If you’re in the business-to-business (B2B) sales world, you may have heard the term “target account selling (tas).” But what does it actually mean?
TAS, also known as account-based selling or account-based marketing, is a B2B sales approach focused on building personalized relationships with high-level decision-makers.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through the basics of targetted account selling (TAS) as well several of monday sales CRM’s features and capabilities that can help you optimize sales processes for better communication and more deals won.
Why use targeted account selling (TAS)?
By approaching companies already well suited to your product, you increase the chances of a successful sale. In TAS, multiple departments often collaborate on target account selling efforts. Marketing and sales, for example, might work together during the onboarding process to deliver higher customer satisfaction. Account managers and marketers often take over afterward for the later stages of the process.
Some companies involve everyone up to the C-suite when it comes to closing the deal. Sales and marketing handle the face-to-face relationship-building portion, while company executives provide overall direction and procure needed resources. Let’s take a look at the TAS process in more detail.
The TAS process
The point of target account selling is to make every lead as close as possible to a perfect fit. To do that, you have to find potential customers that are in an industry you can serve, and who match your ideal customer profile (ICP). You want to connect with and provide value to businesses that can be customers for life.
Set your goals
The TAS process starts by setting goals. Ask yourself what you want to achieve and write it down. Goals outlined in this section are usually something like:
- Close sales more quickly
- Bring in more revenue
- Upsell existing accounts
- Expand the business’ client base
Create your ideal customer profile
Create a detailed profile of what your ideal customer would look like. Think about what their demographics are, what their pain points would be, and what technology they’re likely to be using. Sales and marketing will often work together in this phase, as they’ll approach potential customers in different ways and at different stages of the process.
Make your list of contacts
Search for real-world companies that fit your ideal criteria and investigate further. Are they growing steadily or have they stalled? Have they expressed an interest in the type of product you sell before? Who are the decision-makers there? Is their budget likely to be large enough to afford an ongoing contract with you? Make a list of companies that look the best and start reaching out.
Do your homework, but don’t take too much time compiling a list. Once you’ve got a few names to work with, get out there and start making connections
Check your benchmarks
Lastly, review your goals periodically so you can see where you might need to course correct. When each campaign finishes, look back at your timeline as a whole to identify data on strengths and weaknesses you can use for the next one.
What are the benefits of target account selling?
Potential benefits from using a TAS approach include:
- Stronger relationships with customers
- Improved lifetime value via customer loyalty
- Happy customers can become brand advocates
- Better brand reputation
- Increased revenue
The TAS method requires that sales team members have extensive knowledge of their leads when they approach them to try and make a sale.
High-value sales where you need to build ongoing relationships with customers are best suited to this approach. It requires your entire team, not just sales and marketing, to be in sync with one another. They need to communicate quickly and efficiently, as well as track the progress of each campaign.
The more data you have on those businesses, and who’s responsible for decision-making there, the better you can tailor your approach to specific pain points. You can map out what those are during the planning phase when you develop your ideal customer personas, which we’ll explore more in the next section.
How monday sales CRM helps you implement a target account selling strategy
monday sales CRM has a strong core of work management software that support CRM functions beautifully. Here are just a few you can use to improve any sales strategy or workflow.
Automation
Automating elements like sales emails and importing relevant lead information for everyone to access makes any sales campaign a lot easier — and those are all things you can do in a snap with monday.com Work OS.
They help streamline the approval process for each stage of the project, notifying relevant people as soon as steps are completed so they can move on to the next one with no wasted time. Say one of your team members has a great call and moves an account to the next stage of the sales funnel. When they change that account’s position on your board, you’ll be notified of the change instantly.
Asset management
Team members can directly upload important files to monday.com, eliminating the need to go hunting for a contract or reference image they may need for a project.
Dashboards
Google Ad data and social media metrics can also be monitored right from your Work OS dashboard. You can customize these dashboards to pull only what you want to see and how you want to see it
Integrations
A multitude of app integrations expands monday.com Work OS’ functionality even further. Sync Google Calendar so you’re not overbooked for meetings with clients, or use DocuGen to create important forms on the spot.
Smart communication
Client conversations can also be logged with monday sales CRM so you have a complete record of each account available to whoever may be working on it at the time. Plus email templates make everything from first contacts to follow-ups simpler, while also allowing for personalization.
Frequently asked questions
What are the advantages of target account selling?
TAS can be a great benefit to your business if done the right way. Your team can learn to fine-tune what your company’s ideal client looks like. You can gain long-term customers that trust and evangelize your brand to others. You also end up saving time that otherwise would’ve gone toward chasing lukewarm leads that never went anywhere.
Are there any risks to using the TAS approach?
It takes a lot of time and effort to use this approach to sales, more than it would to just send a wide blast of emails to a broader group of people. Refining possible leads down to just the ones that would be the very best fit takes a lot of effort. And even after all that, there are still some leads that will say no.
Is target account selling the right choice for my business?
What sales choice is best will vary from business to business. But if you sell a B2B product, TAS is worth considering. If you currently use a different sales model, look at your current resources and see if you can partition off a small team to try TAS and decide whether to adopt it company-wide.
Streamline your sales efforts for higher-quality leads
From app integrations to more efficient communication to consolidating important data, the monday.com Work OS provides the tools you need to whittle down your lead list and start selling with the best of them.
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