Transcript for "Strategic Account Plans That Don’t Collect Dust":
Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Mike De Jesus, and I lead our customer success organization here at Mural. And I'm beyond excited to be joined by Mason Cosby, CEO and founder of Scrappy ABM, someone who I consider, one of the clearest and, most passionate voices out there when it comes to go to market strategy and turning account plans into performance. And we're here today to talk about something that I think many of us are guilty of, account plans that basically collect dust. Right? You know the ones, the ones that live in a spreadsheet or, PowerPoint deck somewhere sort of disconnected to what the team and teams are actually executing on day to day. And so, yeah, I'm really excited to dive in, Mason. Did you wanna take a moment to introduce yourself? No. You're already really nice. Clear and passionate voice in the space. I mean, I I don't know that I would say anything nicer about myself. Like, I'm super stoked to be here and, always hang out with another bald brother. So Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Unite. Okay, Mason. I guess, let's start at the top. So how do you use account plans? You know, what what what, from your perspective, is the purpose of them? Who works on them with you? Who uses them afterwards, etcetera? Yeah. So we'll just start with what is the purpose of an account plan. So, in short, if you didn't know, BOB buying is relatively complex because there's lots of people involved. On average, there's there's somewhere between eight and fourteen individual people involved in any purchase decision, and they often come from at least two or three different departments. So functionally, when you go to buy something from a b to b perspective, you have multiple different departments that have multiple different goals. You have multiple different people that all have different experiences and tolerance thresholds for ambiguity versus information and specificity, and they all have different levels of trust with your brand because what has likely happened is one person loves your brand. And now they gotta go convince and put their relationship equity on the line for the other seven to 13 people to all agree unanimously that we're gonna move forward. Or if they're not gonna be unanimously, then somebody's gotta put their neck out and say, I know that we're not all agreed and aligned, but it's my budget and I believe this is the best thing for our business. So this is where I'm putting my chips. Yeah. Really tough. So we often think about it from, like, the account planning side of what we're engaging these buyers. But I think about the account planning side from how to make a really customer centric buying experience to recognize what they are often putting at stake. Now they'll be able they have to agree or get agreement around. So that's the first component of why we even do an account plan. Yep. I know that you dug into and spent some time talking through the who, taking a huge step back, Mason. Can you talk a little bit about the intent? The why? Why even do account plans? When you hear the word sort of account plan like, account planning as a process, what do you think the intent is? And also, pivoting a little bit, where do you think most teams go wrong in your experience? Yeah. So when we talk about the why behind account planning, it's to make the buying experience way easier. Because if we have another account planning, then what often happens is somebody comes inbound or we go outbound and we get one person on the meeting, and then that one person, like, goes through the whole sales process. And they're like, oh, by the way, like, I gotta go talk to all the other people. And you essentially do two sales processes because you didn't effectively account map an account plan. And as a result, like, you waste a ton of time, energy, and effort that could have been avoided. That's the first reason why is, like, let's take a better, more cohesive, seamless buying experience. Because, again, other thing from a buyer's perspective, they're also having this conversation with your brand for the first, maybe second time. They literally don't know who needs to be there because, like, why would that? Like, they they've not bought this thing before. So by doing account planning, you tell them, hey. It'd be really great to have, like, Mike here. It'd be really great to have Katie here because we love their perspective to make sure that we're all aligned because I know this is important. That's the first thing. Where do people go wrong? First, not account planning. It's like, I mean, it's a huge misfry. People, they just don't do it. But then second is, villainizing the percent of us. So when I look at how we often view, like, our different stakeholders and, like, persona stakeholders within our account planning, we talk about the blocker, like, the decision maker, the economic buyer, the technical buyer. And it's like, well, we've gotta overcome all these different objections to make sure that they, you know, get out of the way. It's like, no. They're doing their job. Like, Binance's job is to make sure the business continues to maintain profitability and exist. So, like, it's not that there's someone to get out of the way. It is that they are someone to align with to ensure that when you are selling in your solution, you don't just get, like, a sign off from finance that's like, I guess we can dedicate this budget. But it's like, oh, I see the need for this, and let's go. Because then also, something that I have seen often is when budgets come under scrutiny, finance is typically the one that comes in and says you gotta cut this, this, and this. Well, if you just got sign off on the front end because you got finance out of the way, you're the first thing to get cut. If you got their buy in through account plan, intentionally curating their buying experience too, you don't just get approval to move forward. That's like a haphazard approval. You get their emotional investment as well and the success of buying your solution. Yeah. Got it. Mason, if you don't mind, I'd love to explore sort of the why why behind why collaboration breaks down and how to basically fix it. So if we Yeah. Spend for a little bit on something that I know personally causes a lot of friction, it's the cross functional collaboration, which you and I have spoken about previously, whether it sales and marketing or sales and CS, my world, most plans start strong or a lot of plans, I should say, start strong and then get siloed. Right? You and I both know this. So from your experience, I guess, what are some of the biggest blockers to true collaboration around account planning from your perspective? So there's there's a few that come into place. Like, one is when I think about account planning, it's a very research intensive approach. Right? So no one really wants to do it. So sales will delegate it to marketing, and marketing will be like, well, you should know your accounts. And so it just kinda gets passed back and forth. And as a result, no one actually ends up owning it, which is another reason why it never ends up getting done. So the first thing is recognizing what each department should bring to the table for account planning. And when I think about it, the goal of marketing is to understand our market. That sounds basic, but, like, I think we lose that. We get so caught up in, like, our, you know, performance marketing, paid media spin that we're just like, well, like, who are we selling? Like, who are we talking to? It's really helpful. So when I look at it, the goal from marketing perspective should be to understand who is the decision committee for most of our buyers. And then what I like to think through is marketing provides the framework and the template through which we actually do account planning, and then it is the rep's responsibility to then do it. So when I think through that in that lens, like, marketing is coming with these are the common objections that we have seen. These are the standard, titles and personas that we see showing up in these different stakeholder roles. These are the kinds of content assets that actually help them get buy in. Here's how we engage this audience. And then sales goes from persona to person. So it's not CFO blocker. It is John, who just had to actually initiate a company wide layoff and is probably pretty gun shy about new investment because he just had to layoff half of his department. Right? Like, that's the nuance that sales then gets into, But marketing provided content assets, persona research, and the understanding of the standard committee so that then sales can plug those individuals in and then get really specific to that person. Totally. It it truly takes a village, if you're you're gonna do it right. Could you share I don't mean to focus on sort of, like, the negatives or the areas of opportunity or improvement and so pivoting a little bit. Can you share an example, top of mind for you, where collaboration actually, improved the plan and helped win or grow an account. So yeah. You're Yeah. Great, I guess, success story. Yeah. I mean, it's so for quick context, you know, we've been we've grown a lot as a business in the past two years. We hired an AE about six months ago. So, like, there's a lot of stuff that's been institutional knowledge, like, I've just done that I'm, like, having to pass off to somebody. So we've done a lot of documentation around, like, okay, how did I multi thread that works? And then the other fun thing about, like, founder led sales, like, is this working because it's a founder led sale, or is this working because, like, this should be a senior process? So that's a fun nuance to figure out. Anyway, one of the things that we've been doing is, at the end of the day, we map out who's involved. So, like, we've actually done our own percent of research, and our standard this is gonna sound, like, really detailed and nuanced, but there's actually, typically, for us, somewhere in the ballpark of, like, seven different departments that show up in our buying cycles. So we sell account based marketing services. So, like, typically, it's marketing. Crazy. We can't build a program without sales buy in. So, like, typically, sales leadership is showing up in a second or third call. We're also not the least expensive option of all time. I'm sure you could find a freelancer that could do it for less. We're just a more trusted offering. So we typically do, though, get in front of executive leadership in some capacity. Like, we typically have the CEO look at our proposals. So we've got executive buy in for a lot of it. We also have finance that shows up in almost every deal. We also have the Eagle that shows up in almost every deal. Depending on where the program is focused, we also may have CS show up for an expansion program. And last but certainly not least is IT because we actually get full admin access to our clients' tech stacks to build within the context of their current technology. So that's seven different departments that all have radically different concerns, and this may or may not, you know crazy idea here. I'm I'm, like, decently known in a really small corner of the Internet with marketers. No one in IT or legal or finance has ever heard of an ABM or a Mason Cosby. So, like, that personal brand reputation immediately goes out the window when you actually have to, like, build a relationship in different departments. So we had to first recognize, well, that's our reality. And then the second component we had to start to work through is I never speak to IT or, like, I never hop on a call typically with legal. I've spoken to three CFOs out of 300 deals in two years. So I I just I don't get to speak to these people that often. So we ended up doing is actually mapping out, when a deal hits a certain stage, our AE maps out by person. Like, we actually go and we have a doc that is they grab their LinkedIn profile and drop it in by standard persona that we are typically targeting, and then we do what we call the notification game. And the goal for our team is to show up for those people as many times as possible without any direct ask. So what that functionally looks like is now once a week, everyone on our team has a thirty minute time block where our AE drops all the docs or where that's hit that certain stage, and then we as an organization all go connect with all of those people. And then we just show up, and they're like, shoot. I guess you're talking about us internally. And, like, it changes the conversation because it's like, oh, like, your team is, like because we can say the language, like, our team is excited to work with you. But then when the entire team connects with each person of the organization, there's a different level of excitement, which shows buy in from our side. And then also, by us actually being able to connect with those people one to one, when we hear from our main point of contact, it's getting blocked by finance. I, as founder, can go directly to finance now because I've got that connection point and say, hey. I'm hearing there are some concerns. Here are some templates that we've developed that are conversion modeling or ROI templates or, customer analysis templates. I'd love to hop on a call with you to show you the revenue potential of this program. Yeah. And make sure that, like, this is profitable for you. And then the other framing that we've started to do is and if it's not, I'm glad we figured that out on the front end before we waste six months together, and then you end up leaving angry. So, like, we we've gotten more no's, if I'm being honest, because we actually hit on the front end, oh, the ROI isn't here. But then we've actually gotten some no's turned into yeses because they saw the ROI and the value because we saw through all the objections we've previously gotten and that intention on how we engage those audiences. Totally. I'm so glad we're talking about this. It's I know that you know this, but it's a topic that is when we think about account plans, the cross functional collaboration is top of mind. So I'm glad we spent some time here. And at Mural, you know, we've seen this point firsthand. Right? So we released an article recently, I don't know if you saw it, called the GTM alignment gap where we noted that 75% of teams say that misalignment slows down revenue impact. And that's why we're seeing more customers use Mural to bring, you know, teams together around visual slash shared account plans. And, you know, that that's the nature of what I do. Music to my ears, I guess. And so I guess it's a good segue into the next topic that I really wanted to pick your brain around, which is leveraging visualization tools. And we talked about a little bit about the who, the who's involved, how we work together. But, actually, let's talk about the plans themselves. Right? Making the strategy, I guess, visual via account plans. One of the reasons account plans, I think, fail is that they're hard to digest or to, like, your point earlier, they just, like, become sort of these these beasts. And also, I I mentioned sometimes they just remain static and they don't encourage real time collaboration. Lack of ownership is also something that you touched on. And so would love your thoughts on tools and tactics, I guess, that you've seen work best when it comes to, aligning those multiple stakeholders that you just spent so much time, shedding light on. Yeah. So in short, tools bureau, duh, tactics. When I think through what we're trying to accomplish, what a visualization tool allows you to actually do is take words and make it into pictures because people all learn differently. So when we actually move past, hey, we're having a conversation, and then we move into a tool where we can actually, like, live build and, like, draw the arrows and say, like, here's the flowchart. Like so sorry. Quick context. Like, pre COVID, we use a lot of whiteboards, And then we just, like, draw things out. And, like, we don't do that as much anymore. Or the other component is whiteboards, unfortunately, aren't as actionable easily, because you ever gotta put up the sticky notes, like, do not erase, and then it still gets erased. You're like, it's like a thousand years apart. Anyway, sorry. So, like, visualization tools are helpful for that. Just one, easy to say. But then two, it allows for more collaboration around the actual program. And then the other the other thing is, things that get co created are actually bought in on. So we don't wanna just dictate to people what their jobs should be. We want them bought in, and then they can co create through a collaborative tool. They feel invested in its success because they put their name on it. Yeah. So that's one of the some of the reasons that we love visualization tools. And the last thing is it's been a really fun exercise that we've run with a lot of our clients because we get marketing and sales into a room and we'll just say, alright. What's a lead? Like, what's a contact? What's an MQL? What's an SQL? And what happens is we use the same words, but, fundamentally, we actually all have different definitions. So we may all agree, we're gonna go run this program, it'll get more SQLs. But for marketing, an SQL may be like a webinar registration. And for sales, it's like demo form fill. It's like, well, marketing stuff, if you go get SQLs, we get a bunch of webinar registrants. And sales was like, where are all my SQLs? I want more meeting on my calendar. Fundamentally, we're misaligned. So, again, as I think through this, talking about it, helpful, starting point. But you gotta have visualization because then you actually move past definitions. So, like, oh, here's the actual program flow. Here's who we're specifically going to go and talk to. And then also, here's who specifically owns it. And then you can look at it together and be like, is this clear for everybody? And if it's not, people can say it more easily versus having, like, jog their memory around the whole conversation. Because also other sorry. For those of you that are listening in, thank you. Fun fact, for internal processors, it takes them typically seven seconds to process what has been said. So what happens often in the meeting, you'll lay a bunch of stuff like I am right now and talk quick. Alright. Everybody good? And then we'll pause for, like, two seconds and be like, great. And then we'll leave the meeting and our internal processes are still trying to figure out what just happened. So they they don't get a voice to dissent against what was said. We just move on. So, again, talk through a lot of things. At the end of the day, when you make it visual, you make it easy to actually correct and look at and buy in on. Yeah. I mean, as you know, we design Mural's account planning templates to be collaborative canvases, not just documentation. Right? We've seen, many go to market teams build out their sort of white space opportunities, stakeholder maps, value hypotheses, and playbooks together, and it sort of, you know, completely changes how people show up to these sort of TBRs and executive reviews, and suddenly people feel more ownership and not just, you know, obligation. Right? I think one thing that I personally am always conscious of is how do we avoid this turning into a star static artifact. Right? Yeah. So, like, how do we make sure that this is a living and breathing artifact that holds people accountable? And accountability is something that's top of mind for me so that, one, we're not wasting effort that went into the account plan. And Yep. People, were were actually executing a strategy that was based off of thought and ideas and cross functional collaboration. Right? And so any tips for how you track accountability or follow Yeah. Across teams? I know you touched on a little bit, but let's double click. So when I I've sold this from my COO because, like, I'm not until the past couple of years, if I don't, like, run a business, I've actually not been much of a documentation person. I was like, we'll just build it and, like, the work will speak for itself. Turns out that's not true. Because, like, a lot of times, people don't go look at the work. They just want the TLDR version of the visualization. So that's why I like, again, these visualization tools, but I view them as documentation for how we're gonna go do a thing. That way, it's to take that visualization, that documentation, and turn it into something within the context of the CRM, the marketing automation platform, the sales outreach platform. So when we think through it, we use visualization to get alignment and buy in before we go build, but then we go and build the thing. And then in the context of specifically account planning, ideal situation is, like, we actually know that we need to have identified from a buying committee and an account plan at each stage. So some sales up here, hey, man. Sorry. Like, required fields to enter into a specific stage of the pipeline. Like, that drives accountability. The second thing is triggered programs based on specific pipeline stages. So, like, prime example, if you have a deal that hits the contract sent stage, why on earth is that not triggering an ad program that targets the finance department with case studies in an ROI calculator? Because you know finance is gonna look at the contractor like, what's the ROI here? So you can go ahead and preempt them by showing all the success stories and all the case studies and all the happy customers that you've already worked with that look just like them. So there are marketing programs that can be triggered based on pipeline stages, which is a part of the account plan, which you visualize, but then someone had to operationalize it. So there's that component and then the second component. People don't build these, but, like, you really should. There's this thing in, like, HubSpot or Salesforce called tasks. And you can automate task assignments to specific reps so that when they log in to the dash or their CRM, they're like, alright. What am I supposed to do today? They have a task queue. I was like, got it. It's like, I'm just gonna do my tasks. And then as a CRO or a sales leader, you should have a dashboard. No one likes this term. That's what it is. It's a compliance dashboard. Yeah. That's just by rep, how many open tasks do they have at the end of the day that were due today? And then how many overdue tasks do they have? You do that, and then you have that report automatically send every day to sales leadership. The reps know that. So it's not an immediate punishment. I wanna be I wanna be super super clear on the next. Like, our sale our seller has had days where he hasn't gotten all of his tasks done, and it's because he had to build four proposals in one day because he's closed and it's linking deals. I'm like, oh, okay. They're like, you missed outbound by, like, a day. Like, just do it tomorrow. So, again, it's not immediate punishment, but the compliance dashboard is the visibility that we're actually doing the plan. Because otherwise, you just listen to people say, like, yeah, I'm on it. But, like, you have no tracking or visibility to what they are and aren't doing. And then the other thing, this has been super helpful for me to think through. Yep. Sorry. Got lots of thoughts on this. I spent a lot of time thinking, oh, let's come. When we build things like this, we often say this is your top priority. But, Again, this is a cross functional program. So they go to then their boss and their boss is like, oh, no. You got other top priorities. So now, depending on who they speak with and what meeting they're in, they have different top priorities every time because the leadership didn't align what the actual priorities were. So I, as a marketer, am telling our salesperson, this outbound to these MQLs is your top priority. And the sales leader is like, that is not your top priority. So then they get different messages from different meetings. And then if you actually outline, alright. Well, here's everything that's currently on your plate. Here's the time as to how long it's going to take you. Where are you doing it in the week? You actually put time blocks on a calendar and you're like, alright. Well, you're supposed to certainly work on a forty hour work week. We've given you sixty hours of work. Toss. Like, we gotta take some stuff off the plate that is a higher priority or that has a lower priority than what we're currently asking you to do. So, again, if we're by committee, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's what here's what's funny. We call it prioritization by committing, but the committee never met. So all the individual committee members all think their thing is the most important thing, and they just keep throwing more stuff at other people. And no one's ever stopped to say, they're dropping a lot of stuff. One, have we set them up to be successful by just making it easy for them to do the work? That's the first question. Second question, did they know when it needed to be done? Third question, did they know how to do it? Fourth question is, were they motivated to do the work? And then the last thing is just, were there any blockers? And for many people, it's not a lack of motivation. It's not a lack of knowledge of how. It's not a lack of knowledge of what. It's not a lack of knowledge of when. They simply just didn't have the time to get it all done, and as a result, something got dropped. So making sure that you actually as you assign more stuff to people, like, if you listen to this, you're like, we gotta do account planning. If you do account planning well, like, it takes time. It's personalized. Like, it's gonna it's gonna be an investment in the specific deals you've got your pipeline. So, like, what are you removing to make sure that they have the time to do this well? Yeah. No. I think I think that's a good that's a good segue because I really wanted to connect this sort of planning process and the, all the work and all the cross functional collaboration that goes into it into it. I wanna go back to actual business results. Right? Like, you mentioned ROI and so revenue outcomes. Because as we both know, all the blending in the world doesn't really matter unless it, you know, moves the needle. So let's connect it a little, I guess, more explicitly back to the outcomes. In your opinion, Mason, what separates the plan that actually gets results from one that just checks the box? I know that you've probably seen both. Right? It's oh, yeah. For sure. You you both both. Yeah. So one is well researched. So, again, we're not just trying to connect with everybody in the organization, but intentional specific people with curated programming around that specific buyer's experience. The second thing is, typically, you wanna move up the org. Now I I will be super clear. We've had some CMOs kinda done to us, and they're like, alright. My VP of marketing is gonna be the one that manages those relationships. Like, I'm bought in because I believe in your approach. I wanna make sure they believe in it because they're gonna manage our relationship long term. So, like, sometimes you do start at the top and then you, like, work your way down to get buy in from the end user, and then you go back up. But, like, that's maybe 20% of our deals. But 80% of our deals, we're starting in a director or VP level, and then we have to work our way up in the org. So as we think about account planning, ideally, we're moving more towards decision makers and not down towards end users. And I wanna give context. A lot of sellers that we've worked with moved down because it's less scary. Because it's like, if it takes rejection from the CEO, I'm done. I was like, yeah. So, like, why don't we curate the buying experience for the CEO to make sure there's a higher likelihood they say yes? Right. And, like, let's not play a game of telephone where, like, a person that's never sold the thing that, like, actually doesn't know how to solve the problem, which is why they're trying to buy your solution, we're gonna leave it all up to them to sell this thing internally for you? That sounds like a recipe for disaster. It's like, how do we enable our buyer to be more successful? So anyway, as I'm thinking through it, those are the things that haven't worked. And then the other thing is just let's think really practically. With account mapping, essentially, all we're doing is identifying based on past objections, what are the reasons that we lost, and then how do we moving forward map out the people that created objections that we lost to and ensure that we have specific objection handling and content that speaks to those reasons that we previously lost so we don't lose again. Like, that's account planning in a in a nutshell. So if you do that well, it is literally a direct response to past reasons for losing to ensure that doesn't happen again consistently. That's it. Totally. And in that sense, account plans never become useless as long as you can learn from them regardless of whether or not a revenue win, was associated with it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But then also, like, factually, three decisions came out with the fact that if you run an ADM program, which is we call it account planning, but it's just like we mapped out the decision makers and ran programming towards the people in our pipeline. It has a 50% reduction in sales cycle length. So, like, there's also if you just go Google some stuff, you're like, what's the impact of account planning? Yeah. There's, like, lots of data that would support If we intentionally curate buying experiences for different personas and different people than the buying committee, they are more likely to buy, which, like, not a crazy concept. Yeah. Yeah. No. I I got I got a burning question that you just inspired. So I found that when customer success and sales build account plans together, especially what in includes, you know, digging deep into executive engagement, risk mitigation and strategies or mapping expansion plays, it does become more of a revenue and a GTM document and sort of like an action plan. Right? One of the fastest ways in my opinion to unlock, as we discussed, shared accountability and and, you know, proactive growth. What are your favorite parts of account plans that you've been exposed to? Meaning, because you've seen so many of them, are there specific components or topics or sections where you could be like, yo, this one's gonna lead to some good, revenue out? Yeah. I mean, the the biggest thing is mapping objections to different people within this the buying committee with our client, where when we actually sat down to build out their account mapping for the account planning template, We found that they lost 40% of their deals to the IT stakeholder. Like, the IT stakeholder is just like, we're just not doing this. And they had zero content that spoke to IT, and they had no intentional programming to engage IT. I was like, so you're telling me we lose 40% because one person or one department in the organization says no, and we've never tried to engage that part of the organization? Okay. Like, we may not get all 40, but, like, if we did something intentionally, they would probably get another 10, and then that's a 10% increase in close rate. So if you think about it, like, again, they closed at, like, 25%. 40% of the deals that they lost were to IT. So if you can overcome that, you then move your close rate from 25% to 35%. So, like, that's the math, which is a side note. Sorry. I'll do easier math. 20% to 30%, that's at a 10% increase in close rate. That's, 50% increase in close rate. So we went from 20 to 30. So adding 10% is a 50% lift in your close rate, which functionally means you need 50% less pipeline to the same revenue goals because we got intentional with our account mapping to engage the people that said no previously. Yeah. Can we double click on, I guess, traits or personality characteristics of folks who could be to account plans? Are there specific types of people or types of, skills that lead you to basically think, oh, you're gonna be really good at account planning? Yeah. So we'd like a generalization. I don't like what I'm about to say, but it in my experience, it is generally rung true, which is sellers that have been in seat for around twenty five to thirty five years at the same organization are less likely to buy into account plans because they haven't had support for twenty five to thirty five years. They're like, what the heck do you mean? You're gonna, like, start work with my accounts? Like so we were talking to sales team. We were talking about the idea of building an ABM program in their pipeline. And then one of the one of the sellers actually and, again, she was twenty seven years in seats. I mean, she incredibly experienced a wealth of knowledge, had made a ton of money for this company. And this is a multibillion dollar company. So I wanna, like I'm giving props, But when we outline the plan for, like, marketing to specifically help you to the awareness stage, her question was, so is our marketing team gonna start cold calling my accounts? Like, it it was a knowledge gap of, like, well, that's how I've always done things. Why would I change? So when I look at the idea here of a collaborative approach, if someone has been successful for literally decades, it is unlikely that they're going to change because they have decades of reinforced behavior. So why would they change? Like, I'm not I'm not saying it's like a hype like, factually. Shoot. They have made hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, and you're trying to come in and say, I think there's a better way of doing it. Probably not from their perspective. So, like, don't start there. Start with the underperformers that need the help or start people that are newer that don't have established track records of success. And as a result, they're more likely to say, yeah. Be open to new ideas and opportunities as ways of, like, making me more money. So that's how I think about it. Yeah. Is, like, obviously, this needs a collaborative approach. And the other components to all of this we actually just built out a sales comp calculator to help marketers actually have an intelligent conversation. Because when you start to mess with account plans and in pipeline opportunities, specifically, if it goes poorly, you steal money from your sales reps. Like, that's how it feels. And, again, they're gonna start to tell themselves the story of, if marketing had gotten involved, I would have won that deal. And now they're not gonna trust you for future programs. So, again, what we wanna do is we actually wanna come very open handed and say, like, we wanna work with you to help you make more money. And I understand that, like, there's gonna be a shift. So, like, we're gonna start small and start slow. But if you're open to it, this is the data and we'd love to have you run this pilot program with us. And then from there, do with, like, one to three reps at first. And then based on the success there, what often ends up happening is other people are like, why the heck didn't I get that kind of support? It's like, well, you weren't running by end. Now you are. So, like, you created demand, which is awesome. So now, you roll that across the team. Yeah. It's sort of like alignment. Yes. But we're all working towards the same goal at the end of the day. I was actually hoping that you were gonna bring up the cat sales calculator example because I think I think it's representative of a really good point. Alright, Mason. Let's sort of bring this home. For those of us who are or for those of you who are still tuned in and still listening to me and Mason, who want to revamp how your teams are planning and collaborating, Mason, I wanna dig into sort of your advice to those folks. Right? What's one thing from your perspective that GTM leaders should do tomorrow to improve their account planning process? Can I give two? Please do. Cool. Because the the first one is validate the need. Like, if you look at your closed lost opportunities, figure out why you've lost so many opportunities before you just come in and say, let's do this whole massive account planning approach. Because, I mean, it's gonna take time. Like, it's not an easy thing if you do it really well. Like, it's gonna take a lot of time and energy and effort and dedicated support to, like, build out the framework in the process, and then it's gonna become a core part of what sellers do every single week. Like, that's a shift. So we make that shift. If you're already closing at, like, 50%, one, raise your rates. And then, two, probably don't go to account planning thing is the first thing. Because I think about where we invest our time, energy, and effort into opportunities and problems. And if you're already closing at 50%, account planning is an opportunity that might, like, help you close at 70%, but, like, really? Like, come on. Whereas if there's other problems in the business, you should focus your time and your jam fit there. But if account planning is a problem, because marketing actually delivers really qualified opportunities and for whatever reason, we're only closing at 10 to 15%, we should do account planning and account mapping. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is don't do what everyone else would say that they do, which is book out a weekly meeting for the next six weeks to work through the account mapping strategy and plan. Instead, create a visual. I'm not just saying that because I'm on a Mural webinar. They probably ask me because it's the newest with my answer, but, like, make it visual so that you can actually understand what are we trying to do and say, alright. Here the here's, like, a rough sketch and a draft of what I'm thinking through, which is I did it some close false analysis. We keep losing losing for these reasons. And as I then look at the contacts associated to our deals, we don't actually have this department associated to any deals at all. It seems like there'd be a huge opportunity for us to win more deals if we engage these audiences, And I think we could actually do that through an account mapping program or an account planning program. Could we go ahead and map out the different decision makers and stakeholders within our accounts? And we could start small and just see if it ends up working. And you've got a a holdout group, and then you've actually got a test group. And if the test group closes at a higher percentage, you're like, poof. There's a reality that this approach works. Now you've got buy in to go forward. I know you've got, passion and at least one answer for this next one then that goes hand in hand with which is what's one thing that they should stop doing? GPM leaders who, want to improve their account planning process. Patrick Lencioni made a great book called Death by Meeting. So have less meetings sincerely. Like, it's really hard to actually do this if you're just constantly inundated with meetings. So, again, if you're gonna schedule a meeting, come with a really clear agenda, have a clear meeting owner, have a clear outcome and goal for every meeting that you have, and delineate this is an information sharing meeting versus this is a working session meeting, so come prepared to work. I mean, that's super helpful for everybody to think through. Amazing. Alright, Mason. This has been such a rich, fun, passionate conversation as I predicted. Thanks for sort of keeping it real and bringing such a, you know, practical lens, to what good account planning could look like. Cool.