--- title: Data, Kills Denial, Which Prevents Disaster Part 2 description: “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” — Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO A B2B client of mine was debating if they should invest time, money and effort in ramping up their account planning effort. Account planning is hard, and they had a great sales year […] --- # Sales Outcomes Open main menu Close main menu [Sales Operations](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-operations) [Sales Solutions](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-solutions) # Data, Kills Denial, Which Prevents Disaster Part 2 [Hernan Vera](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/author/hernan-vera) [Share this blog post on Twitter](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=I+found+this+interesting+blog+post&url=https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/data-kills-denial-which-prevents-disaster-part-2) [Share this blog post on Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/data-kills-denial-which-prevents-disaster-part-2) [Share this blog post on LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/data-kills-denial-which-prevents-disaster-part-2) **“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” — Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO** A B2B client of mine was debating if they should invest time, money and effort in ramping up their account planning effort. Account planning is hard, and they had a great sales year in 2017, with the expectation that 2018 was going to be even better. Their data said that 70% of their sales came from existing customers, and 30% from new customers. That’s a healthy ratio typical for established companies in their industry. Before they cemented their decision to not invest time in ramping up account planning, I asked them to let us look at the data. ## **Decisions based on average numbers are wrong on average.** **We analyzed the current and prior two years of sales data, and we discovered that in face yes, 70% of sales were coming from existing customers. However, we dug deeper and found the following:** - ### 70% of sales from existing customers each year came from ten customers, out of about 110 total customers. That 9% of the customer base. - ### The top 10 customers generated an average of $7 million each year, while the remaining 100 customers generated an average of $500,000 each year. They then realized that investing in strengthening account planning could deliver significant ROI. They decided to move forward based on the following assumption; they would develop at least one (1) existing customer in the bottom 100, to generate an average annual sales volume of $9 million. By the way, their business is contractual with three-year minimum length. So, $9 million is $27 million over three years. ## **The results?** After 18 months they had developed three accounts from the bottom 100 that were generating an average of $6 million per year each. Total return on effort was **3 clients x $6 million = $18 million x 3 years = $54 million.** ***Again, [account planning](https://salesoutcomes.com/b2b-account-planning/) is hard and requires senior leadership and front-line sales leader commitment. However, there are few initiatives that a company can invest in that generate the returns you can achieve through account planning.*** **Is account planning important to your firm?** ### Leave a Comment ## Related Articles [Sales Solutions](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-solutions) [Sales Enablement](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-enablement) ### [3 Outcomes from Successful Account Planning](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/3-outcomes-from-successful-account-planning-3) **[Account planning](https://salesoutcomes.com/b2b-account-planning/) is hard. Once you master it, however, the outcomes are extraordinary.** A wise soul once said, “If something seems too hard to do, then it’s probably... [Hernan Vera](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/author/hernan-vera) [Read More](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/3-outcomes-from-successful-account-planning-3) [Marketing Solutions](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/marketing-solutions) [Sales Solutions](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-solutions) ### [Increasing Share of Wallet With Your Clients…](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/increasing-share-of-wallet-with-your-clients-wont-happen-without-pap) Who doesn’t need an additional acronym? So let us introduce…Pragmatic Account Planning (PAP). So what’s so special about the word Pragmatic in the context of... [Hernan Vera](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/author/hernan-vera) [Read More](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/increasing-share-of-wallet-with-your-clients-wont-happen-without-pap) #### About - Menu Item One - Menu Item Two - Menu Item Three #### Services - Menu Item One - Menu Item Two - Menu Item Three #### News - Menu Item One - Menu Item Two - Menu Item Three Follow us on Facebook Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Instagram ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Hernan Vera", "url" : "https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/author/hernan-vera" }, "dateModified" : "2022-10-26T20:42:04.398Z", "datePublished" : "2018-08-14T15:26:08.000Z", "headline" : "Data, Kills Denial, Which Prevents Disaster Part 2", "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/data-kills-denial-which-prevents-disaster-part-2", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject" }, "name" : "Sales Outcomes" } } ```