Account-based selling for small teams

What account-based selling means for a small team

B2B purchases are rarely made by one person. A typical deal involves a user, a manager who owns the budget, someone from finance and often IT or procurement. Account-based selling simply means treating the company as the target and working all of those people deliberately, instead of hoping one contact will sell internally for you.

Step 1: Pick a short list of target accounts

Choose 20 to 50 companies that match your best customers on industry, size and location. Filter your Companies list by industry and employees, then save the view as "Target accounts" so the whole team works from the same list.

Step 2: Map the buying committee

• Champion: the person who feels the problem and wants your product.
• Economic buyer: the person who signs off the budget.
• Influencers: finance, IT, security or operations people who can slow things down.
• Users: the team that will use the product every day.

Step 3: Record every stakeholder on the account

Add each person as a contact linked to the company with their job title, email and phone. On a lead record, use the Contacts box to add colleagues at the same company in seconds. Everyone then appears on the company page, so anyone on your team can see who has been met and who has not.

Step 4: Plan touches for each role

• Champions: regular calls and a clear business case they can share.
• Economic buyers: a short meeting focused on return on investment.
• Influencers: answers to security, integration and pricing questions early.
• Users: a demo or trial that shows how their day gets easier.

Step 5: Track progress on one deal

Create one deal for the account, link every stakeholder to it and log each call and meeting on the deal timeline. The record summary will show how many people are involved and when they were last contacted, which tells you whether the deal is single-threaded and at risk.

Signs your account plan is working

• At least three contacts engaged on every deal above your average size.
• Meetings logged with the economic buyer before the proposal stage.
• Fewer deals lost with the reason "No decision".