Long live the Full-Cycle AE!

As I think about how to build out the Bravado sales team, I've been mulling one thing over and over in my head: Do I want to hire an SDR team or just bring on full-cycle AEs?

And the more I think about it, the more obvious the answer gets: Full-Cycle AE ๐Ÿ‘‘ย 

The biggest reason is my fear of creating dependencies. If my AE team is reliant on SDRs to set meetings, and the SDR team struggles... we miss quota. It's easy to say "oh we'll just have our AEs prospect too in that case", but hard to manifest on a dime.

By having full cycle AEs, each person is an atomic unit of success unto themselves. That isolates my risk and allows a couple overperformers to save the month in a way that the SDR / AE split doesn't afford.ย 

What am I missing?ย 
๐Ÿ“ˆ Closing
๐Ÿ‘‘ Sales Strategy
โ˜๏ธ Software Tech
10
UrAssIsSaaS
Arsonist
1
SaaS Eater
The biggest issue with full sales cycle AE's is that its hard to find someone that is actually good at the entire sales cycle. Strong sales orgs have their best prospectors prospecting, their best closers closing, and their best AM's managing and upselling accounts.ย 

With full sales cycle AE's its harder (though not impossible) to become excellent in every phase of the sales cycle.

However it also depends a ton on the type of sales you are doing, high velocity, transactional sales are way easier to own full sales cycle than larger scale enterprise SaaS sales motions.ย 
CCP
Opinionated
1
VP, Business Development
Yup, agreed. You can then add an inside element in the future to compliment your hunters' performance (assuming they're killing it - which they will) and to manage in-bound leads once you get a certain volume of them. Couldย  take a few years but better than paying SG&A costs upfront to a team that isn't being 100% efficient.ย 
FlintIronstag
Notorious Answer
0
Chief Marketing Officer
I'd start with full cycle AE's until they are too busy to focus on closing. Try to plan for that, then get them an SDR. You want role specialization but you don't to start with a busy SDR and an AE who doesn't have a full day's worth of work. That can be bad.
friendlyginge
Politicker
0
Account Executive
Iโ€™m an outbound full cycle AE and I love it. I can take full ownership of my business, and will never get lazy on opp creation because that means less money for me. Senior reps at my org are still full cycle but they get passed the inbound leads, whereas we have to hit a certain quota before being able to take on inbounds. Its a good form of motivation to get better at prospecting.
GDO
Politicker
0
BDM
Well Sdrโ€™s are cheaper. So them taking a part of the job is more efficient. Then AEs can do the job they earn more for.ย 

also full cycle aes that can do it all are hard to find. Everybody has strong and weak parts.ย 
Justatitle
Big Shot
0
Account Executive
Full cycle is great and all and important but can be very time consuming and you can find yourself spending a ton of time qualifying and kicking the bums to the curb. Hence why SDRs are important. Self sourced pipeline is incredibly important however itโ€™s truly difficult to switch from the Sales dev hat to the closing hat. Theyโ€™re also usually more expensive than having an SDR team and an AE team that would be responsible for 40 percent of their own pipeline. I wrestle with this the same as you but ultimately I see more pros to the SDR model.
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