From Unbounded to Territory-Based to Account-Based Sales Strategy

Bear with me through a short fishing metaphor…

Unbounded

Imagine a tranquil village nestled against a vast and fruitful ocean. One day, the villagers develop rudimentary fishing equipment (boats, rods, reels, fishing line, etc.)

The early fisher-people use really big hooks to catch really big tuna. 

As more people join the bonanza, the fisher-people become more and more skilled at finding the big tuna.

Over time, a couple problems arise. The fisher-people have to wake up earlier to get to the choicest spots and they have to travel greater distances to locate the big tuna.

Moreover, new fisher-people struggle to catch enough tuna to eat, let alone to sell, since they have not developed the requisite skills and their seasoned peers are not about to give away their secrets. The salty old dogs are especially wary of telling the truth to the fishing instructor who was hired to help the newbees.

Territory-Based

The mayor of the village wants the village to grow. For that to happen, she needs to do something to make sure that new villagers are able to make a living.

One morning, she watches the fishing boats heading out to sea. She notices that all of the boats head northeast since, as any good captain knows, that is where you are most likely to find the biggest tuna. Sure, there is plenty of tuna to the southeast, even some whoppers, but the fisher-people don’t bother heading there since it is not believed to be as bountiful.

The next holiday, the mayor, who wields considerable power, puts the names of all the boat captains in a hat. She draws them out one-by-one, alternately giving fishing licenses out for the northeast then for the southeast.

Though the southeast zone turns out to be good, the original problems eventually crop up in both fishing zones. The mayor refines her approach by giving each captain a license to fish only with the boundaries defined by four GPS coordinates. This works nicely for a while.

Account-Based

Eventually, it becomes harder and hard to catch the big tuna. The mayor, brilliant woman that she is, updates the fishing licenses so that each captain can only bring in one species from their assigned patch of sea.

The captain grumble at first, but quickly adapt by using different sized hooks, different bait, and new fishing techniques.

Okay, the metaphor is a little silly. However, aptly describes what happens as startups grow their sales teams.

They start out with AEs who target only the best-fit accounts. Over time, the early AEs get really good at finding and working those accounts. However, they need to get more and more sophisticated at finding the accounts so they can claim them before their peers do. In addition, the experienced AEs churn accounts quickly, esp. if they have a target account quantity limit.

[Please continue reading on my blog... yes, bait and switch... pun intended]