AE's acting Pricey

SDR Manager here. AE's don't pipe opps on time, skip mentoring sessions, don't help the SDRs much and act like the Kardashians. What's the best way to tackle this?

🎈 Mentorship
🥎 Training
🧢 Sales Management
15
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
25
☕️
They aren’t paid to do those things, they are paid to close business. How do you change behaviors that both fulfill their goals and those of you and your team? Incentives.
braintank
Politicker
9
Enterprise Account Executive
Bingo
jefe
Arsonist
0
🍁
Nailed it.
funcoupons
WR Officer
15
👑
We don’t get paid to babysit SDRs 
braintank
Politicker
9
Enterprise Account Executive
Precisely. If I don't make my number, my boss won't give 2 shits that I spent hours mentoring Jacob on Madison on the finer points of cold call tone. They'll ask: why aren't you focused on revenue generating activity? 
ThatNewAE
Big Shot
-1
Account Executive - Mid enterprise
+1. Sometimes we have to deal with Presales teams, customer onboarding teams and the heat of the upper management to get in $$$. Mentoring SDRs for no incentives (of any kind) attached to it, seems like an absolute waste of time when I could rather spend my time on the active deals in the pipeline. 
Sunbunny31
Politicker
10
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
Talk to your peer, the AE Manager, and collaborate on best practices that both teams can live with?
Gasty
Notable Contributor
2
War Room Community Manager
Thanks ! More so for not being of the “do your job properly” kind of a comment. Much appreciated
braintank
Politicker
9
Enterprise Account Executive
Do your job? It ain't my job to mentor SDRs.
Gasty
Notable Contributor
0
War Room Community Manager
damn! could never have thought about this all by myself.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
6
🦊
Brain has a point though boo.
braintank
Politicker
5
Enterprise Account Executive
I'm a stinker
saaskicker
Celebrated Contributor
4
Enterprise AE
Not sure how your org is structured. But I've seen this happen when the SDRs round-robin meetings/leads to any AE who is up next. If you want AEs to really invest in SDR growth you need to have pods or assign specific SDRs to AEs. I'm not that excited to spend time mentoring someone who is going to put meetings on anyone's calendar, if those meetings are coming to me, and I can mold that person to do what I'd like it's worth my time. 
Sunbunny31
Politicker
3
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
We are currently in round-robin, and our new SDR put time on my calendar to meet.    Not sure why - I don't make the handoff/transition rules, and I'm not going to manage a process.  I'll accept a calendar invite from the SDR...not sure what the intent of the 30 minutes is, but ok.
Diablo
Politicker
2
Sr. AE
I would do exactly what @Sunbunny31 said here. Talk to the AE manager to see where the synergy exists. It should be win win for both the parties. 
NotCreativeEnough
Big Shot
2
Professional Day Ruiner
it's not an AE's job to do those things. All the AE needs to do is accept the meetings then convert them to opps so the SDR gets paid. Anything else is the AE being genuinely nice and trying to help out the SDR. 

An AE taking an SDR under their wing and mentoring them is awesome. But it isn't part of their job and shouldn't be expected of them. 
Gasty
Notable Contributor
0
War Room Community Manager
@NotCreativeEnough
NotCreativeEnough
Big Shot
1
Professional Day Ruiner
yes?
cashmachine
Politicker
2
AE (Account Executive)
it’s not the AE’s responsibility to mentor/train the SDRs. that’s yours.
ABX
Opinionated
2
Account Executive
I can sell BJs until my mouth goes raw: but anything else? Not my job.
Notmyrealname
Politicker
1
AE
From my experience, the biggest divas are the ones that can't close anything and sit around complaining all day. Piping opps is important for sdr commish and mentality though. Worth trying to get that stamped out. I'm sure their VP would be interested in hearing that forecasting is not on point. 
SADNESSLieutenant
Politicker
1
Officer of ♥️
You should work with the AE manager and the director of SDR’s to make sales training for the SDR’s and to pay the SDR’s and AE’s on coaching and feedback. This is more so a culture question. Is your culture geared towards facilitating learning and improvement cross functionally?
TennisandSales
Politicker
1
Head Of Sales
talk to the AEs. 

let them know you want them to do their job but also know that their experience and insight could be really helpful and in turn help the SDRs get them more qualified opps. 

ask them what you could do to make it easier for them
Justatitle
Big Shot
1
Account Executive
Is there any incentive for them to do these things? Not saying it’s right or wrong but you’ll get deprioritized fast if not unfortunately 
SalesMama
Executive
1
Senior Account Executive
I feel in the minority here, but as an AE, I appreciate the value of a GOOD SDR and it’s worth my time to collaborate with an SDR that is smart and has a good attitude because that will lead to higher quality sourcing/leads from them. I think the key here is creating a structure where that partnership can actually grow, as mentioned above.

I disagree with the “it’s not my job” mentality to the extent that an SDR can actually enable me to do my job more efficiently if they’re good.

Caveat here would be complexity of accounts and variability of the install. It’s worth noting that my company sells a bunch of products and no 2 customers have the same setup, so understanding the specific account and what the likely fit might be is not something you can reasonably ask a 20 year old with no experience to do.
Gasty
Notable Contributor
2
War Room Community Manager
@SalesMama - I’ll write to bravado to add a Thank you button. To thank you for putting this out here.
legaltechsales
Good Citizen
1
Regional Sales Manager
Bruh, they're out there breakin' necks and cashin' checks.  If you send them the hotness, they'll be all over those leads and appts, if you send them garbage you'll never talk to them, just put them in yourself
ABX
Opinionated
1
Account Executive
If you make me do this I'll just start talking about the Rule of 5s & the Pareto principle and see how quickly you ask me not to coach your SDRs anymore.
16

Cranky AE

Question
19
5

Young SDR team, too few handoffs

Advice
9