Unlocking customer engagement and co-sell success with an MCEM-aligned account plan

While it takes a commitment of time and effort, developing a detailed account plan can help you move up in the decisioning process with your customers. Instead of engaging them in the highly competitive RFP stage, an account plan can help you home in on customer challenges and needs to identify opportunities and start conversations earlier.

As we explored in a previous blog post, the Microsoft Customer Engagement Methodology (MCEM) is a proven framework that’s designed to help partners effectively collaborate and co-sell with Microsoft while keeping customers at the center of every interaction throughout the sales cycle. Even if you already have an account planning process for your customers, creating an MCEM-aligned account plan can help build on your existing plans to focus on Microsoft priorities and help accelerate co-sell engagements. Plus, by approaching the customer jointly with Microsoft you can broaden the value delivered to the customer and further increase the likelihood of a successful sale.

Let's go ahead and take a look at some best practices for building an MCEM-aligned account plan:

Customer background deep-dive

A critical first step in your account plan is conducting a deep-dive to compile relevant background information that can inform conversations with the customer and give you a head start on a successful engagement. This not only tells your customer that you've done your homework and understand their unique needs but helps you (and your Micrsoft counterparts) better position an ideal offer for them. Topics to cover include:

• Document the customer context and background – what is their industry, who are their primary competitors, what are their business needs/challenges, and what are their key business objectives and technology objectives

• Identify major initiatives – what are the company’s business goals that are tied to your solution

• Determine who are the key stakeholders – who will be making decisions and what is their decision-making process

• Identify their technology partners – who do they primarily partner with for their technology needs (could be Microsoft and present opportunities for co-sell, competitors like Google or AWS, or could be a combination of hyperscalers)

• Note any budgets or IT spend knowledge – are you aware of any IT budget constraints, plans, or incentives they may be taking advantage of (or could be)

• Assess your current relationship with the customer – how can you improve or grow the relationship, and how can Microsoft help

• Identify challenges or barriers – are there any challenges you’ve faced within the customer account or barriers that are preventing them from achieving objectives       

As you work through this step, you can use existing knowledge from experience with the customer, as well as leveraging Copilot to supplement your available information and fill in gaps. Here are some examples of Copilot prompts that can be helpful:

Account strategy and timeline

This step will help you to define the overall account strategy to gain traction and maintain momentum while helping your customer achieve their overall business objectives and outcomes. This strategy can (and should) be developed at both an overall account level and also developed for each individual opportunity within the account.

You should aim to define the current state of the relationship, the desired relationship in 12-24 months, and the strategy for achieving the desired outcomes. Think also about any barriers or challenges that need to be overcome, new lines of business (LOB) you want to expand into, how you want to get involved in larger projects with the company, etc. It's also a good idea to assign individuals to own any actions and activities to ensure accountability.

Example of an account strategy planning worksheet

Account-based marketing

As you work through your account strategy, consider creative ways to begin engaging your customer with events or collateral specifically aligned to your customer, solution, and offer. This could be an email nurture campaign with relevant thought leadership content or case studies, an invitation to a webinar or other event, a well-crafted blog posts, etc.

Want help building your MCEM-aligned account plan? Get in touch with our Microsoft co-sell and account-based marketing experts!