account-management

Files (4)

• README.md
• SKILL.md
• evals.json
• qbr-template.md · references/

SKILL.md (first lines)

## Key principles

1. **Be a strategic advisor, not a vendor** - Customers don't renew vendors; they
   renew advisors who help them win. Lead every interaction with their business
   outcomes (revenue growth, cost reduction, risk mitigation), not product features.
   Always know their top 3 strategic priorities before entering any meeting.

2. **Map the org chart relentlessly** - Single-threaded relationships are renewal
   risk. A champion who leaves takes your deal with them. Build relationships at
   three levels: the executive sponsor (owns budget), the champion (drives adoption),
   and end-users (create stickiness). Update your stakeholder map every quarter.

3. **Be proactive, not reactive** - The worst time to discover a customer is
   unhappy is when they send a cancellation notice. Run regular cadence calls,
   monitor product usage data, track open support tickets, and surface risks
   before they compound. Proactive outreach is 10x more effective than reactive
   damage control.

4. **Land and expand** - The initial contract is the beginning of the revenue
   journey, not the goal. Every implementation and onboarding decision should be
   made with expansion in mind: which adjacent team could use this next, what
   workflow creates a natural upgrade trigger, and which exec sponsor has budget
   for a broader rollout.

5. **Health scores predict churn** - Combine quantitative signals (login frequency,
   feature adoption, support ticket volume, NPS, contract utilization) into a single
   health score. Accounts that drop below a threshold need immediate intervention.
   A declining health score is almost always visible 60-90 days before a churn event.

---

## Core concepts

**Account tiers** classify customers by strategic importance and revenue potential,
not just current ARR. Tier 1 (strategic): top 10-15% by ARR or growth potential -
receive quarterly EBRs, dedicated CSM, executive sponsor pairing. Tier 2 (growth):
middle 30-40% - monthly cadence calls, QBRs twice per year. Tier 3 (long-tail):
remaining accounts - mostly automated touchpoints with reactive support.

**Stakeholder roles** are the key personas inside every customer account. The
**champion** is your internal advocate - they want you to succeed because your
product makes them look good. The **economic buyer** controls the budget and signs
the renewal; they care about ROI, not features. The **blocker** is the person who
can kill the deal or renewal - usually a competing vendor ally, a skeptical IT
director, or someone whose team is disrupted by your product. Winning requires
engaging all three, not just the champion.

**Health scoring** is a composite signal built from multiple data sources: product
usage (logins, feature breadth, DAU/MAU), relationship signals (executive sponsor
access, NPS score, responsiveness), business signals (contract utilization,
ROI achieved, expansion conversations), and support signals (open ticket count,
escalation history). Weight each dimension and produce a red/yellow/green score
updated weekly.

**Expansion signals** are leading indicators that an account is ready to grow.
Look for: high feature utilization hitting plan limits, new team or department
onboarding independently, executive sponsor referencing adjacent use cases,
positive NPS (9-10) with specific praise, and successful ROI documentation.
Expansion is easiest to sell when the customer is already experiencing value.

---

## Common tasks

### Create an account plan

An account plan is a living document updated quarterly that aligns your activities
to the customer's strategic goals. Use this template structure:

```
Account Plan: [Customer Name]
Last Updated: [Date] | Owner: [AM Name] | Tier: [1/2/3]

CUSTOMER OVERVIEW
- Industry / segment / company size
- Primary use case and products contracted
- Contract value: $[ARR] | Renewal date: [Date]

STRATEGIC GOALS (customer's top 3 priorities this year)
1. [Goal 1 - source: last EBR / customer's annual report]
2. [Goal 2]
3. [Goal 3]

HOW WE MAP TO THEIR GOALS
- Goal 1 -> [your product capability / ROI delivered]
- Goal 2 -> [your product capability / ROI delivered]

SUCCESS METRICS (agreed with customer)
- Metric 1: [target] | Current: [value]
- Metric 2: [target] | Current: [value]

RISKS
- [Risk 1]: [Mitigation]
- [Risk 2]: [Mitigation]

EXPANSION OPPORTUNITIES
- [Opportunity 1]: [Trigger / timeline / owner]

90-DAY ACTION PLAN
- [ ] [Action] by [Date] - [Owner]
```

> Update the account plan before every QBR and share a summary with the customer.
> An account plan the customer never sees is a vendor plan, not an account plan.

### Map stakeholders - power grid

A stakeholder power grid maps each contact by their level of influence (low to
high) against their sentiment toward you (detractor to champion). Plot each
contact as a dot on the 2x2 grid:

```
High Influence |  MOBILIZE        |  PROTECT & GROW  |
               |  (convert these) |  (nurture these) |
               |------------------|------------------|
Low Influence  |  MONITOR         |  LEVERAGE         |
               |  (watch)         |  (as references) |
                  Detractor/Neutral    Champion/Positive
```

From mkurman/zorai, MIT.

More from mkurman/zorai