Set Objectives and Take Action
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the importance of stakeholder collaboration in account planning.
- Describe how to set clear account objectives and actionable plans.
Develop Strategy-Driven Outreach Powered by Research
The account research process gives you two kinds of insights. First, the hard facts: Who your customer is, the company’s strengths and weaknesses, and how it’s positioned in the market. These are critical inputs for the next step of your ABS plan: developing personalized outreach strategies. What does your messaging look like? What’s your pitch? How tailored is your offering, and how closely does it align with your customer’s vision? These insights become powerful tools as you engage stakeholders across the organization.
Second, start developing informed ideas, such as who the decision makers are and what their key goals and priorities might be. Document these in your account plan. These ideas give you a working foundation for conversations about expectations, which can be refined as you deepen your relationship with the customer.
In the previous unit, you completed a SWOT analysis for Pyroclastic Inc. and mapped out the customer and competitive landscapes in your comprehensive account plan. Your outreach strategy is to lead with energy optimization as your entry point. Emphasize how your solution can help Pyroclastic Inc. cut energy costs and advance their 5-year goal of reducing consumption by 30 percent. Position your offering as a long-term partner in sustainability and efficiency, and aim to engage with leads in operations, finance, and sustainability to demonstrate how your proposal delivers measurable ROI and long-term energy resilience.
You’re ready to engage the customer.
Engage Stakeholders with Purpose
Your first engagement with Pyroclastic Inc. was a milestone.
The time and effort your team at Ursa Major invested to deeply understand this customer paid off. Your messaging was clear, targeted, and directly aligned with Pyroclastic Inc.’s priorities. This initial conversation not only validated your research, but it refined it. Some strategic assumptions proved incomplete, but this dialogue bridged those gaps and revealed a more nuanced understanding of the customer’s needs and desired outcomes.
You promptly updated the account plan to reflect these new insights, ensuring the broader team is aligned and working from the most accurate information. As you continue to engage with stakeholders across departments, a richer picture of Pyroclastic Inc. begins to emerge. One that enables you to design solutions that are not just tailored, but transformative.
One of the most critical outcomes of these discussions is clarity around objectives. What does success look like: for them, and for you? Your initial research pointed to sustainability as a key focus area. But what exactly does that entail for Pyroclastic Inc.? Through these engagements, that question found its answer.
Now, with the “what” defined, you can move toward the “how,” developing a customized strategy that delivers measurable impact. Just as you captured your insights in the account plan, these objectives must also be documented to align the team, track progress, and ensure shared accountability.
Following several productive conversations where stakeholders responded enthusiastically to your vision and offering, you’re now aligned on four clear strategic objectives.
- Reduce annual energy costs.
- Shift to renewable energy.
- Support long-term sustainability goals.
- Achieve system uptime targets.
This is a significant step forward. With these objectives in hand, your team is now poised to move from insight to action. Add them to the account plan and begin turning strategy into results.
Set Up Objectives and Measures
Add the first objective focused on reducing annual energy costs and increasing yearly savings to the account plan.
- Click Add Objective on the account plan.
- Enter the objective details, including its name, description, start and end dates, and the objective owner.
- Add a currency measure to track the growth in savings from $0 to $500,000.
- Click Save.
Let’s review Measures (1) and (2) Records. These sections give you options for how you want to track the success of your objective. The Account Plan feature supports both qualitative and quantitative objectives.
Qualitative objectives are more contextual. For example, an objective to launch a customer support program doesn't need any specific measure to track success. It’s more about completing the initiative than hitting a number.
On the other hand, quantitative objectives are measurable. These have a clear goal with a specific target. You can track progress using measures, and while calculation definitions and related records are optional, they add helpful depth. You can also work with your admin to set up calculation logic that matches your business needs.
For example, say your objective is to achieve $100 million in revenue. You’d create a measure with that target. Then you might use a calculation that sums up opportunity amounts where the Stage is Closed Won. This is where calculation definitions come in. They define how the current value of your objective is calculated, based on criteria like object, field, and logic. You can work with your admin to set up or customize these definitions to match your business goals. You can also link related records like opportunities to show which deals are contributing to the goal. Your objective updates automatically based on changes made to the stages of the related opportunities.
This approach gives you better visibility into how your objectives are progressing and what’s driving results. Sales Account Plans are packed with features that can be customized to fit your goals. Check out the Resources section for more info.
Add Action Plans to Objectives
A bold objective is admirable, but without a clear strategic roadmap, it’s nothing more than wishful thinking.
By default, every objective starts with zero action plans under Strategic Tracker.
Don’t confuse this with your overarching account plan. Action plans bring clarity and accountability. They outline the concrete steps your team will take to realize the objective. Strategic trackers are collections of action plans that support your execution strategy by breaking down your goals into focused, measurable, and manageable tasks.
For example, to achieve the overarching objective of reducing Pyroclastic Inc.’s annual energy costs, your team decides that one of the first steps is to understand the current energy spend drivers. This becomes the first action plan and forms a key part of your execution strategy. Add it to the account plan.
- Click the 0 Action Plan hyperlink under Strategic Tracker. This opens the Account Plan Objective page.
- Click Create Sales Action Plan.
- Enter the action plan details, including Name, Start Date, and Status.
- Choose the appropriate Action Plan Template.
- Click Next.
An action plan template captures the repeatable tasks involved in a specific type of engagement. You set it up once and can update it over time as your understanding of those tasks evolves. Work with your admin to set up templates that align with your account-based selling strategy. For more details, check the Resources section.
- On the next screen, the tasks and events defined in the selected template are automatically added. For example, based on the template you selected, aligning on customer objectives is a repeatable step included in every action plan that uses this template.
- Click Save.
You just created your first action plan (1). Any tasks or events included in the template you selected will now appear here (2).
Your objective now has one action plan with the default task added from the selected template. However, this may not be enough to complete the plan. You need to add tasks and events to ensure the action plan is thorough and supports progress toward your objective.
One of the key tasks for understanding energy spend drivers is analyzing historical energy usage. Add this task.
- Click New in the Tasks section.
- Enter the task details, such as the Subject, Days to Complete, Priority, and any other important information.
- Click Save.
You added a new task to your action plan.
Time for a recap: You defined key objectives for your account. These are the goals you want to accomplish (1).
For each objective, you added strategic trackers in the form of action plans (2). Each action plan is an execution plan to be done collaboratively with your team and serves as a milestone on the path to success.
Each action plan contains tasks and events to help you track progress clearly and effectively (3).
Bring It All Together
Since the first meeting with Pyroclastic Inc., when you and your stakeholders agreed on your bold objectives, you built steady momentum through collaboration. You mapped out action plans, assigned tasks, and watched your team rise to the challenge: each milestone owned, every box checked.
You analyzed Pyroclastic Inc.’s historical energy use, identified cost-heavy operations, and uncovered inefficiencies in its current power systems. You carefully assessed Pyroclastic Inc.’s readiness to shift to renewables, focusing on technical feasibility, site constraints, and regulatory considerations. You confirmed that the solar initiative aligns with its long-term sustainability goals, meeting internal ESG benchmarks and satisfying external stakeholder expectations. To ensure uninterrupted operations, you worked with the team to design a system tailored to their nonstop manufacturing schedule, avoiding downtime and preventing disruption.
All of this led to a tailored solution: a 1.5MW solar system built specifically for Pyroclastic Inc.’s operations.
The projected savings were substantial: $500,000 per year. But the greater win was strategic. This system positions Pyroclastic Inc. to meet its sustainability goals and stay competitive in an industry that’s rapidly turning green.
You began with a vision and delivered results.
Wrap It Up
This is the power of account-based selling, a focused and strategic methodology that transforms how you prospect and close deals. It empowers you to pursue high-value customers with purpose and precision. At the core of this approach are three essential pillars.
- Research your customers.
- Align on a shared strategy.
- Execute with discipline against clear objectives.
The Salesforce account plan feature is designed to support you at every step, helping you bring your account-based selling strategy to life and create meaningful results.