The Hardest Part of ABM

How to get leadership buy-in for your ABM strategy

How to get Leadership buy-in for your ABM strategy

ABM is simple, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy.

ABM is all about immersing your ideal customers in an account experience that is relevant, contextualized, and lands at the right time.

The truth is, it’s hard to get ABM right for a lot of reasons.

Building that all important alignment with Sales takes time.

Getting to grips with what messaging will resonate well and when, takes work.

Building a clear picture of who the right personas and job roles are in the accounts you want to target takes research.

Creating the right content formats to engage your audience and cut through the noise takes creativity.

But, one of the hardest parts of all when launching an ABM program is to make sure that your strategy is fully aligned with what your organization wants to achieve.

And this, more than anything else, is what will determine whether your ABM campaign succeeds or fails.

So, how can you get that all-important buy-in from your Leadership team?

Connect the dots

ABM is much more than a marketing strategy despite the name.

It is an organization-wide strategy that goes beyond Marketing or Sales.

ABM is part of every department that ‘touches’ a client (present or future). It’s Customer Success, it’s Operations, it’s C-suite, it’s the Board… and more.

And as such, without that crucial buy-in and support from all areas of the business, an ABM campaign will always struggle to achieve its goals.

So, how do you get that all-important buy-in? ABMers need to create that bridge; to help connect strategy and execution across the divide between Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success.

Equally, the ABM road can be rocky at times, as results take time to achieve.

So, to maintain that connectivity, remember that ABM as a strategy needs full support from your Leadership team; and share clear communication to the entire organization that:

ABM when done well is all about integrating Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success as tightly as possible.

ABM, when done well, is all about integrating Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success as tightly as possible.

It's all about breaking down the ingrained cultural divisions that exist within organizations, and engaging deeply and effectively with your most important customers, ensuring the long-term success of your business.

Educate leaders

A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers.

Helen Keller

This is where your Leadership team can play a huge part in the success of your Account-based strategy.

Your leaders possess significant business experience and a strong strategic mindset. They are capable of making high-quality decisions and managing conflict, all while remaining adaptable.

Learning how to harness this wealth of experience – while educating leaders on ABM’s advantages – should be high on your list of priorities before you embark on your Account-based journey.

So, what should you do?

1 FIND A CHAMPION

Having an ABM champion within Leadership will keep the ball rolling in the right direction. So consider which senior leader is best placed to be champion in your organization. They may not be the obvious role – it may be the CFO or the COO. Whoever is your fit, build that meaningful relationship with them and support them – particularly if the CMO is not part of the Leadership team or a member of the Board.

2 FIND ADVOCATES

In ABM, you’ll get by with a little help from your friends – so find wider supporters and advocates in your organization to ensure you're not alone in promoting ABM. Numbers count. And equally, it can help if each voice brings a different element or perspective – advocates in data, strategy, internal alignment etc will expand your support. So, mobilize your allies, build a coalition and gain credibility!

3 TAILOR YOUR MESSAGE

Tailoring your pitch to Leadership is directly associated with a successful outcome. It’s essential to familiarize yourself with your audience’s unique mix of goals, values, priorities and knowledge, and to use that insight to shape your messages.

4 FRAME THE ABM CASE

It’s all about priorities. What’s important for you may not be important for others. If you want to gain buy-in and support, you need to frame the case for ABM. In other words, you need to package it correctly.

How does your ABM program support a strategic objective? Once you are able for others to see how your initiative fits into the bigger picture then they will be willing to invest in it, and you.

Be sure to frame the ABM case with solid business outcomes and benefits. It may also be useful to underscore the urgency as an opportunity that should not be missed or a way to see off a threat that is on the horizon. Highlighting a threat - a consequence of not adopting your strategy - can also create pressure to act now.

5 MANAGE EMOTIONS

Selling anything is an interpersonal skill, and emotions often run high when personal investments are involved. We’ve all made good and bad decisions in our business lives, and your leaders are no different. Channel these emotions to your advantage – for example, if a previous Marketing strategy had not succeeded, show why and how this ABM strategy is different, and have the data ready to back it up.

6 GET THE TIMING RIGHT

Timing is everything. Be very aware of this. Has something happened to the organization? Has there been a new strategy announced that you can align with? Has there been a change of personnel - a person blocking that is no longer there, etc.?

7 SHOW THE DESTINATION

Make the tangible intangible. Show the solution, the journey, and the final destination. This will build confidence and support for your plan and in you. It will also show Leadership what and who is involved and needed.

Agree business outcomes

More often than not an ABM strategy is deemed unsuccessful by a Leadership team due to the fact that unrealistic expectations were set at the outset.

Over-promising or suggesting that ABM can solve all problems is setting yourself up for failure.

Therefore, agreeing on realistic business outcomes is fundamental. What is the ultimate outcome that you, the business and the Leadership team are looking to achieve with the ABM program? And what timescales are realistic? Reverse engineer this to uncover the key performance metrics and milestones that you should be tracking throughout the campaign.

The 3 Rs - Reputation, Relationships Revenue - are a solid approach to deciding which metrics are important for you to monitor; and in particular, as a way to communicate the impact and performance of the ABM program to the Leadership team and the wider business.

What is also key is time to results.

What is also key is time-to-results. ABM is not a quick fix – it never has been and never will be. Make the effort to show what the early indicators of success are, your expectation for pipeline growth, and the eventual impact on Revenue uplift.

Align with business objectives

This part cannot be understated. Any investment must see a return - This is one of the main tenets of business.

ABM is resource-hungry – whether that's in terms of people, time, or money. But that should not put you off, and it won't put your Leadership off either.

This is provided you have sold the benefits of an ABM strategy, articulated the challenges that you may face, documented the Return on Investment, and clearly shown what will happen, and when.

Importantly, if the goals of your ABM program match the goals of the wider organization, you will have ‘economies of scale’ on your side, and more people invested in you and your program being a success.

Show quick wins

ABM is a journey – some would say a marathon. That does not mean that you need to wait until the finish line to show success.

Build strong communication channels with your Leadership, with the aim of over-communicating and sharing the results of the progress your ABM campaign is making.

So, what are the quick wins? The number of new contacts made, the number of meetings achieved, attendance at your Executive events, positive PR from the target accounts about your brand, etc.

The goal should be that you eventually put a monetary value to a lot of the key interactions you have in the Reputation and Relationship building phases – but first, you have to build those Relationships and that Reputation!

Don’t be afraid to share roadblocks and wrong turns.

Being transparent and honest – what's working, what's not – means that you will build trust with the Leadership team, and they may be able to point you in the right direction for solutions or support.

One of the tenets at Google is 'fail early, fail fast, learn fast'. And that's exactly what we did. We took stock of where we are, what's working, what's not working. We paused our program and rethought it in certain ways.

Akriti Gupta, previous Global Head of ABM, Google Cloud

Involving the leadership team and other areas of the business in the planning, data acquisition, and campaign setup phases will also increase their interest and buy-in - it no longer becomes just your program, but theirs as well.

Don’t overdo it!
Avoid over-scaling

Long term, the goal is ultimately to be influencing revenue and a strategic Go-to-market shift with your ABM program.

If you're successful in this, all conversations around investment and buy-in from the Leadership team become significantly easier. It’s important not to get complacent with the processes and strategies that you implement.

There is always room for improvement and the chance to optimize campaigns, as well as introduce new content and messaging as the market develops and changes.

Quarterly and annual reviews of the program with your Leadership are a great way to maintain their interest in the program and demonstrate its effectiveness. Get them involved, keep them involved, and make them part of the overall strategy and success.

Final thoughts

Aligning with the leadership team on ABM may be one of the most difficult aspects of setting up a program, but it's also one of the most rewarding.

When done right - when you have full buy-in, when you have a shared ownership of and interest in the program - you start to see results across the board.

The trust and relationships that you build could have far-reaching consequences for you, your business, and your clients for years to come.