Accountability and Support: The #1 Sales Tools in the World

As part of our Account Based Marketing Programs, our team meets with the sales teams of 25 software-as-a-service (SaaS) brands. They have all the tools in the world: Salesforce, Hubspot, Salesloft, Outreach, Gong, Proposify, Saleo, the list could go on and on. Do you know what I've noticed, though? They can have all the tools and reporting in the world, but what they really need is consistent accountability and support.

More than numbers on a page 

Think about it this way: most of the teams that run ABM programs with us have outstanding sales management in place. And we just come in as an extra layer of orchestration and support applied to a certain set of accounts. So what is the actual activity that is generated when a salesperson or sales team looks at the reports?

Well, we can actually move the needle in getting sales engaged with those reports, and the tool they have at hand is going back to the old school basics. Think of a printout, or a spreadsheet, that they have to physically fill out, and be held accountable for in the weekly sales meeting. Just the act of filling it out is going to make it more likely that they identify the gaps themselves and do the activity.

If we take it a step further, and review an account or two together, we can:

• Go deeper into the data.
• Create an action plan. 
• Rehash scenarios.  

For example, when the next week comes, we would begin to review the action that has been taken. Then, going above and beyond in accountability and support, we would call one or two of the accounts for whom they did discoveries or demos in the last week. This activity is known as a Q&A call. It is typically like a mini survey on the phone from their manager, making sure they did a good job, and have an understanding of what the next steps are. Once we have their answers, we would then use them to assess if there is a way to progress things further, or if there were any misunderstandings, we would open it back up for discussion.

Give this a try

Sales Management is hard. A lot of the time, it's two roles: 

• The Business of Sales
• The Player Coach of the Sales Team. 

The first one is usually the first to be hired, since it can take a long time to hire the second and not many can manage to execute both well. If you are in that first role, I take my hat off to you and I'll suggest the following: Test a few of the tactics out if you have someone running an ABM Program. Start out with a few of the accounts your ABM manager is bringing to the table. See what that does to the progression on those accounts, and how your sales team leans into the process.  

How does this resonate with you?

So, I'll round this out with the hypothesis proposed at the beginning. The #1 Sales Tools in the world are Accountability and Support. Without it, you won't get the most out of your sales team or any of the other tech tools they have.

So, I'm interested to know how that resonates with you? There is a lot to unpack there, so I'm looking forward to your messages on LinkedIn!