The Enterprise Account That Looks Like a Promotion
Priya is a mid-market account executive with three years at the company and 118% of quota last year. You have delegated her book of business for 18 months because she runs it independently. Last month she closed a $240,000 mid-market deal in 45 days and came to you energized: she has been assigned her first Fortune 500 prospect, a nine-month, seven-stakeholder enterprise cycle with procurement, security review, and a CFO business case. She has built a 40-slide product deck, booked a demo with the VP of operations, and forecasted a close in 60 days. She has never run a discovery call with a CFO, has not mapped the seven stakeholders, and has not asked for help. Your VP wants a weekly forecast and has flagged the account as a must-win. Priya's enthusiasm is genuine; her mid-market D4 is not in question.
1. Diagnose Priya for the enterprise account. Why is D1 the better call than D4 or D3, and what evidence would you cite?
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Diagnose D1 for the enterprise account: high commitment, low competence on this task class. Competence evidence: she has never run a CFO discovery call, has not mapped seven stakeholders, has no enterprise procurement or security-review experience, and built a 40-slide product deck and a 60-day forecast that do not fit a nine-month cycle. Those are not D4 behaviors for this goal. Commitment evidence: she is energized, took initiative, booked the demo, and volunteered for the account. That high commitment is real but does not compensate for the missing enterprise skill set. D3 would require moderate-to-high competence on this task plus variable commitment; she lacks the enterprise experience and her commitment is high, not variable. Her mid-market D4 is valid for transactional deals, but SLII diagnosis is task-specific. The risk is that her confidence and past quota look like readiness. If you treat her as D4, you delegate and she will run a mid-market play against an enterprise buyer. If you treat her as D3, you support without teaching stakeholder mapping and discovery. D1 is the working diagnosis, with a plan to move to D2 as she encounters real enterprise complexity.
2. What S1 directing behaviors would you use in the first 30 days, and how would you keep from crushing her enthusiasm?
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Use S1 directing: high direction, lower support, with enough encouragement to sustain momentum. Direction: define the goal in milestones, not just a quota; require a stakeholder map with role, influence, and current stance for all seven players; provide a discovery-question guide for the CFO and review her first call plan before it happens; build a mutual action plan with procurement and security-review dates; set a 60/90/180-day forecast instead of a 60-day close. Show her how to run the first enterprise discovery, rather than telling her to 'go get it.' Support: frame this as a new game, not a demotion. Say: 'Your mid-market record is why you got this account. Enterprise is a different sport, and I'm going to coach the first few plays.' Recognize the initiative she has already shown, but be explicit that the 40-slide deck is not the plan. Do not delegate the account yet. The trap is mistaking enthusiasm for competence and then blaming her when the forecast slips.
3. When and how would you transition Priya to S2, and what evidence would tell you she is ready for more autonomy?
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Transition to S2 coaching when she can perform the core enterprise behaviors with review rather than instruction. Evidence markers: she produces a complete stakeholder map without a template, runs a CFO discovery call that surfaces a business problem and a metric, and builds a mutual action plan with procurement and security milestones. At that point, direction stays high but support increases: you review her plan and ask her to defend trade-offs, rather than scripting the call. A practical checkpoint is day 30 and day 60. At day 30, if the stakeholder map and discovery plan are sound, move from S1 to S2. At day 60, if she is running discovery and updating the forecast with evidence, begin testing S3 by letting her lead account strategy while you stay available for enterprise navigation. Do not jump to S4 just because the forecast looks good. S4 requires demonstrated competence and sustained commitment on this task class, not one strong meeting. Contract the transition explicitly so she knows what earns more autonomy.