Full-funnel ABM for B2B brands with 5+ figure deals | Co-Founder @ FullFunnel.io

You need more pipeline that turns into revenue. But:
- Most marketing leads never convert to deals
- ⁠Outbound is in continuous decline 
- All the investments in trendy programs, agencies or tech didn’t move the needle. 

It’s time to try implementing full-funnel sales and marketing programs. 

Why? 

So you can:
- Accelerate this quarter’s revenue while building the future pipeline
- ⁠Convert 5-15% accounts to pipeline
- ⁠Bring marketing and sales teams together to drive the KPI that matters the most: sales velocity. 

We helped dozens of B2B tech companies implement full-funnel marketing and sales programs with 10%+ account-to-pipeline ratio. 

We will take your team by the hand and together, implement a scoped pilot program with clear milestones to prove the key KPIs, before investing in operationalization and scaling. 

To learn more or ask me anything, connect with me here or visit our website at fullfunnel.io



Vladimir Blagojević

Here's why so many good CMOs get fired. 

Leadership wants:
- faster results
- bigger numbers
- cheaper acquisition 

...all of that at once. 

This short-term ROI pressure pushes CMOs to do what gets measured: 

When forced to choose under pressure, CMOs are 5X likely to pick demand over brand. 
(recent study by Jon Miller, Ray Rike /Benchmarkit, Bill Macaitis and Carilu Dietrich). 

But this creates a structural problem.

- We put all our effort into meeting this quarter's number
- We don't invest in long term programs that build awareness and trust 

A few quarters later, the pipeline dries up. 

The numbers back this up: we're spending $2.00 to acquire $1.00 of net-new ARR. And the CAC payback time has been constantly increasing by 12.5% at median since 2022 (Pavilion).

Why is this happening? 

Leadership still believes that marketing is like a gumball machine: you put in $ and get $$ out (credit: Jon Miller). 

We know that reality is different: 
- Non-linear, complex buying journeys
- Early influence matters: more than 80% of buyers short list products they discovered before the buying process

But our attribution hides the early influence, and the "credit" goes to the last touch was before the deal, which reinforces the gumball machine thinking. 

So, without clear attribution to early and middle-funnel activities, leadership doubles down on short-term ROI.

And when the pressure doesn't bring results, CMOs get fired. 

The cycle repeats. 

--- 

As long as we stay in this loop, things won't change. 

But ripping out the entire infrastructure and starting from scratch is not an option either. No leadership will support it. 

The solution is an evolution, not a revolution. 

It all starts with a small-scoped pilot: 
- No new hires, a small cross-functional team 
- No extra budget, scoped down to a small set of accounts we have 'the right to win'
- Attribution: the team gets the credits for the pipeline created 
- The main goal is not volume, but effectiveness. By working together, from awareness to pipeline, that we can turn a higher % of high-value accounts into deals

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fullfunnelio

futurelab

trenches-b2b-marketing-community

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growth-labs-ltd.

6-week-abm

Full-Funnel ABM and Demand Gen For B2B Companies w/ High ACV | Co-Founder @ FullFunnel.io

Here's the pattern every CMO recognizes.

You're pressured to pour everything into hitting this quarter's number. You squeeze every last drop from the existing pipeline and demand. 

By meeting this quarter's number, you've depleted next quarter's pipeline. You didn't get to invest in the activities that build awareness and trust six to nine months out.

And leadership happily raises the bar. 

We're trapped in a system that punishes long-term thinking but demands long-term results.

"I'll survive this quarter, show ROI, and next quarter will be better."

No, it won't. That's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The cost of non-strategic decisions compounds: 

1. ATTRIBUTION

65% of CMOs struggle proving marketing's revenue and pipeline contribution. This is the reality of last touch-attribution. 

Deals take months, sometimes years. Buyers might read your content, attend an event, see you on LinkedIn, talk to a partner, and only then reach out to sales.

But in the CRM, all that early influence disappears. The "credit" goes to the last touch before the deal.

Instead, consider a blend of self-attribution, account-based attribution, and customer interviews. Look for qualitative signals, not just quantitative ones.

2. PROGRAMS

Jon Miller's research: "when faced with budget cuts, marketing leaders are 5X more likely to protect demand gen budget than brand.

Odd, given 73% of companies agree that brand investment is a long-term investment that makes demand generation more efficient."

Instead, we need programs that balance long-term brand awareness, future pipeline development, and this quarter's goals

3. TEAMS

In most B2B orgs, there's a lack of cross-functional collaboration with sales.

Even with best intentions to work together, misaligned incentives get in the way. 

But without an orchestrated effort across GTM teams, it becomes impossible to influence the complete buyer journey. 

4. TECH/AI

Leadership hears "AI" and imagines instant pipeline at lower cost.

Yes, we can create more content than ever. Pull public data points and "personalize" at scale.

But all we're doing is scaling tactics that didn't work in the first place.  

Instead, AI should scale processes we have proven and refined through many iterations:
- Pilot → document & refine → train AI 
- Show AI what 'good looks like' with examples of high-quality output (quality benchmarks)
- Use deep insights and research about the target ICP segment as input for AI

---

The way out? 

1. Strong fundamentals (brand narrative, differentiation, positioning, ICP, buyer journey...)⠀
2. Full-funnel programs: awareness → demand capture → pipeline → Buyer enablement→ CS & expansion
3. Balanced time horizons 

- Long-term programs create brand and increase sales velocity
- Medium-term programs create future pipeline
- Short-term programs help to accelerate pipeline and capture the demand

Understand customers. Shape the journey. Build brands buyers choose.

B2B marketing plans often fail because of one reason:
Lack of clarity.

Bad plans include vague activities that are usually misunderstood by leadership and sales.

Brand awareness is not about running ads for ungated content.

ABM is not about making a wish list of accounts, running display ads, and automated emails.

Lead nurturing is not about setting up an automated sequence of emails to push the discovery call.

Yet most plans just mention these programs without any clarification.

If sales and leadership don't support these plans, it's not because they don't get marketing.

It's because they:

- Don't see the impact of these programs on the bottom line
- Don't expect it to be a cross-functional motion and expect marketing to run everything without sales involvement

Good marketing plans are:

1. BALANCED

- 80%: always-on programs that work historically
- 10%: short-term cross-functional campaigns co-created with sales
- 10%: experiments

2. DETAILED AND FOCUSED

All programs have clear:

- Detailed timeline
- Goals and expectations
- Success and failure criteria
- Resources involvement
- Leading and lagging indicators to track program efficiency
- Forecast
- Weekly planning and review meetings (see an example: https://lnkd.in/dN_hMyfQ)
- Campaign visual outline (or deck) to show how it impacts the pipeline and revenue

Our template: https://lnkd.in/dSmufFht

3. INTERCONNECTED AND CROSS-FUNCTIONAL

Every program impacts another, avoiding siloed execution.

Thought leadership ads to strategic accounts generate first-party engagement signals sales use for further engagement.

Webinars are tailored to a specific use case, buyer persona, and subset of accounts. They repurpose thought leadership content and are repurposed later as market research.

4. INFLUENCING THE ENTIRE BUYER JOURNEY

Marketing plans shouldn't be "brand awareness vs. demand capture" or "new pipeline vs. expansion."

If you focus on brand only, your sales process will struggle. We saw several MarTech companies generating buzz around them but struggling to convert brand into demand.

If you focus on demand capture, you'll miss the majority of the market.

Good marketing plans generate revenue while creating future pipeline, growing share of wallet, and preventing churn.

5. BACKED BY DATA

Marketing plans based on gut feelings or broad data always fail.

Plans that include revenue trends and sales pipeline velocity across markets, segments, and use cases (clusters) help make smart bets.

---

The reality is simple:

Our 2026 marketing plan won't fail because our CEO "doesn't get marketing". 

It will fail because we fail to clearly connect the dots between the activities and revenue.

Here's how to align ABM playbooks with long sales cycles and continuous nurturing. 

Our industry problem - engaging enterprise accounts the same way we sell $49 products. The mindset behind: if they are in the market, they will buy. We just need to hit them at the right time with the right message.

But this is fundamentally wrong when it comes to selling high ACV products. The low-ticket playbook simply doesn't work.

The enterprise sales cycle is long not because we send bad emails. It's long because corporates and mid-size companies operate in a completely different reality:

- Strategic initiatives
- Long-term planning
- Low velocity
- Complex buying centers with long decision cycles

Your solution should be a part of their current strategy. If it doesn't fit, nobody engages. But even if it does fit, enterprise buyers usually have their preferred vendors shortlist.

Sometimes you can break through, but it's more luck than a predictable motion.

WHAT YOU NEED INSTEAD

1. Always-on playbooks (continuous execution)

ABM Content 
- Thought leadership nurturing content
- Account love letters
- Paid & 1-1 content distribution
...

1-1 account development
- Account research
- Strategy sessions
- Multithreading
...

Ongoing social engagement 

3rd party signal tracking
- Hiring
- Stack changes
- Executive interviews
...

2. Program-based playbooks (planned initiatives)

E.g. 
Month 1: Content collabs
Month 2: Account-based webinar playbook 
Month 3: Follow-up workshops
...

3. Signal-based playbooks (reactive execution)

1 & 2 generate signals. 

Our job here: determine the level of intent and plan the right action aligned with it. 

TLDR;

To create future pipeline, you need to have continuos nurturing playbooks aligned with the length of enterprise buyer journey.

Andrei Zinkevich

Co-founder @Fullfunnel.io| ABM & full-funnel marketing for B2B tech companies with high ACV and long sales cycle

We transform B2B Tech and Service-based companies from siloed sales and marketing to full-funnel account-based marketing and demand generation. 

We help your team develop an ABM strategy, launch pilot programs, operationalize and scale the programs without ramping up budget or depending on external agencies.

Here is how.

1. ABM STRATEGY.

We go together through a 3-week initial strategy sprint that includes: 

- Deep assessment of current marketing and sales processes
- Challenges both teams face and the root reasons behind them
- Revenue and channel analysis to identify focus markets and ICP for the ABM campaigns
- Custom ABM strategy development including detailed:
- Marketing and sales alignment with ICP, strategy and playbooks

2. LAUNCH PILOT ABM PROGRAM.

Within a single quarter, we’ll work with a pilot team to implement a minimal viable full-funnel program, without pausing existing processes. The pilot team usually consists of one marketer and one sales development rep.  

When we hit the target KPIs, we move to the operationalization and scaling stage.

3.DEVELOPING FULL-FUNNEL ABM FUNCTION.

At this stage we combine ABM with demand generation function to create a holistic model that creates awareness, generates demand and activates accounts that are already engaged across the full funnel.

SPRINTS INCLUDE:

-> Account-Based Marketing

-> LinkedIn demand generation and social selling

-> GTM strategy

-> Sales enablement

-> Demand generation and accounts warm-up

Why Work With FullFunnel.io?

1. 30+ years of niche experience

We were and still are “in the trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, so you’ll get access to 30+ years of our combined experience and knowledge.

2. Knowledge transfer.

Your team gets consistent support and training, including step-by-step playbooks, templates, marketing and sales dashboards, tech stack, and process maps.

3. Revenue alignment.

We align marketing and sales teams around revenue, ideal customer profile, target accounts and lead scoring criteria which helps to consistently hit your revenue quota and operate as one Revenue Operations team.

OUR CASE STUDIES INCLUDE

- $300k from a pilot ABM campaign with a software development company

- 9 qualified sales opportunities and 3 new contracts, 10x ACV from an account-based demand generation campaign with AdTech development company

- 7 sales-qualified opportunities from a pilot ABM campaign in the Nordics region with a cloud solutions vendor

- 76% response rate, 36% accounts engaged, 5 opportunities from a pilot ABM campaign

Co-founder

At Fullfunnel.io we are growing B2B companies with long and complex sales cycles since 2006.

We were and still are “in trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, and bring to the table our 30+ years of combined experience and knowledge. 

I live and breathe B2B marketing since 2006. 

Before launching Fullfunnel.io, I spent 8 years in the enterprise segment working for Kimberly Clark and Biosphere Corporation.

What makes Fullfunnel.io different?

1. Ins and outs of selling to enterprise

Coming from the mid-market and enterprise world, I know all the ins and outs of selling to these segments: the research and evaluation processes, decision-making procedures inside the buying committee and the approval workflows. 

We’ve been there, done that, and know how to generate opportunities with these segments and influence the decision-making processes.

2. Niche experience

While we could help many B2B business, since 2007 we focus exclusively on two verticals: high-value B2B tech (enterprise SaaS, blockchain technology, hardware) and service-based companies (software development, consulting, cybersecurity, DevOps as a service, etc). 

We were and still are “in the trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, so you’ll get access to 30+ years of our combined experience and knowledge. 

3. Knowledge transfer and in-house operations

We believe that the real growth can only be driven in-house. You need to have people who are in the trenches every day, talking to customers, experiencing the sales hurdles, refining the messages and positioning.

We join your team as external marketing advisors, provide consistent support and training including step-by-step playbooks, templates, marketing and sales dashboards, tech stack and process maps.

As a result, you get an evergreen in-house growth engine.

Here is our entire updated ABM cheat sheet: Use it to launch or refine your ABM program👇


We see ABM as a bridge between marketing and sales. 

It is the best way to connect top-of-the-funnel with bottom-of-the-funnel activities, while actively working with sales on pipeline and revenue.

Over the last 5 years, Vladimir Blagojević and I wrote more than 50 detailed guides about ABM. 

Here is a list of the best guides to help you plan or refine your ABM program:

ABM STRATEGY

- ABM strategy: the step-by-step guide: https://lnkd.in/etWEeJGG
- The ABM mirage: https://lnkd.in/dJK6-EXt
- Who owns ABM: https://lnkd.in/dN4MPdT6
- Planning, budgeting and forecasting ABM: https://lnkd.in/dn6pEQCi
- Shifting from lead gen to ABM: https://lnkd.in/dvhtU2GV
- ABM readiness checklist: https://lnkd.in/dJkaGx7y
-  How to target accounts in 2026: https://lnkd.in/deJWVK8e

DEVELOPING ABM PROGRAMS AND PLAYBOOKS

- ABM pilot: https://lnkd.in/dw-TZREp
- Account-Based Content Strategy: https://lnkd.in/dTszwX_8
- Operationalizing ABM: https://lnkd.in/d2wRUZQf
- Expansion & upsell: https://lnkd.in/d-BQPF33
- How to create ABM playbooks: https://lnkd.in/dj3sJhTf
- ICP for ABM: https://lnkd.in/diePETma
- Selecting accounts: https://lnkd.in/dkYBZN7X
- How to create playbooks for long sales cycles and multiple buyers: https://lnkd.in/dFhrbBN6

HOW TO WORK WITH SALES IN ABM

- Sales KPIs in ABM: https://lnkd.in/dewNCkJT
- Buying committee engagement: https://lnkd.in/dwSyR96v
-Sales perspective on ABM: https://lnkd.in/dXi5M6wc
- Role of SDRs in ABM: https://lnkd.in/eXin7VNF
- How to create awareness among strategic accounts through B2B buyer ecosystem: https://lnkd.in/esXKq2xc

ABM REPORTS

- ABM KPIs and reports: https://lnkd.in/drsUKFNa
- How to measure ABM: https://lnkd.in/dncUBUBX

ABM TACTICS AND CASE STUDIES

- 4 ABM Programs that Drove $7mln Pipeline: https://lnkd.in/dEMYSY7g
- $300k in revenue from pilot ABM: https://lnkd.in/dThUk_C 
- The ABM Pilot Program With 60% Marketing-Sourced Enterprise Pipeline (feat. Ken Roden and Magali Finet-Perdu): https://lnkd.in/dBKymbaT
- ABM in 2-year sales cycles (feat. Joseph Threlfall, Astrid van Dam, Bowin Cai and Raf Schroons): https://lnkd.in/dKVE2bnF
- Lean ABM (feat. Briana (Manrique) Casey, Megan Barenie, Jalynn Close): https://lnkd.in/d-rSjKeT

---
The success of ABM doesn't depend on your stack or budget. 

It depends on solid foundations, marketing and sales alignment, and shared playbooks to drive pipeline and revenue.

The biggest problem we faced last year with ABM - selling to sales the new operational model. Here is why.

In many B2B companies, sales and marketing planning happen in silos. Once a year during sales kick-off (SKO), sales:

-Pick up the biggest accounts
-Define target stakeholders
-Assign accounts to AEs and BDRs

Then, BDRs launch outreach sequences. AEs create account development plans and work on accounts that are already in the pipeline.

Collaboration with marketing is often limited to: "I need this deck, can you create it?" Marketing supports sales based on their requests, handover MQLs and inbound inquiries.

Nobody questions the status quo until the revenue targets are hit. But when the targets are missed, here is when the fun begins:

-fingerpointing and blaming
-strategy changes
-layoffs.

Nobody questions the status quo and ignores the elephant in the room:

The traditional pipeline generation model is completely misaligned with the B2B buyer journey.

B2B buyers don't buy according to our sales plans and timeline.

B2B buyers don't care if they are marked as "MQL" in our CRM.

B2B buyers don't want to receive 21 emails and LinkedIn messages.

The new operating model is accepting the complexity of the B2B buyer journey and aligning marketing & sales processes with it.

It doesn't change the incentives and core metrics:

Revenue, sales opportunities and pipeline coverage are still the top priority.

But it changes how marketing and sales:

-Select and prioritize accounts
-Plan and engage the entire buying committee
-Work together from awareness creation till closed won.

Three key changes:

1. Territory planning and account selection happens quarterly instead of annual SKO. Accounts are piroritized weekly based on the 1st party and 3rd party signals, and buyer engagement.

2. Buying committee engagement is shifted from decision-makers to the entire buying committee. Static outbound cadences are substituted with continuos nurturing. It includes time-based and signal-based playbooks.

3. Marketing doesn't work as sales assitants working on requests and transferring leads. Both teams create weekly account plans asking: How can we influence this account together?

These changes are inevitable.

We live in an era of abundance: technology, signals, automation. It's not a competitive advantage anymore.

The only competitive advantage you have is a cross-functional collaboration with a value-added engagement for the accounts that really need your product.

The best ABM playbooks we've run always follow these 4 principles:


1. Run activities that generate 1st party signals (aka Always-On Playbooks)

- Connecting with the entire buying committee
- Personalized "account love letters" posted on LinkedIn that mention target accounts' initiatives
- Personalized invites to the events
- Content hubs
- Expert roundups featuring industry thought leaders
- Thoughtful commenting on buyers' posts
- Thought leadership content

2. Build one activity on another for continuous account nurturing, research and penetration (aka Time-Based Playbooks).

Every time-based playbook is built on the previous ones.

Example: content → webinar → expert roundup → market research → webinar presenting market research.

It creates a constant mix of value-added touchpoints across the long buyer journey. It helps to stay top-of-the-mind instead of "send and forget" playbooks.

3. Use 1st party and 3rd party signals for value-based touchpoints with engaged buying committee groups.

- Monitor hiring announcements 
- Track management changes t
- Follow P&L reports and press releases to identify business challenges and key initiatives
- Look for questions in communities asked by target buyers
- Monitor content engagement 
- Track high-intent pages visits for timely outreach

We use these insights to share relevant content, suggest help, ask additional questions—everything that adds value to the current thread. Every insight also triggers multithreadin when relevant to engage more buyers.

4. Have a mix of fully personalized 1:1 activities for active focus accounts.

The most engaged accounts are moved to fully personalized account development, including:

- Create personalized solutions and content hubs
- Offer free strategy sessions/workshops with SMEs or clients
- Creating business cases

---
HockeyStack once shared a report that it takes 417 touchpoints and 5493 impressions to generate >$100k deals. Most ABM playbooks I've seen account, maybe, for 5-10% of the necessary touchpoints. And there is a reason:

B2B vendors want pipeline today. 

What they forget is the real length of the buyer journey. 

The pipeline you're trying to close this quarter started 9+ months ago. You can capture some of the demand, but it's always not enough to hit the targets. 

If you're not building future pipeline right now with the playbooks optimized for long sales cycles, you'll be having the same "pipeline dried up" conversation in Q4.

Sales: We want to run ABM with you. We need to improve lead quality and pipeline coverage. But our BDR has only 5 hrs/week. Here is what happens next:

ABM WITHOUT DEDICATED SDR.

- Broad list-building. No prioritization based on awareness, engagement and intent signals. All accounts are assigned by territory and size.

- AI-based "research" pulling generic public information anybody can get in second from ChatGPT

- Marketing runs more targeted demand gen to generate MQLs and inbound inquiries with further handover to sales

- Sales sends the same outbound cadences personalized by title and the research pulled from ChatGPT

- All accounts are treated the same way

Pause for a second and guess:

Who is blamed when this program fails?

The right answer is.....

Marketing!

ABM WITH A DEDICATED SALES REP

- Joint program planning: from narrative and account selection to account development

- Clusters replace segments and verticals for targeting

- All accounts are prioritized based on revenue potential, vendor awareness, relationship, and product-need evidence

- In-depth desk and 1:1 research mapping product value to key initiatives and buyer JTBDs

- Detailed buying committee mapping including Champions, Decision-makers, Power Users, and Influencers

- Continuous nurturing and engagement playbooks aligned with intent level and vendor awareness

- Constant multi-threading

- Constant value-added touchpoints: personalized messages based on captured signals, thoughtful commenting, content sharing, event invites

- Joint weekly reviews and planning

TLDR;

To make ABM work you need to have a rep that is constantly researching and engaging with the buying committee groups of target accounts. Not via automated cadences, but via constant, personalized engagement.

No budget and technology will compensate it.

Some sales teams sometimes think that "not pitching all the time" is not prospecting. But they forget about the reality of enterprise B2B buyer journey.

First, you need to be known.

Second, you need to get into a shortlist.

Third, you need to have credibility.

Fourth, you need to help creating a compelling reason to change now and sell internally.

It's not possible with quarter air cover, marketing campaigns and outbound cadences. It's possible with a continuous relationship building with strategic accounts.

In Q4, we ran a quarter ABM campaign with 51 accounts. One became closed won, 4 became sales opportunities. Here is how we selected the accounts:

We used our account prioritization framework, segmenting all accounts by:

-Revenue potential
-Level of awareness
-Relationship with buying committee
-Product-need evidence

1. REVENUE POTENTIAL.

We looked at companies that fit our Tier 1 & Tier 2 criteria:

These accounts represent the highest value and largest scale targets.

Company Size: Large scale (201–500 / 501–1,000 / 1,000–5,000 employees)
Annual Revenue: >$50M
Distributed GTM Teams: 3 or more business units or Go-To-Market teams
Sales + Biz Dev Size: 50+ members
Marketing Team Size: 10+ members
Industry: Enterprise B2B SaaS
Priority Markets: US, Canada, UKI, Benelux, DACH, France, or Nordics.

2. LEVEL OF AWARENESS.

We paid attention to several criteria:

-Spikes in visiting our consulting page in the last 90 days. We set up a filter in Dealfront applying our qualification criteria. Accounts with a high engagement score were added to the draft list.

-Known engaged buyer (see next point)
-2+ buying committee members are subscribed to our Substack newsletter

3. RELATIONSHIP.

We prioritized accounts where we had a known engaged buyer (the matching was contact->account level):

-We had recent engagement or conversation on LinkedIn
-A contact has signed up and attended at least one of the previous 10 episodes of Full-Funnel Live
-A contact is subscribed to our newsletter more than for 6 months

4. PRODUCT-NEED EVIDENCE.

We looked for a combined evidence between 1st party and 3rd party signals.

1st party:

-Reading ABM articles on our blog or Substack
-Attending ABM-related podcast episodes
-Visiting our consulting page

3rd party:

-Growing a new regional team and actively hiring SDRs and AEs (they will need marketing support)
-Promoting enterprise case studies and sharing enterprise logos on the website
-Executive interviews mentioning expansion to a new market
-LinkedIn posts mentioning ABM initiatives or purchasing ABM platforms
---

One takeway (though with a hindsight it is obvious) that the most responsive and engaged accounts were those who matched all 3 criteria:

-Were connected or following us on LinkedIn
-Reading newsletter for 6+ months
-Attended at least one of our events

Which proves our theory:

Always focus on the most engaged accounts and invest in cluster awareness. Your future pipeline is created today.

P.S. What's your approach to selecting accounts for the ABM program?

I've created 50+ ABM playbooks in the last 5 years. 

Here are 6 core principles:

1. ALIGN ON THE ROLE OF MARKETING AND SALES IN ABM.

Who owns ABM? Here is a breakdown of marketing and sales responsibilities in ABM: https://lnkd.in/dN4MPdT6

2. CREATE PLAYBOOKS FOR CONTINUOUS NURTURING AND LONG SALES CYCLES.

Our framework to engage & nurture accounts across 18-month sales cycles and multiple stakeholders leveraging time-based and signal-based playbooks: https://lnkd.in/dFhrbBN6

3. CLUSTER TARGETING.

Here is our cluster-based ABM framework: https://lnkd.in/deJWVK8e

4. SELECTING ABM ACCOUNTS.

Here is the account qualification and prioritization framework: https://lnkd.in/dkYBZN7X

5. MEASURE ABM.

Reports for new logo, expansion and renewals + integrated ABM dashboard: https://lnkd.in/dncUBUBX

6. 6A FRAMEWORK TO CREATE AN ABM PLAYBOOK.

6 essential pillars of the ABM playbook:

https://lnkd.in/dj3sJhTf

Marketing and sales should stop the WISH LIST approach to territory planning.
Here are 5 pillars we apply to account selection.

1. QUALIFICATION CRITERIA.

Before prioritizing and selecting accounts, all of them should be qualified. Just because the account is in your area or meets firmographic criteria (e.g. big manufacturing company in North America) doesn't mean that it's a good fit.

Qualification criteria examples:

- Losses are stated in the annual report because of the currency volatility.
- Product release cycles >1 month, etc.

2. REVENUE POTENTIAL.

What is the real opportunity potential? Are you hunting antelope or mice?

Prioritize accounts with the highest and medium revenue potential.

3. LEVEL OF RELATIONSHIP.

Do we know anybody who works for the target accounts, or who is closely connected to the buying committee?

Somebody who can make an intro or share insider information about the account's needs and challenges.

Prioritize these accounts.

4. PRODUCT-NEED EVIDENCE / BUYING SINGNALS.

Are there any facts that might tell us that the account might have a challenge our product solves?

Examples:

- Actively hiring for a specific role
- Announced losses, key initiatives, or roadmap
- Legacy technology, etc.

5. LEVEL OF VENDOR AWARENESS.

Are the accounts that we want to target already aware of our product? 

Are there any engagements and touchpoints we had with them?

The last question is essential because it helps you to separate "cold accounts" (no touchpoints) from the accounts that are already aware of your brand.

Cold accounts should be put into a future pipeline list and added to your cluster-based demand gen program.

To identify "aware" and "engaged accounts" look at your marketing automation and intent data:

- Recent sign-ups to your cluster-based webinars
- High-intent website page visits (demo, pricing, case studies, vertical/role solutions, comparison reports)
- Engagement with your thought leadership content and demand gen ads, etc.

The ultimate step is scoring all the accounts and making an "active focus" list according to your team's capacity.
---

Most marketing and sales teams either build a "wish list" of accounts or play the MQL game.

They always get the same results: miserable pipeline and missed revenue targets.

Their challenge can be easily solved by:

- sitting together
- defining account qualification and prioritization criteria
- and identifying target accounts they SHOULD focus on.

In the last 3 years I read 61 books. Here are the top 10 that helped us to refine our full-funnel ABM framework:

1-2: Reset: How to Change What's Not Working and Switch by Dan Heath.

ABM implementation comes along with an extensive change management. You can't just blow up everything and ignite the revolution. These books helped us: 

- to audit and identify the things that are already working in the company ('the bright spots")

- find change agents who are willing to challenge the status quo. 

- launch small pilots by building on the top of what already works 

It's the essence of our pilot program.

3. Selling with by Nate Nasralla.

Historically we generated a lot of demand and engaged champions. But instead of closing the deal we lost them due to internal blockage. For years we optimized our deck around the methodology, numbers, etc. without realizing that there should be two factors to win the deal:

- Compelling internal events that we can use for change management
- Clear business case that articulates: What, Why, How, When, and What to expect

Not our long and impressive deck 😃 

This book taught us the necessary framework and helped us to close every 4 of 5 qualified deals.

4. Scrum by Jeff Sutherland.

We always had weekly pipeline and review meetings with the ABM teams, but they were more ad-hoc. Scrum gave us structured methodology:

-to refine the planning
-identify bottlenecks early
-make sure that the weekly backlog we plan altogether is actually done.

5. The Culture Map by Erin Meyer.

We work globally, and cultural differences hit hard in year one. European teams wanted detailed methodology walkthroughs and thorough planning.

Our first American client? Different story. First question: "Show me the results."

Once sold on the idea: "How fast can we start the pilot? We trust you—let's move."

Then came the real differences: communication and feedback style, commitment, timelines.

This book taught us to adapt our consulting to different cultural contexts.

6-8. Goal (1, 2 and 3) by Eliyahu M. Goldratt.

This is my favorite business non-fiction. This book taught me how to identify and remove constraints that exist in every business process. Then, optimize the delivery according to bottlenecks.

Not to say it reminded me of my corporate days: night office hours, working weekends, endless business trips and meetings 😃 .

9-10. 80/20 by Richard Koch and 80/20 in sales and marketing by Perry M.

These two books helped us to find a framework to answer one of the most important ABM planning questions: Where should we focus?

Account prioritization framework, segment and use case selection, ICP for ABM came from the core book concepts.
---
I have a collection of 278 book notes I made since 2012. 

Let me know in the comments if detailed posts with book notes and how we implemented them are appealing to you.

Our industry problem - engaging enterprise accounts the same way we sell $49 products. The mindset behind: if they are in the market, they will buy. We just need to write a good script.

But this is fundamentally wrong when it comes to selling high ACV products. The low-ticket playbook simply doesn't work.

The enterprise sales cycle is long not because we send bad emails. It's long because corporates and mid-size companies operate in a completely different reality:

- strategic initiatives
-long-term planning
- low velocity

Your solution should be a part of their current strategy. If it doesn't fit, nobody engages. But even if it does fit, enterprise buyers usually have their preferred vendors shortlist.

Apparently, you can break through, but it's more luck than a predictable motion.

TLDR;

To create future pipeline, you need to have continuos nurturing playbooks alinged with the length of enterprise buyer journey.

The SMB pipeline generation playbook cracks in a week when going upmarket. Here is the reality of enterprise sales cycle:

Our sales cycle is 9-12 months with 80-100 touchpoints across the buying committee (way beyond 12 emails over two weeks) :)

Our buyer's journey typically starts when they see our LinkedIn thought leadership content. 

Other touchpoints are happening later through:

- Weekly newsletter diving into ABM and GTM strategy
- Live weekly podcast where buyers can ask questions
- Quarterly webinars
- Content hubs tailored to specific challenges and solutions (launching pilot ABM, initiating change management, etc)
- 1-1 conversations on LinkedIn
- Content co-creation

Before we generate a sales opportunity, we help our buyers to:

- Identify the root reasons for their challenges and the solutions in strategy sessions
- Build a business case to get stakeholder buy-in
- Design pilot programs with clear metrics, resources and timeline

It's not ad-hoc and not optional. This is how the enterprise buyer journey is happening.

The trap I see most B2B companies fall down is focusing on the volume and scalability instead of focusing on future pipeline creation and thorough account development to land enterprise deals.

They try to replicate what works for SMB / low-size deals:

- Developing target lists from ZoomInfo / Apollo / Clay
- Set up personalized outreach sequences Outreach / lemlist
- Run air cover to the same set of accounts

The SMB playbook is optimized for fast pipeline creation with minimal human involvement.

While enterprise playbook requires:

- In-depth account research and thorough account mapping
- Constant engagement with 5+ buying committee members across the entire sales cycle (9-12 months): power users, champions, stakeholders
- Personalized activities and content per account

You can't fix it with technology.

You can fix it only with setting up cross-functional teams that are focused on continuous account development and quarter milestone metrics for 12-month sales cycle:

Q1: X engaged buyers, initial conversations, account penetration
Q2: Discovery calls
Q3: Business case creation
Q4: Sales opportunities

Your SDR just marked 47 accounts as "touched" this week.
Your VP Sales asks: "How many conversations did you start?"


The answer: 2, and both ghosted after one reply.

I’ve witnessed this a couple of times with our clients during weekly review meetings. SDRs report on activity metrics: touched accounts, calls, emails sent. 

But when leadership asks about pipeline, nobody has a good answer.

Here's why.

Most B2B sales teams run 3-week personalized cadences with 8-10 touchpoints. Marketing supports them with LinkedIn ads for "air cover" and call it ABM. SDRs follow up with everybody who likes, clicks or downloads any asset. 

But in reality, most emails get ignored. Some people accept connection requests but never reply. SDRs mark them as "touched" and move on. 

This operational model is completely misaligned with long 9-12 months sales cycles that require 100+ touchpoints to close a deal (check this report: https://lnkd.in/dFhrbBN6)

According to Pavilion's 2024 B2B Sales Benchmarks, year-over-year performance of “traditional sales model” dropped across every revenue metric:

- Win rates down 18%
- Deal values down 21%
- Sales cycles up 16%
- 69% of reps missed quota

Another Focus Digital research shows that (in Complex B2B SaaS) the average account-to-pipeline ratio is 0.03% (stats: https://lnkd.in/dupPez5q) 

That means for every 3,000 accounts you touch with outbound sequences, you might generate one sales opportunity. Maybe.

B2B tech market already reacted to the problem by mass SDR layoffs. 

According to Emergence Capital's Beyond Benchmarks report, 36% of 560 tech companies decreased their SDR/BDR headcount last year—the highest percentage among all sales roles (stats: https://lnkd.in/dupPez5q)

The truth is simple:

You can't fix this fundamental problem with better technology and AI.

You can only fix it by accepting how enterprise buyers actually buy and co-creating with sales a new operating model.

We've documented with Vlad how we develop a new account-based operational model for marketing and sales, including:

- How to implement it without a revolution
- How to get sales buy-in: the step-by-step framework
- What could go wrong: the failure scenarios nobody talks about

Subscribe on Substack to receive it tomorrow in your inbox: https://lnkd.in/dSje9cKc

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