Account Based Experience (ABX)
It's the hot talk of the town, but what really is the role that ABX plays in driving hyper-growth? Multiple of our guests have deep expertise in planning and executing stellar ABX programs, and they share their wisdom across both strategy and execution. How to think about ABX across different dimensions - multiple products, multiple regions, multiple personas etc.? How to maximize the value of existing customers in drive net new pipeline and revenue?
1. Anatomy of ABX
Anatomy of ABX: In this section, Nancy delivers a masterclass on ABX. She talks about the three types of ABX programs, viz. 1-1, 1-few, 1-many. Nancy also walks us through the strategy and tactics of one of her successful ABX programs which led a large enterprise customer to go from a $6M account to $50M renewal after a systematic seven month campaign.
2. Enterprise-wide expansion
ABX approach for Enterprise-wide Expansion: The core objective of ABX in companies with a multi-product strategy is to maximize your footprint within these enterprise accounts. In most cases, this implies landing with one function and engaging different other functions like HR, IT, Finance etc. to expand the NRR of the account. Steven talks through the importance of identifying the right Champions to be the internal driver of such relationships and co-developing your ABX strategy with that customer with them. He also warns us of evaluating whether someone is truly a Champion or a Coach by simply looking at if they are willing to take you to other functions.
3. Regional expansion
ABX approach for Geographic Expansion: Gio led the international expansion efforts at 360Learning, helping the French company increase their footprint in UK and US while growing from $5M to $45M in ARR. His insights around regional expansion are particularly valuable for companies whose customers have multiple buying centers in different regions and the purchase decisions are taken independently.
Partnership
Steven shares a sneak peek into an enterprise revenue leader's view on partner selling or "off-balance-sheet selling". He emphasizes on how it makes sense to grow in SMB and generalized segments without having to make a significant headcount investment for coverage. He also discusses about the planning and processes requires to avoid conflicts across partners.
Gio discusses the two types of partners that helped 360Learning's growth - Analysts and Consulting companies. While Analysts were neutral stakeholders helping companies understand the market and make recommendations on technologies they could use (including 360Learning), Consultants were resellers of the technology who could recommend and bundle it with their offerings whereby increasing market presence for 360Learning. In many cases, the Consultants were already engaged with the customers which made the process of selling and implementing the tech much smoother.
Salil emphasizes the importance of clearly defining the focus areas for partners and keeping them distinct from direct sales efforts to avoid channel conflict. He highlights the need for clarity in target markets, ideal customer profiles, and value propositions, supported by the right materials. He also notes that partners are more effective at scaling solutions in well-understood markets, while scaling new solutions is more challenging due to the limited maturity of both the solution and the market.
