Building the Account Score
A scoring model that ranks accounts by purchase likelihood is one of the highest-value assets a sales team can build. This lesson walks through building one from scratch.
Step 1: Define Your Scoring Attributes
List every attribute that correlates with a successful closed-won deal in your business. Start by analyzing your last 30 closed-won customers and looking for patterns. Common high-correlation attributes:
- Industry (specific verticals you win most in)
- Employee count range
- Technology stack matches
- Funding stage and recency
- Hiring signals (specific titles being hired)
- Website visit behavior (page type, session depth, return visits)
- G2 intent match
Step 2: Assign Weights
Not all attributes predict equally. Industry match and page visit behavior typically carry the most predictive weight. Assign points based on your analysis: industry fit (0 or 25 points), employee range (0 or 15), tech stack (0 or 20), pricing page visit (0 or 30), return visit (0 or 15), etc.
Step 3: Validate Against Historical Data
Score your last 50 closed-won and 50 closed-lost deals retroactively. If your model is working, closed-won deals should average 20–30 points higher than closed-lost. If they don't, adjust the weights until they do.
Step 4: Set Action Thresholds
Define: Score 80+ = immediate outreach (same day). Score 50–79 = standard queue (within 48 hours). Score 30–49 = low-priority queue (weekly review). Score below 30 = no immediate action, monitor only.
- Build your scoring model from closed-won data patterns, not intuition
- Validate retroactively against 50 closed-won and 50 closed-lost before deploying
- Set explicit action thresholds (80+ = same day) so scoring drives behavior, not just reports
- Recalibrate the model every 90 days as your market and product evolve