How I'd arm the AE to close a $58K expansion — from research and CRM setup through outreach, signals, and a scalable workflow for every account after this one.
We need to identify key people and their teams to build a complete account map:
Because FinServe is already a customer, we have a significant advantage: a lot of this data likely already exists in our systems. Third-party sourcing is the fallback, not the starting point.
Step 1 — Internal Data (Salesforce + Call Recordings): Start by searching our existing CRM data and call recordings. The compliance officer's "need better lineage" comment came from a meeting — that means there's likely a recording, notes, or a CRM activity log with their name. Same for the risk team's onboarding request. Check Salesforce contact records on the account, meeting notes, CS/AM call logs, and any existing account plans. This is the fastest and highest-confidence path to identifying these people.
Step 2 — Usage Data (Common Room): Pull product usage data from Common Room for the FinServe account. Which users are most active? What features are they using? Are there any users from outside Maria Santos' immediate team already logging in — especially anyone from risk management or compliance? This usage data gets aligned with the people data from Step 1 so the account map shows not just who the decision-makers are, but how they (or their teams) are already engaging with the product.
Step 3 — Fill Gaps (Clay): For any contacts we can't identify from internal sources, run a People Search in Clay. Filter by FinServe Group + titles containing "Risk," "Compliance," "Trading," "Data Engineering," "VP Technology." Use Clay's waterfall enrichment (Apollo → ZoomInfo) to pull verified email, phone number, LinkedIn profile URL, and current job title. This is the fallback for any gaps — not the primary source.
The output of this research is an Account Map / Org Chart of all identified decision-makers and end-users. Each contact record includes:
Key principle: As an existing customer, FinServe's data is already largely in our ecosystem. We leverage internal sources first (CRM, call recordings, product usage) and only go to third-party enrichment tools to fill gaps. This is faster, more accurate, and reflects how a GTM Engineer should work an expansion account differently than net-new.
The FinServe Group account already exists in Salesforce from the original deal. We don't need to create it — we need to add the expansion opportunity alongside the existing one.
The expansion opportunity should carry the key intelligence from our account research as custom fields, pulling from the data points we already have:
The core artifact — a visual buying committee map showing the org structure, each contact's deal role, their known need, and current engagement status. This gets linked or embedded in the Salesforce account record.
Each node includes LinkedIn URL, email, phone, title, and any aligned usage data from Common Room. The AE can see at a glance who to reach, what they care about, and where we have product engagement.
Tasks auto-populate into Salesforce from Outreach — this is where we set up sequences and steps. The AE works out of Outreach, and activity syncs back to the CRM automatically. More on the specific sequences in the next section.
For each buying group, we draft targeted emails in Clay using the enriched account data and known signals, then push the completed emails into Outreach sequences. The AE works entirely out of Outreach — they review, personalize if needed, and send. Tasks from these sequences auto-sync back to Salesforce.
In addition to email sequences, we'd set up automated LinkedIn connection requests to contacts across both the original team (to strengthen existing relationships) and the expansion teams (risk, compliance, trading desk). These would come from our Account Management or Customer Success teams — not the AE — so it feels like a natural extension of the existing relationship rather than a sales motion. This multi-threads the account across channels and surfaces additional intel from LinkedIn activity.
Before configuring anything, I'd sit down with the AE and understand what signals they actually care about most for this account. Every AE works differently — some want real-time alerts on everything, some want a weekly digest. The signal infrastructure should be built around how the AE wants to consume information, not how we want to deliver it.
That conversation would cover: What signals would change how you approach this account? Where do you prefer to see alerts — Slack, email, a doc? How often do you want updates? What's noise vs. what's actionable?
These signal sources act as triggers that push information to wherever the AE works best. The delivery method is a conversation with the AE — here are the options:
#acct-finserve) — real-time alerts as signals fire. Best for AEs who live in Slack and want to react quickly.The important thing is that signals are actionable and delivered where the AE already works. We'll configure the routing based on their preference and iterate as the deal progresses.
The AE gets three things that let them work the account immediately:
The AE should go from receiving this handoff to sending first outreach within 30 minutes. The account map gives them the "who," the 1-pager gives them the "why and when," and the Outreach sequences give them the "how" — all pre-built and ready.
Everything in Part 2 was manual — research, CRM setup, email drafting, signal configuration. The one thing I'd build to make this repeatable is a Slack App that kicks off the entire flow, from account intake through to ready-to-send sequences in Outreach.
AE fills out a Slack form: Account Name, Deal Type (Expansion / New Biz), Key Signal. Takes 2 minutes.
Form triggers a Clay workflow that first checks: do these contacts already exist in our CRM? If yes, pull existing data. If net-new, run People Search + waterfall enrichment (Apollo → ZoomInfo).
Clay pushes enriched contacts into Salesforce. Expansion opportunity created from template. Contact Roles assigned based on deal-role tags. Custom fields populated.
Clay drafts personalized emails for each buying group using the enriched data and known signals.
Completed emails pushed into Outreach sequences. Tasks auto-sync to Salesforce. AE is notified — ready to review and send.
We build out the full workflow — Slack form → Clay → Salesforce → Clay content generation → Outreach — and then QA test it heavily before rolling it out to the team. This means:
What this changes: The manual process from Part 2 (research, CRM setup, email drafting, sequence building) goes from 3-4 hours per account to a 2-minute Slack form submission + automated enrichment and content generation. The GTM Engineer's role shifts from doing the manual work to QA'ing the automated output, adding the strategic layer (account map, 1-pager), and iterating on the workflow as the team uses it.
Once the Account Launch Workflow is running and 15-20 accounts have been activated through it, there's enough data to build the next layer: a proactive expansion signal scoring model. Instead of waiting for an AE to say "help me work this account," the system surfaces the best expansion candidates automatically — scored on seat utilization, new team mentions, feature requests, contract timeline, and health trajectory. A weekly ranked list of the top 5 expansion-ready accounts, delivered to the AE team in Slack. That shifts the GTM Engineer role from reactive to proactive.