The twelve questions

An account plan is ready when it can answer the questions a sharp executive would ask in the first ten minutes. The book lists twelve. How dependent are we on each other? What is the account worth today, and where is it heading? What is happening in the customer’s world? Where is the growth, and over what horizon? Where are we vulnerable? How strong is the relationship, and where are the gaps? Who are we up against? What is our value proposition, and why is it different, which is the hinge the other eleven turn on? What value have we created, and can we prove it? What is the strategy to grow and defend? What will it cost us? And what could go wrong?

Start at the end. The plan’s first customer is your own leadership team, and a plan that cannot answer these in their language will not be read, however good the analysis underneath. The planning tool asks all twelve, and reports upward in exactly that order.