Unlocking Upsell and Cross-Sell Potential in Your Accounts

Winning new logos is challenging in today's competitive landscape. Budgets are tighter in nearly every industry, and the market is as competitive as ever. On top of that, according to Outreach, nearly 2/3 of sales leaders are looking to consolidate their tech stack, sparking a shift in focus from chasing new customers to nurturing existing ones.

Sales organizations are increasingly refocusing on existing customer accounts, leveraging upsells and cross-sells to drive revenue growth. However, this is much easier said than done for many of us.

Like most businesses, you probably don't know enough about your customers to tap into these opportunities. Here are 3 things you can do right now to position yourself for success in this new normal.

1. Treat Winning Upsells and Cross-Sells Like New Business

   Driving cross-selling initiatives is a lot like winning new logos. It requires identifying potential ICPs within your accounts, understanding their pain points, and aligning the value propositions of the products you offer with their needs.

   For upsell opportunities, understanding the market trends affecting your customer accounts is vital. Robust profiles of your buyers enable you to present a strong case for why increased investment in your product is worth it.

   Taking upsell and cross-sell motions as seriously as winning new logos means constantly exploring and understanding the ever-changing needs and goals of your customers.

2. Build an Account Plan

   A robust account plan will help guide you and your team to take a strategic approach to expanding your accounts. Successful account plans are structured, customer-centric, and data-driven. With an existing account, you’ll use both internal and external data.

   Internal data is what you know about your account and all of your interactions with them. How has their business been performing recently? What has been the impact of your relationship with them so far? Are there any issues that have arisen since the initial contract was signed? This information is vital to knowing where you stand with your accounts and identifying opportunities to expand.

   External data, on the other hand, is all the information you would use if you were trying to win a new account. Make sure you understand your account’s products and services like the back of your hand. Use your account’s website and your company’s sales intelligence tools to understand their products, identify hiring trends, and go deep on case studies. Review public financial statements and press releases to identify key trends impacting the account and stay up to date on product launches, partnerships, executive hires, and fundraising events.

3. Make it a Cross-Functional Effort

   Expanding accounts isn’t as simple as a solo account manager building a plan and running with it - the initiative should be a cross-functional team exercise. Leverage insights from Customer Success, RevOps, and Product to identify new ICPs and opportunities for account growth.

   Plan buyer touchpoints starting as early on as possible, leveraging assets from across departments to support your account’s success. Account management teams that coordinate these resources in a proactive way are best positioned to build trust with their accounts, a crucial ingredient in a successful expansion play.

For an extra advantage, sales teams are using Aomni to automate a lot of the manual work that comes with account planning, like prospect research, market research, and developing new ICPs. 📈

Aomni works collaboratively with you, defining targeted ICPs, qualifying prospects, and conducting deep strategic research. Unlike regular AI chatbots prone to misinformation, Aomni's approach focuses on extracting relevant information directly from the source and processing it into digestible reports.