4. Label contacts in key roles
In Salesforce, you may be familiar with the “role” field. If not, it’s pretty straightforward: Contacts are assigned “roles” according to the part they play in your deal (“champion,” for example, or “influencer”). If your sales org has already developed roles specific to your company, use those terms to identify the role for each contact in your account map. Update their info on the account map accordingly.
If you haven’t created roles specific to your company, we recommend using this set of default Salesforce roles:
- Influencer: A person whose job or perspective has an impact on the purchase decision (such as a software end-user)
- Blocker: A person who prevents you from moving the deal forward, typically because they are difficult to reach or they oppose change
- Champion: A person who uses and advocates for your product/service and who can provide information on the decision-making process
- Buyer: A person (often part of a committee) who ultimately decides whether the company should purchase your product/service
To complete this step, you’ll need to determine how each prospect feels about your product/service and what role they will play in the buying process. Use the official Salesforce shape library or colors in Lucidchart to give yourself a visual key for each role.
5. Identify key relationships to find the best path to sale
Many sales reps assume that they need to work their way up the hierarchy to close a deal. They speak to a manager first, then a director who connects them with an executive with purchasing power—and they take this same route every single time.
While this mindset can lead to sales, here’s the trouble with that type of thinking: If you find a blocker early on in your calls—maybe a director uses a competing product and doesn’t see the value of changing—you’ll believe you’ve hit a wall in the company and mark it as no opportunity.
An account map can help you avoid these walls and navigate the sale based on relationships that go beyond hierarchy. To show relationships between individuals on your account map, change the color of the lines that connect your contacts. Use green lines to represent a healthy relationship; use red lines for strained relationships; use yellow lines for neutral relationships. Remember, you’re not mapping out friendships. The relationships shown in your account map should indicate which people have initiatives or interests that line up well with each other. You can also use dotted lines to represent people who have a non-reporting relationship.
This step will help you understand which relationships can create the consensus necessary to close the deal. As you determine each contact’s status, you might find areas where you can add new lines to indicate relationships not found on the org chart. Filling in these gaps helps you better influence blockers or buyers and focus your efforts on the right people.
