CRUSH PAPER: HOW TO BUILD A KILLER STRATEGIC ACCOUNT PLAN!! 3
©2014 Avention, Inc. CRUSH Report® www.avention.com
I. WHAT IS A STRATEGIC ACCOUNT PLAN?
The Strategic Account Plan is a tool that helps salespeople be better positioned to
take on new accounts and forge stronger relationships with existing ones. The plan
contains critical information about the prospect that every sales rep should know
before even thinking about making the initial phone call. Capturing this information
down in a concise, structured way helps the salesperson to focus on what is
important about the account and how it aligns with your company’s offering. Having
a plan can help you go one step further, give you the edge over a competitor, or
deliver the crucial piece of data that can close the deal. Simply put, the Strategic
Account Plan is the blueprint of the sale.
The Strategic Account Plan should be almost a mini encyclopedia of the company. It
should allow the salesperson to know the account inside and out. The plan must
have all the important information about the company and its financials,
competitors, technology, goals, and objectives. It must provide insights about recent
development and drivers in the account and the industry. It is imperative that the
plan contains extensive and accurate contact information. Moreover, the contacts
ought to be structured in the proper hierarchical way so that the sales rep knows
how to navigate through the list.
Specifically, some key parts of the Strategic Account Plan are:
• Executive Summary
• Business and Industry Summary
• Key Competitors
• Product and Solution Alignment
• Embedded Information Technology Architectures
• Current and Planned Projects
• Sales Opportunity Pipeline and Forecast
• Contract Information
• Relevant Industry Insights
• Relationships
• Organizational Charts
• Voice of the Customer
• Strategic Relationship Assessment
• Partner Analysis
• Activities, Tasks and Events
You can download a template for the Strategic Account Plan from the
Avention website
http://www.avention.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Avention-Strategic-Account-Plan-Template.docx