The Enterprise Account Planning Workshop — 120-Min Training — Pulse Sales Trainings

Section 1 — Why Account Planning Matters (10 min)

Open by putting one number on the whiteboard: it costs 3 to 5 times more to acquire a new logo than to expand an existing one. Then ask the room a question and make them answer out loud: "For your top account, name the next product they will buy and the person who will sign for it." Most reps cannot. That silence is the entire reason for the workshop.

The research is blunt:

> Best-in-class enterprise SaaS net revenue retention sits at 120%+. The median company drifts in the low 100s. The whole gap is expansion the planned accounts captured and the unplanned ones missed.

> Accounts with a formal, written account plan grow measurably faster than accounts managed reactively. Multi-product accounts churn far less than single-product accounts — every additional product line is another anchor.

Whiteboard the frame for the day:

• Whitespace — what could this account buy that they do not own yet?
• Stakeholders — who actually decides, and who do we not know?
• Expansion thesis — what is the single most likely next deal, and why now?

*Rule for the day: if it is not written down, it is not a plan — it is a hope. We are here to convert hopes into plans.*

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Section 2 — The Account Plan Framework (20 min)

A complete account plan has five components. We teach them in order because each one feeds the next. This is the skeleton every rep will fill in for their own account during the exercises.

The five components, read aloud as the manager walks the slide:

1. Account Overview — revenue with us today, contract dates, products owned, total addressable spend, and the account's own strategic priorities for the year. You cannot plan growth without knowing the ceiling.
2. Whitespace / Penetration Map — a grid of business units down one axis and your product lines across the other. Green = owned, yellow = in pipeline, white = whitespace. The white cells are the plan.
3. Stakeholder / Org Chart Map — every relevant person, their role in buying (economic, champion, technical, blocker, user), and their relationship temperature (advocate, neutral, dark, hostile). Dark boxes are risk.
4. Competitive Position — who else is inside the account, where they are stronger, and what would have to be true for the customer to consolidate on us.
5. Expansion Thesis — the single next play: which whitespace cell, which stakeholder opens the door, what the value hypothesis is, and the trigger that makes now the right time.

Coach guidance: most reps over-invest in the Account Overview because it is the easiest to fill from Salesforce, and under-invest in the Stakeholder Map because it requires admitting who they do not know. Push them the other way. The plan is only as good as its honesty about the dark boxes.

*Bad example to call out: a "plan" that is a Salesforce account record screenshot with a renewal date highlighted. That is a record, not a plan. A plan has a thesis and a next move.*

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Section 2 (continued) — Where the data lives

Before the live exercise, name the tools so reps know where to pull real inputs rather than guessing:

• Salesforce — products owned, contract dates, open pipeline, support cases.
• Gong and Clari — who is actually talking on calls, deal sentiment, and the forecasted expansion signal.
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator — current org chart, new hires, role changes, and who recently moved into a buying seat.
• DemandFarm, Altify, Revegy, Prolifiq, ARPEDIO — purpose-built account-planning canvases that render the whitespace and relationship maps inside the CRM. Mediafly and intent platforms 6sense and Demandbase add account intent and engagement scoring.

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Section 3 — Whitespace and Stakeholder Mapping Exercise (25 min)

Reps map their single top account live. Hand out two grids; give them 15 minutes heads-down, then 10 minutes of pairs comparing maps.

Whitespace grid (products owned vs. available):

> For each business unit in your account, mark every product line: > - Green — they own it and use it > - Yellow — it is in active pipeline > - White — they could buy it but have not > > Then count the white cells. Circle the three whitest cells with the highest dollar value. Those are your expansion candidates.

Stakeholder grid (engaged vs. dark):

> List every person you can name in the account. For each, write: > - Buying role: Economic / Champion / Technical / User / Blocker > - Temperature: Advocate / Neutral / Dark / Hostile > - Last meaningful touch: date > > Now flag every Economic and Champion box that is Dark or older than 90 days. Those are the relationships to repair before any expansion play will land.

Coach guidance: walk the room. The most common failure is a stakeholder map with five names and four of them users — no economic buyer identified. If a rep cannot name the person who controls the budget for their expansion candidate, that is the first action item, not the deal.

*Do not let reps map a comfortable account. Make them map the one with the biggest gap between current spend and total potential. That is where the plan earns its keep.*

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Section 4 — Building the Expansion Play (25 min)

Now narrow from many whitespace cells to one play. A play has three parts, and reps write all three for their top candidate.

1. The next logical expansion. Pick one white cell from the grid. The best candidate is adjacent to something they already own and use — the path of least resistance. If they own the core platform and use it daily, the analytics add-on is a shorter jump than a net-new department.

2. The value hypothesis. One sentence, customer-language, no product names:

> Verbatim value-hypothesis template (rep writes this exact form): > > "We believe [business unit] can [specific outcome — reduce X by, increase Y by, remove Z risk] within [timeframe], which is worth roughly [dollar or time value], because [the trigger / evidence we already see]."

If a rep cannot fill the dollar value, the hypothesis is not ready. Send them back to Gong call notes and the account's published priorities to find the number.

3. The entry point. Who opens the door, and what is the first conversation? Match the play to a stakeholder from the map. The strongest entry point is an existing advocate who can introduce you to the economic buyer for the new business unit — not a cold reach into a dark box.

Research to cite here:

> Expansion revenue carries a far higher win rate and shorter cycle than new-logo revenue because trust, integration, and proof are already in place. The hard part is not the pitch — it is the internal navigation to the right buyer.

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Section 5 — Mutual Action Plan and 90-Day Account Plan Template (25 min)

Every rep now transfers their work into the one-page plan. This is the artifact they leave with, and it is the artifact their manager will inspect every 30 days. Read the template field by field; reps fill as you go.

Verbatim 90-Day Enterprise Account Plan template (fill every field — blank fields are unfinished work):

> ACCOUNT: __________ OWNER: __________ PLAN DATE: __________ > > A. ACCOUNT SNAPSHOT > - Current ARR with us: $__________ > - Renewal / contract end date: __________ > - Products owned: __________ > - Estimated total potential (whitespace value): $__________ > - Account's stated priorities this year: __________ > > B. WHITESPACE (top 3 white cells, ranked by value) > 1. __________ — est. value $______ > 2. __________ — est. value $______ > 3. __________ — est. value $______ > > C. KEY STAKEHOLDERS > - Economic buyer: ______ (temp: ______) > - Champion: ______ (temp: ______) > - Blocker / risk: ______ > - Biggest dark box to fix: ______ > > D. EXPANSION PLAY (the one we run this quarter) > - Target whitespace cell: ______ > - Value hypothesis: ______ > - Entry point / first conversation: ______ > - Why now (trigger): ______ > > E. EXEC ENGAGEMENT PLAN > - Our exec sponsor: ______ → their exec: ______ > - Engagement event this quarter (QBR, briefing, dinner): ______ on ______ > > F. MUTUAL ACTION PLAN (next 90 days) > - 30 days — we do ______ / they do ______ > - 60 days — we do ______ / they do ______ > - 90 days — we do ______ / they do ______ > - Defined success / decision date: ______

Coach guidance: the Mutual Action Plan is the part reps skip and the part that wins. A MAP is co-authored with the customer — it lists what both sides commit to and the date a decision gets made. An account plan the customer has never seen is an internal wish list. The exec engagement row matters too: enterprise expansion stalls when the relationship is one rep deep. Pair your VP with their VP before you need to.

The math, said plainly:

• A top-25 account concentration is normal in enterprise — a small set of accounts drives most of the revenue. Twenty written plans on your top twenty accounts cover the majority of your number.
• Move one account from 100% to 120% NRR and you have funded a chunk of the team's growth target without a single new logo.
• One quantified expansion play per top account per quarter, run with discipline, beats ten unplanned reach-outs.

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Section 6 — Peer Review and Commitments (15 min)

Reps present their one-page plan to the group in 90 seconds each: the account, the one expansion play, the entry point, and the dark box they will fix. The room gives one piece of feedback per plan — the rule is it must be a question, not advice ("Who told you that buyer controls the budget?" beats "I'd go talk to the buyer").

Each rep leaves with three written commitments:

• One stakeholder action — the specific dark box or stale champion they will touch this week, with the date.
• One expansion action — the first conversation that opens the play, scheduled.
• One plan-hygiene commitment — the account plan gets reviewed and updated in the 1:1 every 30 days, no exceptions.

*Final research note to close on: accounts with a formal account plan and a co-authored mutual action plan grow faster and renew at higher rates than accounts managed by reaction. The plan is the cheapest growth lever you own — it costs an hour a month and pays back in retained and expanded revenue.*

Close the session: "Your top account is not a renewal to defend. It is a market to win. The plan is how you win it on purpose instead of by luck."

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FAQ

How is an account plan different from an opportunity or a deal in the CRM? An opportunity is a single transaction with a close date. An account plan is the multi-year thesis for the whole relationship — every business unit, every product line, every stakeholder, and the sequence of plays that grow the account over time. Opportunities live inside the plan; the plan is the map, the deals are the trips.

How many accounts should a rep actually build full plans for? Only the top accounts where concentration justifies the effort — typically the top 10 to 25 by current revenue and total potential. Enterprise revenue concentrates, so written plans on that small set cover most of the number. Lower-tier accounts get a lightweight version, not the full canvas.

What is whitespace and how do we estimate its dollar value? Whitespace is every product or business unit the account could buy from you but has not yet. Estimate value by taking comparable customers of similar size who own that product, and applying their spend to this account's footprint. Tools like DemandFarm, Altify, and Revegy render the grid automatically from Salesforce data so reps are not guessing.

Why do we insist on a mutual action plan instead of just an internal plan? Because an internal-only plan has never been validated by the buyer. A mutual action plan is co-authored with the customer, lists what both sides commit to, and fixes a decision date. It converts a one-sided forecast into a shared, dated agreement — which is what actually moves enterprise expansion forward.

How often should the account plan be reviewed? Every 30 days in the rep's 1:1, with a deeper quarterly review tied to the customer QBR. Clari and Gong surface whether the planned plays are actually progressing; if a play has not moved in 60 days, it gets re-thesised or killed, not silently carried.

Which tool do we use to build and store these plans? The canvas lives in a dedicated account-planning platform that sits on top of Salesforce — DemandFarm, Altify, Revegy, Prolifiq, or ARPEDIO depending on the team's stack. The intelligence inputs come from Gong, Clari, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, 6sense, and Demandbase. The methodology comes from Force Management, RAIN Group, and Winning by Design.

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Sources

• Force Management, *Strategic Account Planning and Whitespace Methodology*, Force Management, 2025.
• RAIN Group, *Strategic Account Management Research Report*, RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, 2026.
• Winning by Design, *Bowtie Model and Net Revenue Retention Frameworks*, Winning by Design, 2025.
• DemandFarm, *Account Planning Benchmarks: Whitespace, Stakeholder Mapping, and NRR*, DemandFarm, 2026.
• Gong Labs, *Expansion Win Rates and Multi-Threading in Enterprise Accounts*, Gong.io, 2025.
• Clari, *Net Revenue Retention and Expansion Forecasting Benchmarks*, Clari, 2026.
• Altify (Upland Software), *Revenue Optimization and Relationship Mapping Study*, Upland Altify, 2027.