Build one for every account > $100K ARR or with clear expansion potential. Refresh quarterly, or after any major event (leadership change, funding round, M&A, product launch).
- Named economic buyer, champion, and detractor map
- Whitespace value estimate (what they could spend)
- Ranked expansion plays with size and effort
- Compelling events in the next 2 quarters
- Concrete next 30/60/90-day moves with owners
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# Strategic Account Plan — {{Account name}} — {{Owner}} — {{Quarter}}
## 1. Account snapshot
- Industry / sub-industry:
- Employee count: Revenue: Funding stage:
- Current ARR with us: $___ ($___ new, $___ expansion)
- Renewal date: __/__/__ NRR trailing 12mo: __%
- Products in use: {{list}}
- Products NOT in use: {{list}}
- Health score / relationship strength: Green / Yellow / Red
## 2. Business context (the "why now")
- Their top 3 stated business priorities this year:
1.
2.
3.
- Recent public signals (funding, exec changes, M&A, product launches, layoffs):
- Competitive landscape they're in:
- What's changing for them in the next 12 mo:
## 3. Org map & buying committee
For each named contact, note: role, level, our relationship (1–10), our known coverage of them.
| Name | Role | Level | Our champion? | Last contact | Relationship (1–10) |
|------|------|-------|---------------|--------------|---------------------|
| | | | | | |
- **Economic buyer:**
- **Primary champion:**
- **Coach (info source, no authority):**
- **Detractor / blocker:**
- **Unknown / uncovered stakeholders we need to meet:**
## 4. Whitespace analysis
- Total addressable spend with us (all products × all business units × time): $___
- Currently captured: $___ (__% of TAM)
- Untapped in existing BU: $___
- Untapped in adjacent BUs / geos: $___
- Time-to-realize (Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / Q4 buckets):
## 5. Expansion plays (ranked)
For each play, note: size, effort, timing, owner, next step.
| # | Play | Size ($) | Effort | Timing | Owner | Next step |
|---|------|----------|--------|--------|-------|-----------|
| 1 | | | | | | |
| 2 | | | | | | |
| 3 | | | | | | |
## 6. Compelling events (next 6 months)
Events that create urgency to buy: contract expiry, budget cycle, funding round, exec transitions, regulatory dates, product launches on their side.
- Event — date — how we position around it:
## 7. Risks to the base
What could shrink or lose the account:
- Churn risk (contract, usage, sentiment):
- Downsell risk:
- Competitive replacement risk:
- Mitigation actions + owners:
## 8. 30 / 60 / 90-day plan
**Next 30 days:**
- [ ] Action — owner — outcome
**Days 31–60:**
- [ ] Action — owner — outcome
**Days 61–90:**
- [ ] Action — owner — outcome
## 9. Ask from the leader
What do you need from your manager, exec sponsor, or partners to make this quarter's plays land?
-Why most account plans are useless
The average account plan is a 12-slide deck built the day before QBR. It gets presented, filed, and never referenced again. A useful account plan is one page (or one Notion doc), lives in the CRM, and gets referenced in every 1:1 and every pipeline review. The template above is intentionally short — if you need more space, you're padding.
The three questions the plan must answer
- Who buys, who blocks, who influences? (Org map, not just a list of contacts.)
- What's the total spend this account could give us if we executed perfectly? (Whitespace, in dollars.)
- What are the top 3 plays we're running this quarter, and what's the first move? (Not a wishlist — three named plays with next steps.)
Org map that actually helps
The mistake most AEs make is listing every contact they have. That's a Rolodex, not an org map. The org map should show:
- Who has budget authority for our category (economic buyer).
- Who WANTS us to succeed and will spend political capital on it (champion).
- Who influences the decision but doesn't own it (coach or user).
- Who is pushing against us — every real deal has one (detractor).
- Who we haven't met yet but need to (uncovered stakeholders).
Whitespace: dollarize it or drop it
Saying 'there's opportunity in this account' is worthless. Whitespace analysis puts a dollar number on the untapped spend, broken down by product, business unit, and geography. If the whitespace is < 2x current ARR, this isn't a strategic account — treat it like a run-rate renewal and move on.
Compelling events — how to actually find them
- 10-K / 10-Q filings for public companies — 3-yr strategy is often stated verbatim.
- Job listings — hiring in a function signals investment there.
- Press releases + funding announcements — new money moves 3–6 months later.
- Contract expiries on adjacent tools — often visible in job listings ('experience with X required').
- Leadership transitions — new execs re-evaluate everything in months 1–6.
FAQs
For enterprise (10–30 named accounts per AE): all of them. For mid-market (60–120 accounts): the top 20% by whitespace. Don't try to plan a book of 200 accounts — you'll produce plans no one reads.
The account plan is internal (rep + manager + CS). The QBR deck is external (customer-facing, focused on value delivered + roadmap). The plan should inform the QBR, not be the QBR.
Co-owned in strategic accounts. AE owns expansion plays; CS owns risk + adoption. Both contribute to the org map.
Every quarter: refresh sections 5, 6, and 8. Every year: refresh sections 2–4. Sections 1, 7 update as data changes.
Land 1 in 3–4 plays for a first-year enterprise account, 1 in 2 for an established champion account. If you're landing 1 in 6+, the plays aren't well-qualified.