Building and Expanding your Circle of Influence with ABM

This article explores how companies can map their existing influential relationships, create concentric circles of expansion, and implement targeted ABM strategies to reach new accounts.

You’ll learn practical approaches for leveraging current champions, identifying high-potential “look-alike” accounts, and measuring the effectiveness of your expanding influence. This strategic method converts sporadic victories into predictable growth.

Understanding Your Current Circle of Influence

Before expanding your circle of influence through ABM, it’s essential to accurately assess where you stand today. Your current circle of influence represents the accounts and decision-makers where you already have meaningful connections, successful implementations, or established credibility.

Start by mapping out this existing influence sphere by identifying:

• Key accounts where you’ve achieved early wins: These represent your proven success stories and form the core of your influence.
• Champions within these accounts: These individuals have personally experienced your value and can advocate for your solution.
• Industry verticals where you’ve demonstrated success: Sectors where your solution has consistently solved specific challenges.
• Common decision-maker profiles: The types of stakeholders who typically see value in your offering.

Too often, companies rush to expand their reach without fully leveraging their existing circle of influence. By documenting your current influence network first, you’ll identify natural expansion opportunities and patterns that can inform your ABM strategy.

Building Concentric Circles of Influence

Once you’ve mapped your current circle of influence, the next step is implementing a systematic approach to expand outward. Think of this expansion as creating concentric circles, moving methodically from your core strengths to new, high-potential territories.

This concentric circle approach ensures that each new relationship connects naturally to your established credibility, creating a ripple effect that amplifies your market presence.

Identify “Look-alike” Accounts

• Analyze your successful accounts to find common attributes and buying signals
• Seek organizations with similar pain points, tech stacks, and decision-making structures
• Prioritize accounts that match your ideal customer profile but exist outside your current reach

Leverage Existing Champions as Bridges

• Create formal referral programs that incentivize your champions to make introductions
• Document and share success stories featuring your champions’ outcomes
• Host exclusive events where current champions can bring potential prospects

Target Strategic Adjacent Markets

• Identify industry verticals adjacent to your current success areas
• Adapt your messaging to address the specific challenges of these adjacent markets
• Develop targeted content that demonstrates understanding of these new contexts

Build Account-Specific Expansion Playbooks

• Create systematic outreach sequences for each target expansion circle
• Personalize content and touchpoints based on relationship proximity to your core influence
• Measure engagement and adjust approaches based on response patterns

By understanding what made your early wins successful, you can identify patterns that indicate where similar success is likely.

→ Your expanding circles should prioritize quality over quantity. Each new layer represents accounts with decreasing proximity to your core influence but increasing potential for market growth.

Activating Your Expanded Circle

With your concentric circles mapped out, it’s time to put your ABM strategy into action. The foundation of effective ABM implementation is understanding each target account deeply. Start by creating a simple one-page profile for each priority account that captures essential information:

• Three specific business challenges they’re facing based on their public statements
• Key decision-makers and their professional backgrounds
• Recent company developments that might create opportunities
• Content or topics they regularly engage with online

This research doesn’t require expensive tools – LinkedIn, company websites, and industry news provide plenty of insights when you know what to look for.

Next, plan how you’ll reach out to these accounts. Mix up your approach:

• Personalized emails that mention specific challenges they’re facing
• LinkedIn connections with thoughtful comments on their posts
• Targeted ads that speak directly to their industry challenges

The content you share should directly address their specific challenges. Instead of generic industry content, modify your existing materials to speak directly to their situation. For example, take a case study and highlight the parts most relevant to their industry or challenge.

The key is consistency and relevance. Don’t blast generic messages—show that you understand their specific situation.

Personalization doesn’t need to be complicated. Simple tactics like referring to a recent company announcement or congratulating them on an achievement shows you’ve done your homework and aren’t just sending mass communications.

Involve your sales team from the beginning. The best ABM approaches don’t separate marketing and sales efforts—they blend them together. Have regular check-ins where both teams discuss account progress and adjust tactics based on what’s working.

This straightforward approach ensures you’re not just hoping for results but actively building connections that expand your influence in practical, measurable ways.

Tracking Your Expanding Circle of Influence

To know if your ABM efforts are working, track these five straightforward metrics:

Meeting Rate: Count how many target accounts accept your meeting requests. If you reached out to 20 accounts and 5 agreed to meet, that’s a 25% meeting rate. Aim to improve this number each quarter.

Response Time: How long does it take for contacts to respond to your outreach? Faster responses often indicate stronger interest. Keep a simple log of the first outreach date and first response date for each account.

Deal Size: Track the average deal size from accounts in your ABM program versus your regular sales approach. If ABM deals aren’t larger, you might need to adjust your targeting.

Sales Cycle Length: Measure how many days it takes from first contact to closed deal. ABM should gradually reduce this timeframe as your influence grows.

Referral Rate: Count how many new introductions come from your ABM accounts. This is the clearest sign your circle of influence is actually expanding.

Don’t overcomplicate this. Use a simple spreadsheet if that’s all you have. The point isn’t perfect data – it’s seeing trends that tell you whether your circle of influence is growing or stagnant.

Review these numbers monthly and ask: “Are more people saying yes to meetings? Are deals closing faster? Are we getting more referrals?” If you can answer yes to these questions, your circle of influence is expanding.

When to Consider Expert Help for ABM 

As your circle of influence expands, you’ll reach a critical juncture where internal resources may struggle to keep pace with opportunities. This is when many growing companies face a key decision: continue building ABM capabilities in-house or partner with specialists to accelerate results.

The right time to consider outside expertise typically arrives when:

Your early ABM successes create demand for more sophisticated approaches

Your team is stretched thin trying to personalize content for numerous accounts

You need to systematize your process to scale beyond your first set of wins

If you’re a SaaS business that has reached $5M+ in ARR, secured some sales-led deals through relationships, and want to move from sales-led sales to systematic success, an expert partner like Inturact can dramatically accelerate your results.

Inturact’s ABM Accelerator Program is a compelling solution. Their 30-day program provides everything you need to transform early wins into repeatable processes:

• A Market Clarity Blueprint to identify and prioritize accounts worth 3-5x your current deal size
• ABM HubSpot Architecture to capture buying signals and automate personalization
• Playbooks with templates that resonate with C-suite buyers
• Metrics That Matter Dashboard with board-ready reporting templates

For companies using HubSpot who want to launch ABM in weeks instead of months, this structured approach eliminates the guesswork and accelerates your journey from early sales wins to systematic success.

Learn more about ABM Accelerator Program here →