I’m going to do a series of posts on the B2B account planning stages. It seems a good time to do the series. Any time’s a good time to do account planning, but it’s most commonly done in the final quarter of the current year, to make a plan for the following year.

Proper account planning is an underperformed and vastly undervalued facet of the B2B selling game. Statistics abound of the increased growth and revenues for companies that do account panning, against those that don’t. It makes brutal sense of course. If you fail to plan, and so on. Yet still companies don’t get round to doing it properly, or even at all. Amazing but true.

I’ve identified 8 discrete stages to the B2B account planning process, and I’ll devote a post to each stage. None of the stages is rocket science. You can devote many resources to each stage, or you can devote a few resources. What you put in, you’ll get back, if you do it right.

It’s very important that you follow a defined process. It’s nearly as important that you use software to help you plan and execute on your plan. Account planning is a team sport and software brings obvious collaborative and productivity benefits.

I hope you enjoy the series.