Account plan

One page per account, computed monthly: revenue and trend, share against norm, missing lines valued, contact recency against cadence, dormancy state, share of the rep's book, and pipeline with slip count. Three actions follow by rule; the rep's judgement is a dated box on top, never typed over the numbers.

DefinitionOne page per account, computed monthly: revenue and trend, share against norm, missing lines valued, contact recency against cadence, dormancy state, share of the rep's book, and pipeline with slip count. Three actions follow by rule; the rep's judgement is a dated box on top, never typed over the numbers.

Every account

Twenty written plans cover the twenty everyone knows. The fortieth account has a computed plan too.

Actions name things

Sell line B. Touch, overdue 26 days. Move the deal that slipped twice. Not "deepen the relationship".

How it is used

One page per account, rebuilt each month from computed tables: revenue and trend against the same period last year, share against the norm by category, the missing lines with a value on each, contact recency against cadence, open issues and contract dates. The owner adds judgement and next steps.

Example

An account at $610,000, down 18 percent, buys two of six categories, has one known contact and a contract ending in five months. The plan lists the three missing categories at $180,000, a second contact to find by a date, and a director visit.

Where it goes wrong

Plans written from memory once a year. They describe the relationship the owner believes in, not the one in the ledger, and are not opened again.

Articles that use this term

Wallet share and penetration

How to present a gap to a customer: the conversation the data supports

A rep has a gap list that says a customer spends a third of what similar customers do on a line. What they say in the room decides whether the number helps or offends. This guide sets out what the gap is evidence of and what it is not, the framing that works, similar customers, their basket, the customer's own trend, the questions the rep asks before proposing anything, the data the rep should never show, and three worked conversations.

16 Sept 20262 min read How-to guides

How to value a gap: three methods and when to use each

A gap list is only a plan when each gap has a number beside it. This guide compares the three ways to value a missing product, account or lane, at list price, at the customer's own rate, and against an external wallet, with the cases each fits, the bias each carries, and the rule of stating the basis on every list.

16 Sept 20263 min read Forecast and pipeline

Run rate and forecast: why the floor is not the plan, and what the gap between them is made of

Why run rate is the floor a forecast should be compared to rather than a forecast itself, what the gap between the two is made of, new business, expansion, churn, seasonality and known changes, the bridge from run rate to forecast with a line for each, the forecast that sits below run rate and needs a reason, the one far above it and needs pipeline, and the rule that the forecast is defended by the lines between it and the floor.

16 Sept 20263 min read Territory, capacity and quota planning

Segments and tiers: what a customer is, and what a customer gets

The difference between a segment, which describes what a customer is from fields on the master and sets which norm it is compared to, and a tier, which describes what a customer gets from the company, a cadence and an owner, set from its revenue and its gap, why the two are often confused, the rule that segments define norms and tiers define effort, how a customer moves between each, and the two mistakes, tiering by segment and segmenting by tier.

16 Sept 20263 min read Territory, capacity and quota planning

The one-page account plan, built from computed measures rather than memory

What an account plan looks like when every line on it is computed from the ledger, the CRM and the norm: the account's share and gap by product, its trend, its contact recency, its tier and cadence, its concentration in the rep's book, and the three actions that follow. Why it is produced for every account rather than written for twenty, and how the rep's judgement is added on top rather than typed in underneath.

16 Sept 20263 min read AI and self-service analytics

What is coverage intelligence? A plain definition and the five measures in it

Coverage intelligence is the practice of measuring, from a company's own sales data, which customers it reaches, how much of each customer's spend it holds, and where the gaps are, with every figure reconciled to the ledger. This guide defines it, sets out its five measures, coverage, share of wallet, gap at norm, dormancy and concentration, shows how they roll up, and distinguishes it from BI, CRM reporting and sales analytics.

16 Sept 20263 min read