Multi-threading and exec alignment: The secret to winning up-market

Need to win up-market in 2023? If you’re not talking to multiple leaders, your deals are at risk! In this masterclass, a panel of sales & revenue leaders dove into tactics for driving executive alignment and multi-threading on every opportunity.

We covered:

• Strategies for multi-threading & reaching key decision makers
• How to quantify exec-level challenges & get ‘above the line’
• Tactics for creating 10/10 business cases across every rep & deal

Featuring top revenue leaders:

• Josh Roth, VP of Commercial Sales, Lob
• Vanessa Metcalf, RevOps & Sales Enablement leader
• Nicole Lieberman, Enterprise Sales Leader
• Ross Rich, CEO & Founder, Accord

Watch the full masterclass and get the key takeaways below!

Multi-threading and account mapping

Last year, the typical buying team size increased by 25%. This means that more people than ever have an influence on whether deals get done – and especially more executives, including CFOs.

The key to ensuring that your solution is aligned with business-level priorities and initiatives is effective multi-threading. Multi-threading involves engaging with multiple stakeholders within a target organization to build relationships, influence decisions, and increase the likelihood of closing a deal.

The approach requires identifying key personas and stakeholders, understanding their priorities and pain points, and tailoring your outreach and sales process accordingly.

Multi-threading tips:

• Especially if you’re selling enterprise deals, map out the org structure and have a game plan going into every account (we’ll cover more tips for this below).
• Loop in key decision makers as early as possible to build credibility and trust, and so you can understand their priorities.
• Build an executive summary or business case for every deal, so that execs or other stakeholders can get a big-picture view of the most important details.

Persona and stakeholder mapping tips:

• Identify different personas within target organizations, such as department heads, C-suite executives, and key decision-makers.
• Understand their unique concerns, pain points, and priorities so you can adjust your messaging and process.
• Map out stakeholders involved in the buying process, considering their influence, authority, and level of engagement.
• Develop tailored strategies for each stakeholder category, aiming to build relationships, gain support, and address concerns effectively.

Aligning your solution to the buyer’s problem:

• Identify exec-level pain points or initiatives that your solution can help solve or improve. The bigger the problem, the better.
• Understand and communicate the business impacts of these challenges, highlighting both the specific expected outcomes of your solution (ROI) and the cost of inaction (what will happen if a solution is not implemented).
• Quantify it WITH your buyer. Get as specific as possible with the goals / outcomes you’re driving toward, and align on the numbers with the key stakeholders.

Driving consistency and rigor

Equip your reps with effective plays that align with each persona and stakeholder type, and establish a common language and process across the sales team to ensure consistency and alignment. Conduct regular deal reviews to maintain accountability, share insights, and identify areas for improvement.

Leverage tools like Accord to track buyer engagements, conversations, and deal progress, and to drive consistent execution across your team.

Josh shared this 4-question deal checklist his team uses to understand whether a deal is in a good place:

1. Are next steps on the calendar?
2. Are we multi-threaded?
3. Are we texting with our champion?
4. Have we started a value analysis?

Establishing processes and frameworks such as the deal checklist helps standardize deal execution and drives consistency.

Interested in learning more about how to up-level your enterprise deal execution? Book a demo of Accord to see proven playbooks and strategies from 100+ GTM teams like Figma, Stripe, and Mosaic.