Manage Your Customer Portfolio Like the Strategic Asset It Is
Think Like an Investor
For years, companies have implemented key account management programs hoping to strengthen relationships with their most important customers. Some have achieved impressive results. Most have not. The problem isn't the concept. It's the execution. Too often, key account programs focus on servicing today's largest accounts without a disciplined strategy for developing tomorrow's largest accounts. They lack executive sponsorship, cross-functional alignment, meaningful performance metrics, and a systematic process for allocating resources. I believe there is a better approach.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) should be viewed as an Account-Based Growth strategy
Marketing plays an important role, but sustainable growth comes from the coordinated efforts of Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Operations, Finance, Engineering, and executive leadership.
Think Like an Investor
Every business carefully manages its financial assets, physical assets, intellectual property, and people. Your customer portfolio deserves the same discipline. Not every customer contributes equally to your future. Some provide exceptional lifetime value and strategic insight. Others have tremendous growth potential. Some generate consistent profits with relatively little investment, while others consume resources without creating long-term value. An Account-Based Growth strategy recognizes these differences and allocates resources where they will produce the greatest long-term return.
Classify Your Customer Portfolio
A healthy portfolio contains several categories of accounts, each requiring a different strategy.
Most Valuable Customers (MVCs) - your most important business assets
They generate repeat business, purchase multiple products or services, provide referrals, collaborate on innovation, and strengthen your market reputation. Because they trust your company, they frequently tell you what they need before your competitors even know an opportunity exists. For each MVC you should have a unique plan to protect and expand these relationships and become increasingly difficult to replace. Executive sponsorship, peer-to-peer relationships across multiple functions, strategic business reviews, joint planning, and exceptional execution all reinforce your position with the MVC.
Most Growable Customers (MGCs) Represent Tomorrow's MVCs
These organizations fit your ideal customer profile and demonstrate the potential for significant growth, but they require intentional investment. Every MGC should have an account development plan that identifies relationship gaps, growth objectives, new applications, additional services, cross-selling opportunities, and the actions necessary to strengthen your strategic position. Success is measured by How many MGCs become MVCs each year.
Second Tier Customers (STCs)
STCs are profitable accounts that deserve an excellent experience but do not justify intensive account management. The strategy is efficient retention. Marketing automation, educational content, customer success programs, periodic relationship reviews, and selective sales engagement allow these customers to remain loyal while using relatively few organizational resources. Customer portfolios are dynamic. As an STC grows, changes leadership, expands geographically, or begins using additional services, it may earn promotion to MGC status. Likewise, an MGC that no longer demonstrates strategic potential may return to the STC category.
Below Zero Customers (BZs)
Every organization has customers that consume disproportionate time and resources while creating little strategic or financial value. These accounts typically purchase primarily on price, require excessive support, and have little interest in building a long-term partnership. The goal isn't necessarily to terminate these relationships, but to avoid allowing them to consume resources that could produce significantly greater returns elsewhere.
In Summary - Different Accounts Require Different Investments
Managing every account identically isn't customer-centric. It's resource inefficient.
- MVCs deserve executive involvement and strategic planning.
- MGCs deserve purposeful development and investment.
- STCs deserve efficient, high-quality service supported by repeatable processes and technology.
- BZs deserve only the level of investment justified by their contribution.
Measure the Health of Your Customer Asset Portfolio
Growing revenue is important. Understanding where that growth comes from is even more important. As your revenue grows, the objective should be to continuously expand the revenue pie by adding new strategic accounts while simultaneously increasing revenue from existing customers through repeat business, new applications, expanded services, and referrals. The strongest companies don't replace lost revenue. They compound existing revenue.
Several KPIs reveal whether your Account-Based Growth strategy is working:
- Revenue growth from existing accounts: repeat business, and additional products, services, or applications.
- Revenue generated from newly acquired strategic accounts.
- Number of qualified referrals received from existing customers.
- Number of MGCs promoted to MVC status.
- Number of STCs promoted to MGC status.
- Customer retention within each account classification.
- Lifetime Value (LTV) of the customer portfolio.
- Percentage of total revenue generated by MVCs, MGCs, and STCs.
These metrics tell a far richer story than quarterly sales alone. They reveal whether your customer asset portfolio is appreciating in value.
Organizational Alignment Makes It Work
People and process create a competitive advantage.
- The marketing process continually stays in touch with timely content designed for each customer category while the account management process facilitates 1to1 relationships with MVCs and MGCs.
- Operations delivers Wow experiences that encourage repeat business.
- Finance measures profitability by customer.
- Engineering and Product Development identify opportunities for innovation.
- Leadership allocates resources and keeps the organization focused on long-term customer value.
- Technology enables consistent and efficient execution. CRM and MA platforms, and AI tools make this coordination easier by providing visibility into account health, relationship strength, buying signals, and account development activities.
The Bottom Line
The most successful companies don't think of customers as transactions. They think of them as appreciating business assets. They intentionally protect their MVCs, systematically develop their MGCs, efficiently retain their STCs, and continually add new strategic accounts that expand the overall revenue pie.
That's why I believe Account-Based Marketing is best understood as an Account-Based Growth strategy. It's not a marketing initiative. It's an enterprise-wide business strategy for increasing the long-term value of your customer portfolio—one strategic account at a time.
