“Strategic account planning is a complex process that requires tight alignment between sales account teams and their marketing colleagues,” said Aaron. Unfortunately, the starting point in this process – a comprehensive sales account plan – is usually incomplete. Without this plan, marketing is hard-pressed to develop engagement plans that map activities to sales goals.

“The sales account plan is the North Star in effective strategic account planning, but other sources of information that may reside in other functional areas of the organization can provide critical account insights, too,” said Aaron.

At their Summit session, Aaron and Bob will guide attendees through a newly streamlined approach to strategic account planning that has been honed through extensive field testing. The process includes four parts – goal setting, gathering audience insights, mapping assets and building the engagement plan – that serve to facilitate collaboration and communication.

“This process ensures that sales and marketing avoid ‘random acts of marketing’ with these high-value accounts,” said Bob. “At the same time, it makes certain that planned activities and interactions are mapped to known needs and imperatives for specific contacts within the account.”

The communication element of strategic account planning can’t be stressed enough. “Strategic accounts are, by definition, complex and warrant formal collaborative communication of plan progress and course corrections at regular intervals,” said Bob.

Join Aaron and Bob at Summit,, May 5-8 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, to learn about strategic account planning and much more!