Every week on the Glowstick calendar, we have a recurring Design Review meeting with the entire team. Sales, Engineering, and Founders will all attend, and as the Founding Designer, I lead the session where we collectively focus on the design problem or solution for that week. Some days presenting in-progress thinking or completed work is exciting; the conversations spark new insights, collectively ideas are generated, and everyone leaves fulfilled.
But on some days, I feel the nerves kicking in, unsure if I’ve considered the problem from all directions, parsing feedback, tripping on my words and pixels. Showing one's work never gets easy because Design, like Film and Sport, is always open to critique, and we have good days and challenging ones!
So this year, in an effort to embrace the discomfort, I’m adopting the philosophy of "Designing in the Open". Credits to Brad Frost who talks about it as a way to get used to sharing one's work, getting feedback, reaching more users, and sparking conversations.
Today I’ll talk through one of the cool features we’re building at Glowstick - the Dynamic Whitespace Map. At Glowstick, we enable Account Managers in Post Sales to detect insights in their recorded customer conversations using AI. We integrate with call recording software like Gong and CRMs like Salesforce to surface actionable insights that the Account Manager can then prioritize into their workflow.
For those unfamiliar with Sales, the whitespace map visually represents an Account Manager's book of business, highlighting areas where a company can expand its revenue through the sale of products and services. However, the conventional whitespace maps, often crafted in Excel, face challenges with manual updates and complexity, especially in companies with diverse product offerings, vaguely resembling the one below. As a result, they lie forgotten in some folder gathering dust.
Enter the Dynamic Whitespace Map…
From our research and discussions with multiple Account Managers, we learned that Whitespace Maps are rarely static. Over a customer's lifetime, they are in a constant state of flux, buying new products or churning off of something else, and the Map needs to reflect that at all times to give the AM a true picture of where opportunities really exist.
What you see in this map is a filtered list of 20 accounts, but how does an Account Manager really decide where to focus their attention when quotas have to be met and time is ticking? Keep reading/watching as I share a few ways we’ve designed for this map to help the AMs be more strategic.
1. FILTERING:
The Renewal Date provides crucial information about when a customer will renew their contract. This insight gives Account Managers the bandwidth to strategically plan ongoing deals and tap into existing whitespace. Prioritizing by working back from the renewal date is one way to plan their work effectively.
2. GLOWSCORE:
So you’ve set up filters, and now your list of accounts went from 100 to 80. That's still A LOT of manual lift on the AMs' part.
🥁 DRUMROLL PLEASE 🥁
Enter the very cool GlowscoreTM️ – a game-changer. Leveraging metrics such as customer health score, pipeline deals, and last customer engagement, to mention a few, the Glowscore guides Account Managers towards specific accounts ripe for upsell or cross-sell conversations.
3. MEDDPICC:
MEDDPICC (or MEDDIC) is a proven Sales Qualification methodology. With Glowstick's secret AI sauce, we populate these criteria from calls the AM and CSM are having with the customer. This, in turn, empowers Account Managers to move forward with opportunities that exhibit stronger MEDDPICC strength compared to others.
For those hungry for more insights into AI-powered Whitespace Maps, check out the dedicated Glowstick podcast episode right here.
Till then, stay safe and curious! 🌟✨
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This Article was originally published on WeeklyOlio's Newsletter #66 under the Publishers Parmesan section.
