The average sales deal typically requires 5.4 people to sign off on the purchase. To identify these decision-makers, sales teams should utilize account mapping. It’s an effective sales strategy that helps sales reps to understand the customer, focus their efforts, facilitate collaboration, and provide a roadmap for success.

Mastering account mapping takes time and practice, but we have a few tips to help your team become more effective.

7 Critical Account Mapping Tips to Close More Sales Deals

These are the most effective account mapping tips to enable your sales team to close more deals:

1. Identify the Key Decision-Makers

The first thing you need to do for effective account mapping is to identify the key people involved in the decision-making process, including decision-makers, influencers, and gatekeepers. This is critical to understanding the organizational structure and knowing who to contact. Then you can create a visual map highlighting who you need to connect with and determine the best path for the sale.

Here are some best account mapping practices for identifying decision-makers:

• To determine the decision makers at each level of the organization, look for information on the company’s website, LinkedIn profiles of employees, or through company directories.
• Ask probing questions to help identify the decision-makers. Ask who else is involved in the decision-making process, who approves budgets, and who has the final say on purchasing decisions.
• Look for indicators of decision-making authority. Research job titles, the department they work in, their level of seniority, or their involvement in previous purchasing decisions.

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Related Link: Overcome 10 Common Sales Objections and Close Deals

2. Map Out the Buying Process

When creating your account map, you need to understand the buying process. This means including the stages involved, the people responsible for each stage, and the timeline. This will help you anticipate roadblocks and know how to move deals forward.

You’ll need to research the customer’s decision-making process, identify the stakeholders, and determine the criteria for making the decision. Then your sales team can create an effective map of the buying process. Account mapping can develop a tailored approach to each stakeholder, anticipate potential roadblocks, and provide a roadmap for success.

3. Conduct Extensive Research: on the Potential Client

Research the company, its industry, and its competitors. Client research gives you a better understanding of the company’s needs, pain points, and opportunities. Some best practices for researching a potential client include the following:

• Gather information from various sources to understand the company’s culture, values, goals, and challenges. This can include company websites, social media profiles, news articles, industry reports, and online reviews.
• Focus on key areas of interest most relevant to the potential client and your business.
• Tailor your approach and messaging to resonate with the potential client’s needs and interests. Address their pain points, highlighting your unique value proposition and showcasing your experience and expertise in their industry.

4. Prioritize Your Accounts

When you are account mapping, it is critical that you prioritize your accounts based on their potential value to your business, the likelihood of closing a deal, and the effort required to win the account. You’ll want to focus your efforts on the accounts that are most likely to deliver the highest ROI.

Our best tips for prioritizing sales accounts:

• Start by using data to identify and prioritize accounts most likely yield the highest revenue potential.
• Prioritize accounts where your solution is a good fit for the client’s specific needs and challenges. This will help ensure you are not wasting time and resources pursuing accounts that aren't a good match for your solution.
• Factor in the potential for long-term growth and success. This may include accounts that are in a growth phase, expanding into new markets, or launching new products.

5. Align Your Messaging

Successful account mapping includes customizing your messaging to each account's specific needs and pain points. You’ll want to tailor your sales messaging to resonate with each potential customer. This will show that you understand their business, personalize your message, and increase the chances of success.

Some best practices for tailoring your sales messaging include:

• Understand your customer’s business, industry, and competitors, and identify the specific pain points they are looking to address. Then you can develop messaging that speaks directly to their needs and shows that you understand their challenges.
• Determine the metrics that matter most to the customer and align your approach and messaging to those metrics.
• Highlight the unique value that your solution can provide to the customer, emphasizing your experience and expertise in their industry. Highlight the specific benefits your solution can deliver.
• Use customer stories and case studies to demonstrate the impact and value of your solution in action.

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Related Link: How to Close a Sale: Actionable Deal Closing Tips & Tricks

6. Build Relationships

Build relationships with key decision-makers and influencers at the account. This will help you gain their trust and influence their decision-making. Building strong relationships with your clients is critical to the long-term success of your business, resulting in increased loyalty, repeat business, and positive referrals. 73% of executives prefer working with sales reps referred by someone they know.

Effective ways to build relationships with clients:

• Regular and effective communication can help build trust, demonstrate your commitment to their success, and show that you are invested in their business.
• Personalizing your client interactions can help build a stronger connection by remembering small details about their preferences, personal lives, and professional goals.
• Provide additional value by offering proactive insights, solving problems, and offering additional support beyond the initial transaction.

7. Track and Measure Progress

Track and measure your progress against your goals and adjust your strategy as needed. This will keep you on track and ensure you’re progressing toward closing the deal. Regularly monitoring your progress can make targeted improvements to your sales process and increase your overall success rate.

Use sales enablement tools and customer relationship management (CRM) software to track and manage your account mapping efforts. 57% of sales teams utilize CRM tools at least 3 to 10 hours a week to stay organized and focused.

Practice Account Mapping to Increase Your Sales Success

Mastering account mapping requires a deep understanding of the customer and their needs, as well as the ability to collaborate with other stakeholders and leverage technology to streamline the process.

Effective sales teams utilize account mapping to better understand their target accounts, prioritize their efforts, build relationships, and measure success. By incorporating account mapping into your sales process, your team will increase their success rates and achieve their sales goals more efficiently.

Related Link: 10 Best Sales Strategies Guide [Template + Examples]