Capping the List to Your Capacity: How Many Accounts to Work

Why does the list need a ceiling?

You now have a list that is sourced, scored and timed. It is probably longer than you can work. That is normal: it is far easier to find accounts than to work them.

Without a ceiling, a list grows every time someone finds a good company. Each account gets a little less attention than the last. After a few months the team is sending the same message to a long list of names, and the list is a lead list with company names in the first column. The ceiling is what stops that.

How many accounts can you carry?

Start with hours, not ambition. Take the hours your team can give to named accounts each week, then hold some back.

The hold-back matters. An account that starts to reply costs more than one that does not: calls to prepare, people to find, answers to write. If every hour is planned, the first good news means another account gets dropped. A fifth of your hours is our working rule. It is judgement from our own work, not a measured figure.

The capacity sum (fill in the brackets)

Hours a week for named accounts:             [A]
Hours held back for accounts that reply:     [R]  (about a fifth of A)
Hours to plan:                               [P] = A - R

Hours a week one Tier 1 account needs:       [B]
Tier 1 accounts you want:                    [D]
Hours left for Tier 2:                       [E] = P - (B x D)

Hours a week one Tier 2 account needs:       [C]
Tier 2 accounts you can carry:               [F] = E / C

List size: D + F

Tier 3 accounts are not in this sum. They sit on a separate, lighter list, worked in one sweep a month.

Use your own figures. If you do not know how long an account takes, track the first four weeks and redo the sum. If F comes out below zero, cut D.

What happens to the accounts that do not fit?

Do not delete them, and do not work them a little. Give each one a place.

The bench is the useful one. It is ordered, so when a place opens the next account is already chosen and you do not have to start a search. It is also frozen on purpose. Research done on a bench account goes stale, and an hour spent on it is an hour taken from an account you are working.

How do accounts leave the list?

A cap only works if accounts leave. Without exits, the list fills with accounts that have stopped moving and the cap stops meaning anything. Agree three exit rules before you need them.

1. Won or opened. The account has become a customer or an opportunity with an owner. It leaves the worked list and gets a customer plan.
2. Out of reach. After [n] weeks of the full cadence, no role has replied. Park it with a date to look again. Choose [n] from your cadence. Ours is a 17-day sequence for Tier 1, so a few weeks is the shortest sensible figure.
3. No longer a fit. The company was acquired, changed direction or hired a supplier. Remove it and note why.

The rule that keeps the cap honest is swap, not add. A new account comes in only when one goes out. If someone wants to add a Tier 1 account, they name the one it replaces.

When can the cap rise?

Only for one of two reasons. Your hours have risen, or the accounts you are working need fewer hours than you planned. A good month of replies is not a reason. It is the reason you held hours back.

Before you raise the cap, check that the list you have is being worked:

• Every row has a next step with a date.
• Every Tier 1 account has at least three roles you can name.
• No signal is older than your review period.
• Every row has one named owner.

If any of these fails, the list is too long already. Raise the cap only when all four are true for a full quarter. Then add in small batches, and review again.

Worked example (illustrative, not a real company)

Quaywise sells warehouse software. Two people each give 15 hours a week to named accounts, so A is 30. They hold back a fifth, so R is 6 and P is 24. A Tier 1 account needs two hours a week. They want six: 12 hours. That leaves 12 hours for Tier 2, at half an hour each, so 24 Tier 2 accounts. All names and hours are invented.

Quaywise works 30 accounts, with three on the bench in score order. Northfield Logistics, a Tier 1 account, announces a second site and starts to reply. It needs extra calls and research, and the six held-back hours cover them, so nothing else is dropped. In the same week Calder Cold Chain, also Tier 1, has stayed silent through the whole cadence. It is parked with a date, and the first bench account takes the place that opens. The list is still 30.

What comes next?

You have finished this course. Your list is sourced, scored, timed and capped, and each account has a tier. The next step is to reach the people in it. The course Outbound That Gets Answered starts with the research you do before you write a word.