Account planning is sales 101. Anyone who’s spent their time in the sales trenches knows the importance of understanding clients’ needs and goals to plan for the future. But too many sales teams are frozen in time, using outdated tools and processes that are putting them at a disadvantage.
Today’s digital account planning tools can speed up your sales team’s process, accelerate conversations, and get you to closed/won faster and more often. And the best ones streamline communication and set a standard of collaborative selling that thoroughly aligns you with your customers’ needs.
Whether you’re trying to break into a new market or develop stronger relationships with current customers, the right account planning software is essential to keep everyone on the same page.
What are account planning tools?
Business technology evolves at an almost unimaginable speed. So why is sales account planning still mostly done in presentation software and spreadsheets? Why do sales teams use these outmoded methods that need so much manual updating and management?
The answer is likely a mix of inertia and ignorance. It takes a lot of energy to make an organization-wide change, and even more to make one with full knowledge of the options at your disposal. The first step to overcoming these forces? Learning what your alternatives are capable of.
Digital account planning platforms can speed your team up by collecting vital information in a single place and streamlining processes. They provide valuable insights into customer data, market trends, and sales team performance, enabling a more structured approach to nurturing and growing client relationships.
Research shows that sales teams can spend up to 65% of their time on non-revenue generating activities, and the right digital tools can help you cut this down significantly. They can help your team build cohesive account planning strategies to increase revenue, retain more customers, and foster cross-functional collaboration. With features like data visualization, CRM integration, and customizable dashboards, you can ensure that teams are working from a single source of truth and are aligned on key growth objectives.
The best way to learn about account planning tools is to try them out — our strategic account planning template is a great place to start.
Capabilities of account planning tools
The best account planning tools make it easy for sales teams to keep track of customer information, sales data, projections, and more. Some specific functions that lighten the load on your sales team are:
- Centralized account mapping: gives sellers a visual way to organize stakeholders, hierarchies, and lines of influence within a single account. Best for: account managers and relationship owners who need a clear, shareable view of decision makers.
- Real-time collaboration: allows multiple team members to update plans, share ideas, and make decisions together without waiting for version updates. Best for: distributed sales teams and cross-functional partners like marketing or customer success.
- Integrated data insights: combines customer data, deal history, and forecasting in one place, so reps can spot growth opportunities sooner. Best for: sales operations teams who monitor performance metrics and guide strategy.
- Structured templates: provide ready-made frameworks for account reviews, opportunity tracking, and strategy mapping, helping teams move quickly from planning to execution. Best for: newer reps or teams onboarding to a consistent process.
- Visual progress tracking: displays goals, milestones, and pipeline stages in a clear visual format, making it easier to track movement across accounts. Best for: sales leaders
When choosing a new tool, there is no one-size-fits-all way to prioritize these attributes. Different teams have different needs and ways of working, and you should choose the solution that makes the most sense for your company. Many teams use a combination of different tools; any account planning tool worth its salt will integrate with the rest of your tech stack, so you’re free to find the solution that works for you.
Read about more strategic planning tools and methods here.
Benefits of account planning tools for strategic growth
“But I don’t want to learn a new system!” you say. “I’ve been doing my account planning exactly the same way since 2003; why would I change now?”
Here’s why: No matter how adept you’ve become at your long-time system, you’re not keeping up with the improvements the rest of the world is enjoying. Today’s visual account planning tools can not only organize your accounts and help you plan for the future, they can make your job easier, lead you to invaluable insights, and help your company grow exponentially. Core benefits include:
Increased revenue generation through focused planning
By clearly defining account objectives and growth targets, account planning tools help align sales strategies with revenue goals, so businesses can identify the most promising opportunities and strategically allocate resources where they will make the most impact.
Improved customer retention and loyalty
Software that provides valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and pain points is an essential part of customer-centric account planning. Sales and customer success teams can use this data to personalize engagements, foster deeper relationships, and improve overall customer satisfaction. This naturally leads to greater retention and loyalty.
It’s much easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new prospect — and much cheaper. Studies show it costs anywhere from 5x to 25x less to retain a customer than to land a new one.
Enhanced team collaboration and alignment on growth goals
Collaborative account planning tools let cross-functional teams work from a shared source of information by providing shared access to account data and progress updates. Marketing, sales, and customer success can collaborate more easily, stay aligned on growth objectives, and track customer success in real time when working out of a shared digital space.
Better resource allocation for strategic initiatives
When your team is undertaking any kind of focused initiative, whether it’s targeting a new prospect or expanding into a new vertical, proper allocation of resources can mean the difference between success and failure. Account planning software enables businesses to assess account potential, prioritize key accounts, and allocate resources effectively, ensuring that the right people are focused on the right goals (with the right budget supporting them).
How to use account planning tools for sales strategy
Sales success hinges on strategy — especially for your key accounts — but a strategy without hard data is just guesswork. By integrating visuals into your process, you can automate the connection of real-time data directly into your sales plans.
You’ll be able to define, understand, and adjust your sales goals based on actual, verifiable information instead of wishful thinking. Sales account planning tools can help you set strategy in several ways:
Define clear account objectives and growth targets
With the right software, sales teams can break down growth goals into actionable objectives. For instance, teams can set targets based on revenue, customer engagement, or product adoption. This enables teams to create specific, measurable, and time-bound goals for each account, leading to stronger account planning strategies and better alignment and results.
Identify key stakeholders and their influence
Account planning tools can help you track stakeholders and other key contacts and get insights into the roles they play at their company, giving you a fuller picture of your customers and prospects. This helps sales teams craft more personalized, strategic approaches to engagement.
Try our stakeholder mapping template to see how Mural can help you ensure no one is left out of the loop.
Develop targeted sales and engagement plans
Data from account planning tools can help sales teams identify high-potential opportunities and develop targeted plans to engage individual accounts to capitalize on them. For example, you can target specific customers for upselling or cross-selling, or you can offer tailored solutions to address specific pain points for both customers and leads.
Use data for strategic sales decisions
Account planning tools provide real-time data on customer activity, pipeline status, and overall account performance. Sales teams can leverage this data to adjust their strategies, identify potential risks, and make informed decisions that align with overall sales goals.
The MEDDIC framework is a popular methodology for driving revenue. Our sales account planning template walks you through the steps of implementing a MEDDIC framework for your team.
Best practices for driving strategic growth with account planning tools
It may seem obvious, but it bears repeating that the goal of account planning is growth. But simply adopting an account planning solution isn’t going to automatically lead to growth; you need to know how to get the most out of your new tool.
Here are some best practices for transforming your team’s sales strategy and driving business growth with account planning software.
- Establish a consistent account planning process. Make sure you have a cadence set for tracking and managing key accounts, with roles clearly defined and regular check-ins to make sure all the stakeholders are in the loop. When you use a visual collaboration platform like Mural for account planning, you can map out the sales journey from initial contact to long-term relationship management so teams can easily see where customers are in the pipeline and what needs to happen next.
- Define SMART goals. Setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals ensures that teams remain focused on clear and actionable outcomes. Account planning tools can help break down these goals into bite-sized, measurable targets that align with broader business strategy.
- Foster collaboration and communication across teams. Use your account planning tools to collaborate in real time, share insights and strategies, and discuss tactical approaches to achieving account objectives. This ensures that sales, marketing, and customer success teams are always in sync and working toward common goals.
- Continuously iterate and refine strategies. First thought isn’t always the best thought when it comes to account planning. It’s important to evolve your approach based on feedback and results. Account planning tools allow your team to track key metrics and outcomes, enabling continuous refinement of sales strategies and ensuring that your business stays responsive to changing customer needs.
Account planning success with Mural
Effective account planning is critical for driving growth, improving customer relationships, and accelerating wins. With the right account planning tools, sales teams can align on key objectives, make data-driven decisions, and ensure that their strategies are always in sync with business goals.
Why should that tool be Mural? To start, it excels at seamlessly being used both internally and externally. Mural gives you a central hub where you can collect all your critical information for internal purposes and a tool for creating external-facing presentations and pitches. So you can develop your strategy, track your sales data, and build out a client-facing presentation, all in the same platform.
Mural’s templates — like this one for long-term account planning — give you the structure and methods to create customer journeys, stakeholder maps, and comprehensive sales plans that help keep your teams on track. And our facilitation tools can help you run efficient and engaging cross-functional meetings that lead to deeper insights.
Remember, strategic growth only happens when you make smarter decisions, refine your approach continually, and use the best tools available to achieve success quickly and often. With the right software and strategies, your teams will be poised to navigate the sales landscape and come out on top.
Want to try Mural out for yourself? Chat with our sales team and schedule a demo today.
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