The Target Account Selling (TAS) method: What it is and steps to implement it

Are you sick of your sales funnel generating low-quality, low-interest leads? It’s a constant struggle in the B2B sales realm to source leads who are actually interested in what you’re offering.

According to the 2023 ViB State of B2B Marketing Report, 54% of marketers said generating better quality leads was their biggest challenge.

Thankfully, filling your sales funnel with more qualified leads is possible — and the Target Account Selling (TAS) system is just the tool to make it happen.

In today’s guide, we reveal what TAS is, how it works, and what your sales reps can do to implement and work a list of target accounts.

What is Target Account Selling (TAS)?

The Target Account Selling process is a strategic methodology where sales professionals focus on selling to a small group of high-value accounts. In other words, it’s a sales approach that prioritizes quality over quantity.

Salesforce revealed back in 2022 that sales reps spend only 28% of their time actually selling, and TAS is a strategy that’s designed to boost that percentage and increase your team's productivity.

But how does successful Target Account Selling (TAS) work in practice?

Successful organizations use a combination of personalized marketing and sales strategies to target high-value accounts. The goal is to unlock enterprise-level opportunities by concentrating the team’s effort and time on critical accounts.

Options for targeting new accounts include:

• Using technology to launch conversations with qualified leads
• Updating your CRM to target accounts that fit your TAS approach
• Examining your competitors’ customers through their websites, social media, and reviews
• Exploring social media to target specific job roles that have converted in the past

Sales teams then split potential targets into tiers, ranked by importance, before deploying strategies tailored to the prospect.

Target Account Selling vs. Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Are they the same?

On a side note, some people often use TAS and ABM interchangeably. They’re similar, but not the same.

Both rely on multi-people, multi-touch approaches to land sales using all available data. The difference is in the focus. TAS concentrates on the sales process and the actions of your entire sales team, whereas ABM focuses on alignment between the sales and marketing teams.

Successful go-to-market organizations use TAS and ABM in tandem to achieve their goals.

4 core elements of the Target Account Selling methodology

Now that you know the basics of Target Account Selling, let’s dig deeper into the steps that lead to successful TAS implementation.

Here are the four core elements of the TAS methodology:

1. Establish some criteria for target account selection 

The cornerstone of this sales methodology is focusing your time and energy on select high-value accounts. So, the first step is to highlight those target accounts.

Begin by selecting the criteria you’ll use to identify accounts with the biggest revenue potential for your business. 

Examples of common criteria include:

• Company size: Is the company large enough that it makes sense for you to invest time and resources into selling to them?
• Industry vertical: Is the target company’s niche a good fit for your solutions?
• Geography: Do you serve the area the target operates in?
• Annual revenue: Is the company’s yearly revenue high enough to make it a high-value account?
• Past purchase history: Does the company have experience purchasing solutions from companies similar to yours?
• Target customer profile: Does the company match your ideal customer profile (ICP)?

This is where the more data you have, the better. Teams usually focus on the data within their CRM systems and utilize third-party B2B contact databases to find worthwhile leads. Don’t be afraid to leverage your personal and professional networks either.

2. Research all potential target accounts that meet your criteria

Identifying potential accounts is the first phase of your research. Phase two is selecting the best ones and creating a shortlist of actual target accounts for your sales team.

In-depth research is key here. Study each company, its needs, and whether they fit your solutions. Examples of elements to research include:

• Company history
• Recent news
• Key decision-makers
• Financial situation
• Needs and wants
• Competitors
• Growth potential

All this information will give you a fairly comprehensive customer profile that’ll serve as both an advantage during sales conversations and a lead prioritization tool.

3. Identify relationship-building strategies

Relationships are the pillar of successful B2B sales. According to HubSpot’s 2024 Sales Trends Report, 82% of B2B sellers said relationship building was the most essential part of their job. The TAS methodology is no exception; relationship-building skills are critical for successful implementation. 

However, building relationships with decision-makers is challenging. Every target's buying process differs, so developing those relationships will take time and effort. Here are some elements of successful relationship-building using the TAS strategy:

• Identify and connect with key decision-makers
• Focus on building a personal connection
• Create value at every touchpoint
• Share valuable content, including blogs, infographics, eBooks, and courses
• Host events, such as in-person conferences, webinars, and workshops

However your team chooses to build and nurture relationships with target accounts, every tactic must be coordinated and work together. TAS is a holistic ecosystem, with every activity designed to move prospects one step closer to becoming a customer.

4. Execute, test, and refine your sales strategy

Cookie-cutter sales strategies don’t work with TAS. Every target account needs a tailored, highly personalized sales development experience. These custom interactions move leads through the deal cycle, nurture relationships, and close deals faster.

In your earliest conversations, begin by understanding your qualified lead’s pain points. This is the launchpad for developing a message or value proposition that will resonate with them. With that in place, you can best position your product or service as the ideal solution.

This laser-focused approach yields results, but over time, you’ll iterate based on customer feedback and optimize it even further, settling on the tactics that empower you to close more business.

Benefits of Target Account Selling

Targeted Account Selling is a popular B2B sales methodology because of its many advantages over traditional sales models.

Some of the reasons to implement TAS include:

• Better ICP fit: TAS is an outbound strategy that ensures the leads your sales reps target are already qualified. Your team is investing more time into prospects who have a reasonable chance of closing.
• Target high-value accounts: One of the goals of TAS is to target the highest-value accounts you can find. While you may close fewer deals overall, the deals you do close will be more substantial, thus growing your business.
• Shorter sales cycles: The upfront work of TAS shortens deal cycles because you’ve already assessed whether or not a company is a good fit for your solutions.
• Enhanced customer experience: The hyper-personalized nature of TAS often leads to a better customer experience for your prospects; your strategy is literally built for them.
• Grow your brand: Well-executed personalization almost always improves a brand's reputation. It’s a competitive advantage that propels you ahead of the pack. 

Challenges of Target Account Selling

Like any B2B sales methodology, Target Account Selling has its challenges. Acknowledging these challenges makes it easier to find solutions to overcome them and gain buy-in from your team.

Here’s a rundown of the challenges you’ll likely face:

• Time to refine: TAS's personalized nature means you’ll spend more time refining every part of the ecosystem to optimize your results.
• Account identification: Identifying suitable, high-value leads takes more time and resources from reps. You’ll need to conduct in-depth research to make this strategy effective.
• Risk: Don’t fall into the trap of over-rationalizing why an account is a great target. Your team must be ruthless, or you risk wasting considerable time on mediocre prospects.

3 final Target Account Selling strategies

Target Account Selling’s power comes from improving resource efficiency, focusing on high-value accounts, and delivering personalized strategies. Here’s how to get started with TAS:

1. Develop a personal connection with key decision-makers

Assuming you’ve identified the key decision-makers within a company and learned about them, your next priority is to build a personal connection with them.

Do you have something in common, such as recently attending the same webinar or trade show? Use it. Find what connects them to you.

Speak to their wants and needs in a professional setting. For example, consider the departmental head under pressure to cut costs and increase efficiency. How does your solution address those issues?

Focus on delivering value at every turn. Ask yourself: “Why should this individual take the time to speak to me?” You're not delivering value if you don’t have a good answer. Respect their time by giving them something that supports them in their goals.

Finally, like any great relationship, it takes time and effort to build. Don’t try to force the connection, or you risk turning your target away.

2. Create value for your target accounts with custom offers

Gain your seat at the meeting table by sending fresh offers to your prospects when the time is right. B2B agents have a habit of looking at the sales process in isolation when the reality is that high-value leads are probably fielding multiple vendors and relationships at once.

Stand out by showing you’ve put real thought into your offers instead of submitting an obvious template. Sharpen your offer by prioritizing what matters to your prospect, which you should've learned during the relationship-building stage.

3. Leverage technology to optimize your sales process

TAS is about relationship building and delivering a personal touch to every sales cycle, but that doesn’t mean software can’t be used to optimize and improve the process. Here are some of the ways you can implement different tools to amplify your success rates:

• CRM software to manage new and existing accounts
• Data analytics tools to support target identification and behavior tracking
• Sales engagement tools to personalize cold outreach and mail merges
• Communication tools to streamline how you engage with targets
• Artificial intelligence to deploy predictive analytics

Is Target Account Selling the right approach for your sales team?

Many sales teams ask, “What’s the best approach to Target Account Selling?” before asking whether it’s even the right overarching strategy for them. Countless B2B sales methodologies exist, and not all of them work for everybody.

Targeting specific clients works best in the B2B space, which suits complex sales environments and high-value leads. Due to the work involved, it’s best deployed when aiming for high-value sales involving multiple decision-makers and committees.

Level up your workflows by effectively managing sales relationships with Streak

Targeted Account Selling is a sales strategy powered by data and relationship management, but managing multiple deals, all in different stages, presents a challenge — and this is where Streak comes in.

With Streak, you finally have a CRM tool that tracks deals, KPIs, and data on your leads. With features like funnel reports, pipelines, and more, this is the last CRM tool you'll need to manage your sales process, action items, and historical interactions.

Try it out for free today by requesting a free 14-day trial. You’ll join the ranks of 750,000+ happy customers using Streak to manage their sales strategies and business relationships right in Gmail.