Kit 07: account growth
Account Growth Kit
Grow the clients you already have: spot the extension trap, run a quarterly review that earns the next piece of work, and pay commission for revenue that stays.
This kit is about growing the clients you already have. It is for the managing director or head of client services at a hybrid services firm, somewhere between £1m and £20m in revenue, selling projects alongside retainers or managed services, where most new revenue ought to come from existing clients and too little of it does.
It starts with a diagnostic for the extension trap: the account that only ever grows by extending the work already sold, until the engagement ends and the revenue goes with it. Then every account's revenue is typed by commitment, from contracted and recurring to one-off, so you can see how much of an account would still be there next year if nobody sold it anything new.
The centre of the kit is the provider-side quarterly business review: run by you, about the client's business rather than your service levels, and built to earn the next statement of work rather than to report on the last one. An executive sponsor review keeps a senior relationship alive on both sides, and an account plan turns what the reviews find into what you sell next and when.
The last part is paying for it. Commission for a services firm is designed around total contract value, term, the margin on anything resold and a clawback when a client leaves early, so the people who sell are paid for revenue that stays. Every rate in the model is invented, labelled as such and yours to set.
It is written from how I ran DevOpsGroup, from my notes and my recollection, and every example in it is invented.
What you will get
Who it is for
Questions
- What is a provider-side QBR?
- A quarterly business review run by you, the provider, about the client's business rather than your ticket counts or service levels. Done well, it ends with the next piece of work agreed. The kit gives the template and the account plan it feeds.
- What is the extension trap?
- An account that only ever grows by extending the work already sold. It looks healthy until the engagement ends and the revenue leaves with it. The kit's diagnostic shows which of your accounts are in it.
- How should commission work in a services firm?
- The kit designs it around total contract value, term, the margin on anything resold rather than its price, and a clawback when a client leaves early, so salespeople are paid for revenue that stays. Every rate in the model is invented and yours to set.