Exec Summary

• We often confuse what’s a “good” vs “ready” prospect
• Tell the difference between the two, then blend for a single score

Good Accounts

• This is your ICP
• “Good” isn’t good enough

Ready Accounts

• They need to be in-market
• Start collecting readiness signals
• Favorite signals include:
  • Free trials
  • Internal changes
  • Pain point identified
  • Specific webpage visits

Creating a Matrix

• Engagement scoring should decay over time
• Lay your scores out in a matrix
• Explore different lead routing models
• Remember you’re selling to people

Listen to our podcast episode on Lead Scoring and Qualification

Most of us are doing account scoring wrong.

Why? Because we get confused on what makes an account good vs. what makes an account ready. 

Learn how to differentiate between the two and you’ll be scoring accounts better than most other B2B SaaS companies out there.

– And accurate account scoring means more effective outbound, ABM, and overall revenue generation.

What Makes an Account Good?

“The account is a fit for us.” 

Let’s use Union Square Consulting as the example here. This is how we define our ICP:

Companies who fit the criteria above might be considered a target account for us. However, this isn’t enough, is it? We need engagement, interest, and a well-defined pain point to make it the right time for us to connect.

What Makes an Account Ready?

“The people at the company have a pain point they want to solve now.”

There are a few ways to identify readiness signals:

• They may be available to our company via a data provider
• They may be triggered from our owned content (1st party signal)
• They may require a conversation with sales to really understand the customer’s needs

Scoring on readiness requires a solution that can receive inputs from several different sources and codify this into scoring activity. RevOps teams can send vital details to a campaign membership in Salesforce as a shortcut for timestamping activity and recording it at the contact or account level.

Here are my preferred readiness signals:

• Starting a free trial
• Looking at our pricing page
• Requesting a demonstration
• Open role being posted to hire
• Telling the SDR that “yes, this is an open project”
• Frequent website visits and content consumption
• Taking meaningful actions once they’re in the trial
• A pain point has been identified and recorded in the CRM
• Certain technology added or removed from the customer website

Putting This Into Action

Remember – the primary difference between “good fit” and “ready to buy” is that one condition changes much faster than the other.

A company that meets our ICP is likely to be a good fit for years to come. Suppose they are stuck in a competitive contract and NOT ready to buy. Does this lessen their quality? Definitely not. It just means their engagement isn’t high enough to spend a sales cycle.

This will change however, and that’s why dynamic and flexible engagement scoring that decays over time is so important to investing our sales resources in the right places.

Once you have determined both fit and engagement, lay the scores out in a matrix so that you can explore different lead routing models accordingly.

Your matrix might look something like this:

In B2B, You’re Not Selling to Businesses

None of us sell to “just a company”. If we’re in B2B, we sell to individuals who work at a company.

My biggest advice here is to evaluate our opportunity on 2 planes.

The company has to:

• Be a fit for our ICP
• Have enough budget
• Deploy the right technology

The people at the company have to:

• Show an interest
• Have pain points we can solve
• Have authority to buy what we sell

By looking at these 2 planes in a matrix we can thoughtfully route our best and most ready leads to sales for the fastest path to a deal possible.

If leads need more time, go ahead and nurture them. But make sure you flag the great ones with a high “account score” so that you know which accounts you want to invest in nurturing.

With fast follow up, a tight ICP, and a close eye on engagement, you can deploy resources more effectively and efficiently.

Iterate. Don’t Set It and Forget It. 

As we build our scoring model, we have to be highly iterative. Build an MVP and then look at conversion rates and ask sales about the quality of these accounts. Keep iterating until you’re seeing positive feedback from both and then continue iterating to make it even better and keep pace with the changing market.

There are very few things we can do in RevOps that have more impact than helping sales and marketing focus all their energies on the right accounts.