From Aspiration to Attainment: Steer Clear of the 4 Riskiest Account Goal Setting Pitfalls

When it comes to setting account goals, not a lot of thought is put into it, and when you look at a set of account goals on a typical account plan, you might see statements like: 

• Maximize our share of the customer’s wallet
• Drive revenue growth from the account
• Establish our organization as a thought leader
• Become a trusted advisor
• Become the preferred solution provider
• Close opportunity X or Y

These sound great, right?  They have all the right buzz growth words right? 

So, what could possibly be wrong with those goals? What is missing?  Well, there are a few things amiss here.  Let’s take a closer look:

They are not Specific: 

Most business professionals have heard the acronym SMART as it applies to goal setting. It is a framework commonly accepted to help craft tangible goals and a means for achieving them. But the very first letter, or step in the process, is what we are missing in the bullet points above. There is nothing specific about any of them. In fact, they are very vague. That’s before we even get into whether any of those goals are measurable, actionable, relevant, or time-bound.

Read more about S.M.A.R.T goals here: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/smart-goals

They are not Realistic

There is nothing wrong with shooting for the stars when setting goals in business or personal endeavors. The harder something might be to attain, the harder we will push ourselves to get there. But there is a fine line between aspirational and realistic.  This means goals need to be achievable and realistic. Can they be achieved within the time frames set?  Do they require other things to happen first and therefore need to be broken down?  Are they actionable?  Have you allocated sufficient time to achieve them?  These are key questions to ask yourself to ensure your goals are realistic and therefore achievable. 

Focused more on yourself and not enough on the customer

If you look carefully at the goals we outlined above, they are 100% about the sellers without accounting for the needs of the customer. They are all about your products, your company, and what you want to achieve from the relationship. This will not benefit your customer and will not lead to sustainable account relationships and growth. 

Failure to Consider the Customer’s Current Situation:

Similar to the point above is the failure to sufficiently take the customer’s situation into account. It’s great to decide what you want to achieve within a specific account, but setting account goals in a vacuum in which the customer’s viewpoints and existing circumstances are not taken into consideration can result in setting unachievable goals and set you up for potential failure to achieve any goals. Imagine deciding you want to do a million dollars worth of business from a particular account without having any knowledge of their financial situation. Affordability may become a stumbling block, or they may not be able to utilize everything you sell them.  Therefore they will not be able to help you meet your target no matter how hard you try.

While these are not the only mistakes account managers make when setting goals they are the biggest and could potentially be the most costly. Ask yourself honestly how many of these you see happening in your own organization and what you can be doing to correct them. If none of them apply, I applaud you – but also caution you to take a deeper look.

Read about some additional mistakes account managers make when setting account in a previous blog:

If several of these stand out as potential issues in your organization, prioritize which ones will make the biggest impact if corrected and start there. But if the entire task seems too daunting, we are here to help!