What you'll learn
By the end of this lesson you can explain the difference between working leads and working accounts, decide which one your deals need, and name the first three changes to make if the answer is accounts.
Two units of work
A lead is a person: a name, a title and a way to contact them. Lead generation finds many such people who match a description and asks each one for a conversation. When one does not answer, the next one is on the row below.
An account is a company you have decided, in advance, that you want as a customer. Account-based selling starts from that decision. You learn how the company is organised, find the people who would take part in a purchase and build conversations with several of them. When one person does not answer, the company is still on your list and there are other people to speak to.
The short version we use is "spears, not nets". A net is thrown wide and you keep what it catches. A spear is aimed at something you chose.
Why it matters more now
Writing and sending outbound messages used to take effort, and that effort limited how many a buyer received. AI tools and sending platforms have removed the limit. A message that took a person ten minutes now takes a machine no time at all, so senior buyers receive far more of them and trust them less.
When volume costs nothing, more volume is not an advantage. What is still scarce is evidence that the sender knows the company: what changed there this quarter, who is responsible for it and what it means for that person's work. You can only produce that evidence for a list short enough to study.
What changes when the account is the unit
| Working leads | Working accounts | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | A description of a buyer | A list of named companies |
| List size | As large as the data allows | As large as the team can work properly |
| Research | Per segment | Per account, and per person in the top tier |
| People contacted | One per company, sometimes two | Several roles in the same company |
| A contact goes quiet | Move to the next lead | Find the next relevant person in the account |
| Success measure | Replies and booked calls | Accounts with active conversations, and pipeline |
| Marketing's job | Fill the top of a funnel | Support the same list sales is working |
Neither column is wrong. They suit different sales.
Which model your deals need
Working leads fits when the deal is small, one person can say yes, the market holds thousands of similar buyers and the sales cycle is short. Losing one buyer costs little, so breadth wins.
Working accounts fits when the opposite is true. Answer these five questions about your last ten closed deals:
- Did more than two people on the buyer's side have to agree?
- Did the deal take longer than three months from first contact?
- Could you write down, today, most of the companies that could ever buy from you?
- Would winning one more of the right customers change your year?
- Did the deals you lost usually stall inside the company, with no clear "no"?
Three or more "yes" answers means your deals are account deals, whatever your current process is called. Many teams discover they have been using a lead process for an account sale: a wide list, one contact per company, and a pipeline full of single conversations that go nowhere.
The three first changes
1. Write the list before the message. Agree which companies you want, by name, before anyone drafts an email. The next two lessons in this course cover the ideal customer profile and how to score and tier the list.
2. Count people per account. For each company on the list, write how many people you have identified and how many you are talking to. If the answer is one almost everywhere, that is the main reason deals stall.
3. Change what you report. Replace "emails sent" and "calls booked" with "accounts in outreach" and "accounts with two or more people engaged". What gets reported is what gets worked.
What this does not mean
It does not mean less activity. A properly worked top-tier account takes more touches, across more channels and more people, than any lead on a list. The effort is concentrated, not reduced.
It also does not mean ignoring inbound interest. A good enquiry from a company that fits belongs on the list, where it gets the same treatment: who else is involved, and what is happening at the company now?
Key takeaways
- A lead is a person. An account is a company you chose in advance.
- Large deals that several people must agree are account deals, whatever the process is called.
- Write the list first, count people per account and report on accounts.
Exercise (15 minutes)
- Answer the five questions above for your last ten closed deals.
- Open your current pipeline. For each open deal, write the number of people on the buyer's side you have spoken to in the last 30 days.
- Circle every deal where that number is one. Those are the deals this course is about.
Why this works on named accounts
Put it into practice
Account Scoring Tool
Score target accounts on fit, timing and access, and sort them into Tier 1, 2 and 3. Runs in your browser.
Lead List vs Account List: 10-Point Check
For sales and marketing leaders about to launch outbound.
You leave with a 10-point check, a fix for every miss and a results sheet with a filled-in example.
Target Account Selection Scorecard
For founders and sales leaders who have an ICP on a slide and need a ranked list of named accounts.
You leave with a one-page ICP, an 11-point weighted scorecard and three tiers.