--- name: gtm-enterprise-account-planning source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/gtm-enterprise-account-planning@1/SKILL.md source_sha256: 71dce583299f --- # Enterprise Account Planning Strategic account planning and execution for enterprise deals. Turn complex sales cycles into systematic wins — or at least know when they're dying before you waste months. ## When to Use **Triggers:** - "How do I plan this enterprise deal?" - "This deal has been in motion 3 months, why isn't it closing?" - "Should I create a full account plan or simplified version?" - "How do I know if this deal is actually moving?" - "MEDDICC qualification" - "Building a mutual action plan" **Context:** - Strategic deals above your average ACV - Multiple stakeholders involved - Sales cycle exceeds 60 days - Complex buying process (legal, procurement, security) - Enterprise or mid-market accounts --- ## Core Frameworks ### 1. If Your MAP Hasn't Been Updated in 3 Weeks, That Deal Is Dead **The Pattern I've Seen:** The Mutual Action Plan (MAP) is the single best indicator of deal health. Not pipeline stage. Not verbal commitments. Not "they love the product." **The MAP tells you everything:** **Healthy deal:** - MAP updated weekly - Customer adding their own action items - Both sides completing tasks on schedule - New stakeholders appearing in MAP - Dates moving up (not pushed out) **Dying deal:** - MAP last updated 3+ weeks ago - Only your side has action items - Customer tasks marked "pending" for weeks - No new stakeholders engaged - All dates in the past **Why This Happens:** When a deal is real, the customer wants it to happen. They're doing work. They're involving stakeholders. They're moving through their process. When a deal is dying, you're doing all the work. They're "too busy." They'll "get back to you next week." The economic buyer is "traveling." **The 3-Week Rule:** If your MAP hasn't been updated in 3 weeks, the deal is dead — you just don't know it yet. **I've never seen a deal close with a stale MAP. Not once in 11 years.** **What to Do:** **Week 1 of silence:** Send MAP update: "Here's what we've completed. What's your status on [specific customer action]?" **Week 2 of silence:** Escalate to champion: "Haven't heard back on MAP. Are we still on track for [date]? If priorities shifted, let me know." **Week 3 of silence:** Qualify out or reset: "It seems like timing might not be right. Should we pause and reconnect in [timeframe], or is there a blocker I can help with?" **Common Mistake:** Keeping deals in pipeline because "they said they want it." Verbal interest ≠ action. If they're not doing work, they're not buying. --- ### 2. The EB Discovery Problem (And Why Deals Die at Week 8) **The Pattern:** You're 8 weeks into a deal. POC went great. Champion loves you. Technical validation complete. You send the proposal. Then: radio silence. **What happened?** You never met the Economic Buyer. **The Economic Buyer (EB) is the person who:** - Controls budget allocation - Makes final purchase decision - Signs the contract **Not:** - Your champion (they influence, don't decide) - The technical lead (they validate, don't buy) - The VP who attended one demo (they advise, don't sign) **Why Deals Die Without EB Access:** You built the business case with your champion's assumptions. But the EB has different priorities: - Champion cares about: solving their team's pain - EB cares about: ROI, risk mitigation, strategic alignment When you send proposal to EB through the champion, EB sees: - Price tag with no context - Solution to a problem they didn't articulate - Risk they haven't evaluated **Result:** Deal stalls or dies. **The Framework: EB Validation Checklist** Before sending proposal, validate: - [ ] Have you identified the EB? (Name, title, confirmed by champion) - [ ] Have you met the EB? (Video call minimum, in-person ideal) - [ ] Does EB agree on the problem? (In their words, not yours) - [ ] Does EB agree on success metrics? (How they'll measure ROI) - [ ] Does EB know the price range? (Ballpark discussed, not surprised) - [ ] Does EB understand timeline? (Implementation, go-live, value realization) **If you answered "no" to any, don't send the proposal yet.** **How to Get EB Access:** **Ask your champion:** "Before we finalize pricing, I'd love 15 minutes with [EB name] to make sure we're aligned on outcomes and timeline. Can you intro us?" **If champion blocks:** "I can handle that, you don't need to talk to them" → This is a red flag. Either champion doesn't have access (not a real champion) or they're afraid EB will kill the deal (which means deal is weak). **Push back:** "I totally understand. At the same time, I want to make sure [EB] sees the full value before seeing the price. In my experience, when economic buyers aren't involved early, deals get delayed in procurement. Can we do a quick alignment call?" **Common Mistake:** Treating EB meeting as "nice to have." It's mandatory for any deal >$50K. No EB access = no deal. --- ### 3. Personal Win Mapping (People Buy for Themselves) **The Pattern:** Enterprise software purchases are made by committees. But committees don't buy. **People buy.** And people buy for personal reasons: - Career advancement - Looking good to their boss - Reducing their workload - Covering their ass (CYA) - Proving they were right - Not looking stupid **Framework: Personal Win Identification** For each stakeholder, map: **Professional Win:** - What do they get credit for if this succeeds? - What pain goes away for them personally? - How does this make them look good? **Professional Risk:** - What happens to them if this fails? - What's their reputation cost if this goes wrong? - Who's skeptical of them internally? **Personal Motivations:** - Are they new in role? (Need quick wins) - Facing budget cuts? (Need to justify spend) - Up for promotion? (Need visible success) - Burned by vendors before? (Extra risk-averse) **Example: VP of Engineering** **Professional Win:** - Reduce on-call burden for team (they'll stop complaining to her) - Faster incident response (looks good in QBRs) - Attract better eng talent (modern tooling) **Professional Risk:** - Team rejects new tool (she forced it on them) - Migration goes badly (downtime, incidents) - Vendor fails (she picked them) **Personal Motivations:** - New in role (6 months), needs wins - Under pressure to improve uptime metrics - Previous monitoring tool she picked failed **How This Changes Your Pitch:** **Generic pitch:** "Our platform improves incident response time by 40%." **Personal win pitch:** "You mentioned the on-call burden is burning out your team. We've seen teams reduce on-call pages by 40% in the first month, which helps with retention. And since you're focused on uptime metrics for the board, the improved response time shows up immediately in your QBR dashboards." **The Difference:** Generic = business case Personal = career case Both matter. But personal wins close deals. **Common Mistake:** Selling only to the business problem. "This saves money. This improves efficiency." That's necessary but not sufficient. **People need to see what's in it for them personally.** --- ### 4. Enterprise Account Plan Structure (Four Components) A complete account plan has four interconnected pieces. Each feeds the others. **Component 1: Account Summary** - Company basics (HQ, size, industry, subsidiaries) - Technical landscape (infrastructure, tools, platforms) - Top corporate initiatives (from press, annual reports, LinkedIn) - Hypothesis: "How can we help?" (write this before engaging) - LinkedIn keyword analysis (quantify their investment in your domain) **Component 2: Org Chart** - Map all relevant contacts: name, title, location, LinkedIn, email, phone, notes - Notes capture: domain of responsibility, technical specialties, personal win - Include people across levels: C-suite, directors, architects, leads, specialists - Don't just map buyer — map influencers, users, potential blockers **Component 3: Opportunity Plan (MEDDICC)** - **M - Metrics**: How will the customer measure success? (Validated with EB) - **E - Economic Buyer**: Who has budget authority? Have you met them? - **D - Decision Criteria**: What criteria will they use to decide? (Technical, business, political) - **D - Decision Process**: What's their buying process? (Procurement, legal, security review) - **I - Identified Pain**: What specific pain have they articulated? (Their words, not yours) - **C - Champion**: Who inside the account is actively selling on your behalf? - **C - Competition**: Who else are they evaluating? What's the competitive dynamic? Plus: Issues/Risks table with mitigation plans, help needed, responsible parties **Component 4: Mutual Action Plan (MAP)** - Joint timeline with: Action, Your Owner, Customer Owner, Others Involved, Due Date - Both sides must have actions — if only your team has actions, it's not a deal, it's a demo - Track status (complete/in-progress) - Use MAP as running agenda for check-in calls - **If MAP isn't updated in 3 weeks, deal is dead** **Decision Criteria:** Full account plans worth investment for top 10-20% of accounts by potential deal size. For rest, use simplified version (summary + MEDDICC + next steps). **Common Mistakes:** - Creating account plan after deal is in motion (build before first engagement) - Not maintaining MAP weekly (stale MAP = stale deal) - Filling MEDDICC with assumptions instead of validated info - Mapping only obvious contacts instead of full org chart - Not tracking personal win for each stakeholder --- ### 5. LinkedIn Keyword Analysis for Account Intelligence Before engaging strategic account, quantify their investment in your domain via LinkedIn. **How to Execute:** 1. Define 8-10 keywords relevant to your space (e.g., category terms, technical roles, workflow keywords) 2. Search LinkedIn for "[company name] + [keyword]" and record count 3. Map concentrations: Which locations? Which departments? 4. Identify outliers (high keyword concentration in specific departments signals maturity) **Why This Works:** If a company has 50 employees with "SRE" in their profile, they're mature in site reliability. If they have 2, they're not ready for advanced observability tools. This tells you: - Whether to pursue the account (do they have the team?) - Who to target (where are the concentrations?) - How to personalize outreach (reference their specific context) **Example:** Searching "[Company] + DevOps": - 120 results → Mature DevOps org, good fit - 5 results → Early, not ready Searching "[Company] + SRE": - 50 results → They care about reliability, pitch uptime/incident reduction - 0 results → Don't lead with SRE value prop **Common Mistakes:** - Just searching job titles (vary wildly) instead of keywords (consistent) - Not comparing counts to total employee count - Not refreshing analysis (hiring trends change quarterly) --- ### 6. The Unified Sales Process (Stage Gates) Enterprise sales follows defined stages with clear exit criteria. Don't advance stages without meeting criteria. **Stage 0 — Pipeline Generation:** Prospecting → Qualified interest confirmed **Stage 1 — Discovery:** Environment/pain/requirements → Pain identified, stakeholders mapped **Stage 2 — Demonstrating:** Product demo, champion building → Champion identified **Stage 3 — Proving Value:** POC/trial → Technical validation complete **Stage 4 — Proposal:** Pricing, terms, scope → Proposal delivered, EB aligned **Stage 5 — Paper Process:** Legal, procurement, security → Approvals secured **Stage 6 — Closed Won:** Deal signed → Customer success handoff **Exit Criteria Matter:** Don't move from Stage 2 → Stage 3 until you have a champion. Don't move from Stage 3 → Stage 4 until POC success criteria are met. Don't move from Stage 4 → Stage 5 until EB has approved. **Common Mistake:** Advancing stages based on activity, not criteria. "We demoed, so we're in Stage 3" — but if they haven't agreed to POC, you're still in Stage 2. --- ## Decision Trees ### Do I Need a Full Account Plan? ``` Is deal size above average ACV? ├─ No → Simplified plan (summary + MEDDICC) └─ Yes → Continue... │ Sales cycle >60 days? ├─ Yes → Full account plan └─ No → Simplified plan ``` ### Is This Deal Actually Moving? ``` Is MAP being updated weekly? ├─ Yes → Healthy └─ No → Continue... │ Has it been >3 weeks since last MAP update? ├─ Yes → Dead deal (qualify out or reset) └─ No → At risk (escalate to champion) ``` ### Should I Send the Proposal? ``` Have you met the Economic Buyer? ├─ No → Don't send yet (get EB access first) └─ Yes → Continue... │ Does EB agree on problem and success metrics? ├─ Yes → Send proposal └─ No → Align with EB before sending ``` --- ## Common Mistakes **1. Creating account plan too late** - Build before first engagement, not after deal is in motion **2. MEDDICC filled with assumptions** - Validate each element with customer, don't guess **3. Stale Mutual Action Plan** - If MAP isn't updated weekly, deal is stalling. 3+ weeks = dead. **4. Mapping only the buyer** - Need full org chart: influencers, users, blockers **5. Ignoring personal wins** - People buy for career/reputation reasons, not just business ROI **6. Not tracking deal health** - Green/yellow/red indicators catch dying deals early **7. Skipping champion validation** - Without internal champion, you're selling alone --- ## Quick Reference **MAP Health Check:** - Green: Updated weekly, both sides have actions, customer completing tasks - Yellow: Updated bi-weekly, mostly your actions, customer slow to respond - Red: 3+ weeks stale, only your actions, customer unresponsive → **Dead deal** **MEDDICC Validation:** - [ ] Metrics: Success criteria agreed with EB - [ ] Economic Buyer: Met them, validated problem/solution - [ ] Decision Criteria: Understand their evaluation rubric - [ ] Decision Process: Know procurement/legal/security steps - [ ] Identified Pain: In customer's words, not yours - [ ] Champion: Actively selling internally on your behalf - [ ] Competition: Know alternatives they're considering **Personal Win Questions:** - "What does success look like for you personally?" - "What happens to your team if this works? If it doesn't?" - "What are you being measured on this year?" - "Who internally is skeptical? Why?" **Account Plan Checklist:** - [ ] Account summary with hypothesis - [ ] Org chart with personal wins mapped - [ ] MEDDICC fully validated (not assumed) - [ ] MAP with customer actions (not just yours) - [ ] Weekly MAP update cadence scheduled --- ## Related Skills - **enterprise-onboarding**: Post-close customer implementation - **partnership-architecture**: Deals involving partner relationships - **technical-product-pricing**: Enterprise pricing strategy --- *Based on enterprise sales at a platform company during hypergrowth, with patterns from closing strategic accounts, navigating complex procurement processes, and learning the hard way that stale MAPs = dead deals. Not theory — lessons from watching deals die because we didn't track health metrics and closing deals because we validated EB alignment early.*