How Accord Turned Stakeholder Mapping Into a Built-In Sales Motion

Enterprise reps know they should multithread. The problem is, doing it well usually means hours of digging.

For Accord, that gap was hard to ignore. Their Revenue Excellence Platform helps B2B sales teams operationalize value selling within the deal itself, so it actually gets used, not forgotten in a slide deck. But one of the most important parts of enterprise selling, stakeholder mapping, still required too much manual effort.

By embedding Apollo’s data API directly into its platform, Accord made it easier for reps to find the right people and build stronger deal coverage — without leaving the workflow.

Multithreading: it works, but it’s slow

Accord is built around a simple idea: sales teams already know what great execution looks like. The challenge is making that behavior consistent across every deal.

In enterprise sales, that often comes down to multithreading — identifying the right stakeholders and building relationships across the account.

Before Apollo, that work was still largely manual. Reps would jump between LinkedIn, company websites, and other tools, trying to figure out who mattered and how they fit into the deal.

It worked, but it was slow. And more importantly, it wasn’t consistent. When something takes extra effort, it’s easy to skip.

Why Accord chose Apollo

Accord knew this wasn’t the kind of problem it wanted to solve from scratch.

The team evaluated external vendors with a clear focus: speed, data quality, and how easily their engineers could get up and running.

Apollo stood out quickly.

Apollo also delivered where it mattered most for the end user. During testing, Accord saw strong stakeholder matching, better coverage, and more complete profiles — including something especially important for their product: profile pictures.

For a visual stakeholder mapping experience, that detail makes a difference. Reps aren’t just looking at names, they’re building a mental model of the account.

Bringing stakeholder discovery into the workflow

Today, Apollo helps power stakeholder recommendations directly inside Accord’s platform.

Instead of leaving the product to do research, reps can identify relevant stakeholders, add them to the map, and build out their understanding of the account in one place. From there, they can track influence, sentiment, and notes as the deal evolves.

That shift, from manual research to embedded recommendations, is what makes the feature work.

“The easier you make these activities, the fewer excuses there are,” says Chittoor.

Stakeholder mapping is a core part of how Accord helps teams execute better deals. Making it easier to use means more reps actually do it — not just the top performers.

Easier to adopt, faster to build

With Apollo embedded into the experience, stakeholder discovery no longer feels like extra work.

Reps don’t have to carve out time for research. The information shows up where they’re already working. That alone makes the feature more valuable in both demos and day-to-day use.

As for customers? They love it too.

“We’ve moved from aspirational multi-threading to actual multi-threading with Accord Stakeholder Maps and Stakeholder Recommendations," says Bayley Fesler, Director of RevOps at Xactly. 

For Accord, the benefits weren’t just on the user side. The integration itself was quick to implement, allowing the team to stay focused on the product experience.

The new normal

Accord set out to make great sales behavior easier to execute, not just easier to define. By embedding Apollo directly into Accord, they’ve made stakeholder intelligence something reps actually use, not something they have to go find.

As Ross Rich, CEO of Accord puts it:

“Whether it's creating Account Plans, driving deals forward, or post sales renewals / expansion; every stakeholder is identified immediately so sellers can multi-thread and proactively engage consistently.  No more skipping key personas, tab switching, or detective work across LinkedIn, CRM, and separate systems. Just reps who are recommended exactly who to engage, when, on every deal & account. Apollo's technology and data made this easy to unlock.”