Account Plan

An account plan is the account manager's thinking written down: where this customer is trying to go, how well we are helping, who matters, what could go wrong and what we will do this quarter. You build it from the CRM, usage data, support history and conversations, and keep it current. The standard: the plan states a measurable outcome for the quarter, names real people with an honest relationship rating, and says what the customer knows about the plan. A plan the customer has never heard of is a guess.

When to use

• "Write account plans for our top 10 customers."
• "I'm taking over Northgate from Sol; get me up to speed."
• "Acme just got acquired; what does it mean for us?"
• Quarterly, for every account above the owner's threshold. A common rule: the accounts making up the top 20 percent of revenue, plus any with large growth potential or open risk.

What you need

• CRM account and contacts, contract dates, products and value (connected CRM or export).
• Usage or adoption data if the product has it: connected analytics such as PostHog or Mixpanel, the owner's admin dashboard in the browser, or a CSV.
• Support tickets for the last 6 to 12 months (connected helpdesk such as Intercom, or exports).
• Billing status (Stripe if connected, or the owner).
• Notes from calls, QBRs and emails (connected mailbox, session_search, memory).
• Fresh public news on the customer (a Light account-research pass).

Method

1. Snapshot. Revenue, products, contract start and end, renewal date, the notice period for cancellation or auto-renewal, payment status, account owner. Put the renewal date and notice deadline at the top; they drive everything else.
2. Their business and goals. What they do, their stage, how they make money, and what they are trying to achieve this year, in their words from calls and their public statements. If you do not know their goals, write "unknown" and make finding out the first action.
3. Value delivered versus expected.
   • What did they buy us for? (Original deal notes.)
   • What has measurably happened since?
   • Rate it: delivering, partly, not yet, and name the evidence. If value is unclear to us, it is unclear to them.
4. Adoption. Who uses what, how often, and the trend over 90 days (use execute_code on raw data).
   • Features or products bought but unused: a risk.
   • Those used heavily: the reasons they stay.
5. Stakeholder map. For each known person: name, role, influence on renewal and spend (high, medium, low), attitude to us (supporter, neutral, sceptic), what they care about, last meaningful contact and channel. Then rate your relationship with the account honestly, 1 to 5:
   1. No relationship: ours on paper only.
   2. Introduced: some contact, no trust yet.
   3. Reactive: they only contact us when they need something.
   4. Working relationship: a named person replies and meets regularly.
   5. Trusted adviser: several relationships; they bring problems early and include us in plans. On handover, restart the rating at 2 rather than inheriting the previous one. Flag single-threaded accounts (one active contact) as a risk.
6. Whitespace. Build a grid: rows are their teams, sites or business units; columns are the owner's products or services. Mark each cell using, partly, not using, or not relevant. Each "not using" cell that matches one of their goals is an expansion hypothesis: write the hypothesis, the trigger that would make it timely, and the person who would care.
7. Risks. Check the common ones:
   • champion leaving or changing role; a single active user;
   • low or falling usage; products paid for but unused;
   • unresolved support issues; a payment problem;
   • budget cuts, layoffs or an acquisition;
   • a competitor seen in the account;
   • value not proven before renewal; a price increase coming. For each: evidence, likelihood (high, medium, low), impact, mitigation, owner, date.
8. The quarter's plan. Answer seven questions:
   1. What opportunities exist this quarter (renewal, expansion, conversion to a longer contract)?
   2. What are the customer's business objectives, and how do we connect to them?
   3. What is the desired outcome by quarter end, stated so you can tell whether it happened?
   4. Does the customer know about and agree with this plan?
   5. What is blocking it, and what other risks exist?
   6. Which CRM opportunity tracks it (link)?
   7. Who are the key players, and where do we stand with each? Then list 3 to 5 actions with owner and date.
9. Agree it with the customer where possible. Turn the customer-facing parts (their goals, success measures, joint actions) into a short success plan to discuss with the champion, or into the next QBR. Record whether they agreed.
10. Weekly light update. Four lines: what we did last week; risks or opportunities; who we are talking to; what we do this week. Use cronjob to prompt it.
11. Store and share. Save the plan as a CRM note or a doc linked from the account (connected CRM or Google Drive), and the key dates and risks in memory. Show the owner a show_card of the top risks and opportunities across all planned accounts.

Prioritising the book

Not every account needs the same depth. Propose tiers to the owner and record them in memory:

Tier	Which accounts	Plan depth	Cadence
1	Top 20 percent by revenue, plus strategic or high-growth accounts	Full plan, all sections	Quarterly, with weekly four-line updates
2	The next band by revenue or potential	One-page plan: snapshot, goals, stakeholders, top risk, one action	Twice a year
3	Small or self-serve accounts	No written plan; watched through health signals	Plan written only when a trigger fires (risk flag, expansion signal, renewal within 90 days)

Move an account up a tier the moment a large risk or opportunity appears.

Output

• An account plan per account, using references/account-plan-template.md, 2 to 3 pages.
• For a set of accounts: a summary table (account, revenue, renewal date, health, relationship rating, top risk, top opportunity, quarter outcome).
• No messages to the customer in this skill; customer-facing drafts go through the owner.

Checks before you finish

• Renewal date and notice deadline are correct against the contract, not just the CRM. If they disagree, flag the mismatch and find out which is right.
• The quarter outcome is measurable and dated.
• Every risk has evidence, a mitigation, an owner and a date.
• Relationship ratings are honest; single-threaded accounts are flagged.
• Whitespace items are hypotheses linked to customer goals, not a product wish list.
• You stated whether the customer knows the plan.

Pitfalls

• A plan written once and filed. It goes stale in weeks. Update weekly in four lines and fully each quarter.
• Upsell plans disguised as account plans. If the customer is not getting value, the plan is about value first; expansion comes later.
• Mistaking friendliness for influence. A warm contact with no say over renewal is not your safety net.
• Missing the notice period. Many contracts auto-renew or require notice 30 to 90 days before the end. Miss it and you lose leverage or the customer.
• Hiding bad news. A plan full of green is less useful than an honest one. Red early beats red late.

See also: renewal-and-expansion, qbr-deck, account-research.