You know the value of creating custom strategies for your highest-target accounts, but how do you actually implement this account based intelligence across your sales and marketing organization? How do you find a unique path to selling into your top target accounts – without wasting hours on endless research?
What is account intelligence?
Account intelligence is a collection of contextual insights about a target organization and its structure, culture, people, technology and buying processes that revenue teams use to fill pipelines and close deals. Account intelligence helps revenue teams sell “smarter”.
What is account intelligence software?
Account intelligence software provides sellers online, always-on, access to dynamic insights on prospect and customer accounts. This category of software organizes data about people, technology and buying processes by account so that it can be used by sellers and marketers to create and close opportunities.
What are the benefits of account intelligence?
- Quickly Qualify or Disqualify Your Accounts
- Identify the Org Structure and Decision-Makers
- Understand Infrastructure Changes
- Understand How Organizational Priorities Impact Your Deal
- Identify Potential Roadblocks
Emissary provides enterprise sales teams with the critical answers they need to win deals in their biggest accounts by connecting them with a senior executive that used to work there. Through an engagement with an Emissary, your team can look behind the curtain to take the guesswork out of account research and planning.
#1
Quickly Qualify or Disqualify Your Accounts
Finding accounts that could conceivably buy your products is crucial. Finding accounts that are actually ready and able to buy is a different thing entirely. Speaking to an Emissary is the quickest way for you to understand whether now is the right time to push hard for the deal, without requiring you to dig into databases and analyst reports or do any guesswork.
As the VP of Inside Sales at one of our client organizations put it recently: “No exaggeration: this one call saved us no less than 40 hours of research.”
On the flipside, as our Head of Engagement ops Nick Ackerman put it in a recent blog post, sometimes the best outcome of an engagement is disqualifying a deal that isn’t a fit for your product offering – ideally as quickly as possible.
“You could spend hours chasing a lead that’s never going to work out or direct those same hours toward a more compatible lead. No matter how well you present your case, sometimes a deal is just never going to work out. You only have a finite about of time and energy to dedicate to leads, so the faster you can disqualify them, the better.
#2
Identify the Org Structure and Decision-Makers
As discussed in a recent article from the Enterprise Insider, the value of subscription-based org chart services can be dubious at best. Understanding who really makes and influences decisions rarely maps to titles and spots on the HR-produced org chart.
“It’s really difficult to find out who to talk to in an organization,” said Jodi Watson, current Emissary and former CMO at Petco. “Just because someone has the title doesn’t mean they’re the one creating the action or developing the program.”
You’ve got to dig deeper to find the real decision-maker(s), identify influencers and obstacles, and head down a path to a successful close, which requires help from those who know what’s going on within your account. Your Emissary advisor can help you identify that inside account based intelligence and make you more likely to succeed.
#3
Understand Infrastructure Changes
The way an organization is structured is important. In many cases, the way the company’s infrastructure or internal tech stack is built and the direction it’s headed are equally important.
Emissaries can help you dig deep into your target account’s tech stack to understand where there might be pain points around which to center your offering, and whether you are speaking to the right leaders who understand how your solution could make a difference.
Changes in infrastructure often unearth massive opportunities for technology providers who can address the new problems and opportunities they cause head-on. The only way to understand those changes is to dip deep in your research and lean on insiders to understand where your solution might play well.
#4
Understand How Organizational Priorities Impact Your Deal
In a recent Emissary engagement, an advisor who worked for a large publicly traded company was able to help one of our clients which decisions they were targeting would likely not survive an incoming CEO’s dramatic cost-cutting measures.
In this case, literally no matter how good the client’s product was or how on-target the pitch, the business unit they were spending months pitching to would not exist in a few short weeks. Smart enterprise sellers understand that major organizational priorities can always aid or derail their efforts, and think strategically well beforehand about how they can align with those priorities. How do you find out that information?
You can read annual reports, read between the lines in the press, or ask someone who actually knows first-hand where things are headed.
#5
Identify Potential Roadblocks
From difficult procurement processes to onerous legal requirements to shifting personnel at the leadership level, understanding what major deal-breakers may be present in your deal before you propose your offering can make you more likely to create a successful proposal.
For deals in play, understanding what “normal” looks like for deal processes within the account can help you understand how to best proceed to maximize your chances for success, and Emissary advisors can help.
Need Help Unlocking the Full Power of Account Based Intelligence?
Selling to enterprise and having account based intelligence to inform your sales strategy can be a struggle. Emissary’s advisor network can help you gain valuable insights into your target accounts and develop the right strategy. Contact us today to get started or call us at (646) 776-0510 to discuss your business needs.
The world’s best enterprise sellers trust Emissary to help them qualify their accounts, identify the real org chart, understand organizational infrastructure and strategy shifts, find roadblocks before they happen and close more deals by doing their strategic homework.
