Hey there 👋
There’s no doubt about it – it’s been a challenging year, for the B2B sales / tech world and for everyone. You know the drill by now: downturn, tightened budgets, layoffs, uncertainty.
But I don’t want to focus on that today.
This is our last edition of From Vendorship → Partnership in 2022, so I’m taking a positive POV.
Today we’re celebrating all of the highlights & wins that happened this year for Accord and the broader sales community, and showing appreciation for the partners who have supported us along the way. 💙
Looking all the way back to January, I’m feeling extremely proud of what Accord has accomplished this year:
From launching the playbook gallery, to hosting 2 incredible offsites with our team, to hitting 100+ paying customers, to partnering with 30 Minutes to President’s Club & other industry pros, to making huge strides in our product, and much, much more.
Sharing a giant thank you to 3 groups in particular: our incredible customers & partners, our top-tier team of Accordions, and to YOU – everyone in the sales community who has followed along, finds this newsletter valuable, and supported us on the journey.
Hope you close out December strong & have a relaxing, safe holiday with your loved ones.
See you in 2023 👋
- Ross
A 2022 highlight: two amazing offsites with the best team of Accordions! 🙌
📚 Playbook Gallery: Sales Playbooks by Figma, Productboard & More
We’ve learned a LOT about what GTM teams need to quickly win and successfully onboard customers. Over and over, we heard people say: “I don’t want to start from scratch. How are others doing this?”
That’s why in March, we decided to launch the Playbook Gallery: a collection of sales & onboarding playbooks curated from the best B2B orgs!
Featuring playbooks from companies like Figma, Productboard, Skaled, Atrium, & more, the Playbook Gallery reached #2 on Product Hunt when we launched – but even better was the response from the community:
“Accord now gives teams the tools to drive consistency in their process and marries that with proven playbooks from the very best sales teams in the ecosystem. This is a huge win for the future of sales!”
Check out the Playbook Gallery to get inspo for your own sales process.
💙 Celebrating 100+ Customers
One of my favorite (& most embarrassing) moments of this year: celebrating reaching our 100+ customer milestone at Accord… with our customer appreciation rap. 🙈
Our customers are the heroes of the Accord journey, and they’re doing amazing things moving from vendorship → partnership with us.
Learn how we went from 0 → 100+ customers in a year & key lessons we picked up on the journey!
🎓 Masterclasses to Up-Level B2B Sales
One of our goals at Accord is to educate and up-level the B2B sales community, empowering sales teams to drive more deals & stronger partnerships. That’s why we strive to partner with the best sales leaders who are committed to doing the same!
This year, we hosted 20+ masterclasses & workshops for thousands of sellers & sales leaders. Here are a few standouts:
🛍 Selling to Modern B2B Buyers (with G2, Bravado & Navattic)
📈 How to Hit Your Sales Goals in a Downturn (with Thrive, Netomi & MessageBird)
🗺 Win More Deals with Mutual Action Plans (with Atrium, Salesforce & SalesPlaybook)
👯 Rally Your Reps Around Mutual Action Plans (with Drift & Todd Caponi)
In case you missed it, we also launched MAP University this month, a Mutual Action Plan workshop series for AEs & sales managers.
Our next workshops kick off in January – sign up to connect with your peers, get free Accord access for your team, and more!
🎙 On the Podcast: Seller’s Journey Recap
Early this year, we launched Season 2 of the From Vendorship → Partnership podcast: Seller’s Journey!
Since then, we’ve talked to dozens of top B2B sales leaders about building winning processes, scaling their teams, and partnering with buyers.
Check out our top episodes this year:
- Mark Roberge (Stage 2 Capital): Playbooks, PLG, & More
- Becca Lindquist (dbt Labs): Navigating the Early Stage Sales Journey
- Conor Dragomanovich (Productboard): How to Partner with Your AEs
Stay tuned for more conversations on the pod in 2023! 🎧
⚡ Accord Update Roundup
It was a big year for the Accord platform. A special thank you to all our users who give us the feedback & guidance we need to make Accord 10/10 – we couldn’t build this without you.
Here’s a roundup of the key features & updates:
✅ Approved domains: make sharing your Accords easier
✅ Health score: see buyer engagement levels at a glance
✅ Automatic Accord creation: automatically create MAPs for new deals
✅ Rich embedded content: add videos, sheets & more directly into MAPs
✅ Bi-directional syncing in Salesforce & HubSpot
✅ Timeline view: see all the next steps in a visual timeline
✅ Recommended timelines: focus on outcomes & create urgency
Try out these updates in your Accord workspace or schedule a demo!
Thanks for reading From Vendorship → Partnership 👋 Any requests for topics to cover in 2023? All ideas welcome – just hit reply :)
Ross Rich (CEO and Co-founder)
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