Hey All
We published a case study this week with an ad tech company whose account team was spending days building account plans by hand, and it ended up surfacing a few things I think matter to any AM/CSM.
Case study here: kandir.io/case-studies/jwx
The short version: A Senior Account Manager there found an expansion opportunity inside an account she'd been managing for over a year. Not in a QBR. Not from a customer asking for it. From something happening in their business that wouldn't have been caught if she was not monitoring external signals about her customer.
A few relevant learnings from this case study to share:
1. Your best accounts are at risk of becoming your worst. Their CRO shared that one of their largest customers hadn't heard their latest messaging, and the team had not gotten above the VP level in a while. If you're an AM, go look at your top 3 accounts right now and ask when the last time was that you talked to a C-Suite exec. The accounts you feel safest about often times get left on set-it-and-forget-it because your unhealthy accounts take up your time. DO NOT let your best accounts become your worst. Find reasons to keep the C-Suite engaged.
2. The expansion signal you need is probably public, and you're not looking at it. The expansion win in this case study came from a press release about new inventory volume, not from a QBR conversation. You HAVE to be monitoring what's happening in your customers businesses (executive goals, organizational KPIs, etc.) and bringing those back to customer conversations.
3. ALWAYS reach out about something specific. NEVER "check in." The reason that press release turned into a conversation is that she had an actual reason to call. Something happening in their business, not "wanted to see how things are going." Most AMs know this, but do not have a system for reliably having something to say. Build a system.
