This section is focused on commercial account management. For non-commercial guidance, please see the customer success playbook.

How long should AEs hold new logos?

If a company has separate account executives (AEs) responsible for landing new logos and account managers (AM) responsible for expansion, then AEs should continue to hold new logos for an extended duration provided:

• There is significant expansion opportunity. The is especially true if the company has a land and expand go-to-market (GTM) motion.
• The AE has significant knowledge of and relationships with the account as is typically the case in complex (Enterprise) deals.

The length of the extended duration is an optimization exercise. However, most companies do not complete enough deals nor can they execute a proper A/B test. So, they need rules of thumb. For Commercial sales teams, SMB and lower MM, the holding period is typically 6 to 12 months. For Enterprise, the holding period is often years.

Here are several alternative rules that can govern the duration of account ownership:

• Fixed duration (as outlined above; this is by far the most common approach)
• AEs can hold fixed number of current customer accounts.
• AEs continue to hold a current customer account as long a expansion ARR exceeds a dollar threshold in the last 12 months.
• AEs can hold any number of current customer accounts but are subject to a certain maximum total ARR. (Note: I don’t love this one because it means underperforming AEs can sit on accounts indefinitely.)

Global Account Management

• Account selection
  • Large enterprise (ex: Over $1B revenue or equivalent)
  • Multi-national
  • Complex buying requirements (ex: some or all purchasing done regionally)
  • Significant unrealized account potential
  • Consider a strict limit to the number of accounts in the formal global program
  • Review the global account list at least globally
  • Ensure a healthy distribution of accounts globally; i.e. do not have all global accounts headquartered in the US
• Role definition
  • Maintain the global account plan/strategy
  • Aggregate and prioritize whitespace opportunities
  • Develop and maintain relationships with senior customer personnel, esp. those in global (shared services) roles
  • Serve as the lead for the global account team.
  • Collaborate with the company’s marketing, product, and professional services colleagues to ensure a close-loop feedback mechanism for ongoing solution development, account penetration and customer loyalty (source)
  • Ensure global price integrity, terms, SLAs, etc. GAMs must be part of the CPQ workflow on every opportunity.
  • Not recommended: Manage a regional quota
  • Many GAM responsibilities feel like Customer Success. However, GAMs must be more senior/strategic than they typical CSM.
• Quota & Compensation
  • GAM base/variable split ranges from 60/40 to 70/30. Skew toward the higher end of the base pay mix for GAMs who do not have their own regional quotas.
  • Ideally, GAMs should not have regional quotas, but they most often do. Assuming they have both regional and global quotas, their regional quota should be significantly lower (ex: 50%) than those of pure RAMs since the GAM needs time for their other responsibilities. Moreover, their global quota should tie to at least 25% of their variable compensation target.
  • Ensure a significant portion or regional account manager variable compensation is tied to global account performance (ex: at least 25% of VC tied to Global ARR)
  • Since GAMs have many non-selling responsibilities, they are cost centers in part of whole. This must be properly accounted for in the cost of sale. However, RAMs should not receive lower quota credit for sales to global accounts than for their other purely regional accounts.
  • Dual-credit GAMs and RAMs for regional transactions.
  • One of the trickiest things is handing quota credit when a portion of sales are conducted with a central global customer buying center. These transactions must be split at the regional level. To prevent an adversarial relationship between the GAM and RAMs, pre-define split guidelines for regional quota credit if possible. Do not have the GAM make decisions on split; instead, shift this to an internal 3rd party such as a Finance or the head of sales.
• Other considerations
  • Many GAMs and RAMs are responsible for multiple accounts. When this is the case, strive to have as much account overlap as possible to improve coordination & efficiency.
  • The GAM role typically has ‘dotted-line’ leadership responsibility over the RAMs. However, if the account is large enough that all sellers are dedicated, then have the RAMs report into GAMs.
  • Where possible, GAM leadership should report into the global head of sales rather than into regional sales leadership.
  • When building a GAM program, start with a small pilot of at least 2 and no more than 5 accounts.
  • Strive for as much relationship continuity as possible with global accounts. Especially, try not to change the GAM since they should have the strongest trust-based, value-added relationships with the customer.
  • Conflict will arise between GAMs and RAMs. Don’t ignore it.
  • Most if not all global accounts should not only have a GAM but also an executive sponsor