Enterprise accounts aren't won with leads.
Inside a committee you don't control.
ABM is a coverage and orchestration system, not a campaign type.
Run ABM only if all five are true.
If leadership won't commit to a fixed account list for two full quarters, don't run ABM. You'll get a rebranded demand-gen program.
Four static, one dynamic, one judgment. Weight to taste — but keep the model small enough that a rep can argue with it.
Minimum viable map before any outreach goes out.
Move the inputs. The math stays visible so you can check it.
Set the last two from your own closed-won data, split by contacts engaged. If you can't split it, that's finding number one.
Accounts × penetration = opportunities. Opportunities × ACV = pipeline. Pipeline × each win rate = revenue. The gap is what coverage buys you.
Rank by strength, attach an SLA, and log the action on the account record.
Every Tier A signal gets a logged action within SLA, with the owner and action type on the account record. Un-actioned signals are worse than no signals — they teach the team the data is noise.
Phases overlap on purpose. Air cover runs before and during outbound, never after.
Output: a one-page account POV. Not a research dump.
The goal is that your name is not new when you land in the inbox.
Three to five committee members, entered in parallel, with different messages per role. Concurrently: exec-to-exec touch from your leadership to theirs on Tier 1.
Filter by tier to see what a rep at that coverage level can actually run.
Tooling amplifies a motion. It doesn't create one.
Parent/child accounts, account plans, committee roles stored on contacts.
Committee discovery at role granularity, not just name and title.
Multi-channel, with per-role branching.
LinkedIn or an ABM ad platform, audiences synced from CRM.
Engagement rolled up to the account, not the contact.
Do not buy a platform before you have a list, a POV process, and rep capacity.
Find your row, find your column. That's your diagnosis.
Share of the named list with an open opp. Tells you whether the motion is working at all.
Tells you whether your tiering is justified.
The core ABM thesis, validated in your own data.
ABM should compress or hold. Never extend.
Should be materially higher. If it isn't, your list is wrong.
Tier 1 economics have to clear.
Pipeline coverage from named accounts, as a ratio to target.
Everything else is diagnostic.
That single rule prevents most ABM failures.
If the account stalls, the AE doesn't get to point at lead flow.
Tick them off as you go — the tracker is live.
In new logo ABM your constraint is access.
You already have a seat — but you also have a box you've been put in, a delivery track record that either helps or hurts, and a set of people who define you by the first thing you sold them.
You are not selling into an empty room. You are selling against your own reputation and against the org's inertia.
Expansion revenue is typically the cheapest revenue in the business — you already have the relationship, the data, the security review, the MSA, the procurement precedent.
Most orgs underinvest here because expansion has no obvious owner and doesn't feel like "sales."
Build it before anything else. Three axes, for every enterprise customer.
What do we sell that they don't buy?
What business units, regions, subsidiaries, or functions don't use us?
Within units already using us — what share of possible usage, seats, or scope are we at?
Do not run an expansion play into an account that is red on delivery. You will convert a fixable service problem into a strategic loss of confidence, and you will burn the champion who has to defend you internally.
This is not new-logo tiering. Depth, cross-sell, lateral, and strategic each need a different owner.
Every enterprise customer should have exactly one named expansion thesis at a time. Accounts pursued on three vectors simultaneously read as vendor land-grab and put the core relationship at risk.
These signals must land on the account team, not in a marketing dashboard. Route to a shared channel with an owner and an SLA — the same discipline as Part I.
That's the entire structural advantage. Build for it.
Build the artifact before you build the pitch. You have something you never have with a prospect: proof from inside their own building.
The referral is the play. Do not go around your champion — go through them, with something in it for them.
The largest expansion dollars come from moving up, not sideways.
The unresolved question is always the same one: who owns the expansion number?
You're not leveraging the relationship. You're running new-logo plays at existing customers.
You're getting depth, not breadth. Depth has a ceiling. Breadth doesn't.
You're winning small footholds and not growing them. Check delivery health in the newer units.
Signal review across the customer base. Which Tier A fired? Who owns the action?
Whitespace review per enterprise customer internally, then the joint version with the customer for Tier 1. Re-score expansion priority.
Executive Business Review with every enterprise customer above your ACV threshold. Non-optional. This is where strategic expansion originates.
Align to their budget calendar, not yours. Be inside their planning cycle 60 days before it locks.
Named list, committee coverage, whitespace maps, signal routing, account-level reporting — wired into the stack you already own and operated on a sprint cadence.
Pull your last 20 closed-won and closed-lost enterprise deals. Count the contacts engaged on each.
If the won deals average three or more roles and the lost deals average one, you don't need to be sold on ABM. You need coverage.
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