White

Account Executive

Should closers take the qualification call?

Closers (Account Executives) usually take over after the lead is qualified. However, wouldn't it make more sense for AEs to do the qualification themselves, and SDR just working on getting the prospect on the disco/qualification call?

Should closers take from the qualification call instead from the demo call?

Attached poll

Yes, SDRs should focus on bringing the prospect to the first call only No, SDRs should do the qualification call, too, and transfer to an AE only if qualified Something else

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

📣 Demos

☑️ Qualification Calls

👑 Sales Strategy

15 comments

Sort by:

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

It depends on how trained your BDRs are in addition to the bandwidth of the AEs. If your BDRs are well trained and can qualify well, there's no harm in letting them take that call and running with it. If your AEs are busy and have little time to take qualification calls, you're going to have to make sure those BDRs are trained well to do it.
On the flip side, if the AEs aren't swamped and have the time to take over early and eliminate cycles, that's also a valid strategy.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

I find the value gained from qualifying myself is really hard to sacrifice. The insights and rapport are so important.

Plus I think it can make the prospect feel more valued.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Are the BDR's paired with certain AE's?

White

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

What if "yes"?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

If so as an AE I highly suggest having one on one game plans for bigger prospects. Learning how to work together and what the AE is looking for helps close deals.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

^^ this. I miss my 1:1 BDRs.

Notmyrealname

Politicker

As an SDR, yes. This is the only way it works. Right now disco/qualification is on me. We have super strict guidelines that all the higher ups spent ages deciding on and still get push back on every opp. AEs close nothing and keep coming back saying opps are not qualified enough. The further down the pipeline it goes without AEs taking control, the more excuses they have for missing quota.

FormerStartupJobHopper

Tycoon

I tend to agree as long as they have passed some sort of basic qualification criteria

swndlr

Contributor

Enablement Manager

NGL, as a buyer the worst experiences I had were when I had to switch from one BDR to book the qual call, to a different BDR to qualify and book a discovery, to an AE to and book a full demo, then sit there while the AE pitched and an SE ran the demo. It was clunky as hell.

As a former AE, give me meetings that show up and I’ll do the rest.

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

Professional Day Ruiner

the way I see it is an SDR's job is just to get the AE an at bat and nothing more. The only qualification an SDR should have to do is make sure the person has the right job title, and the company is large enough to be able to afford your product (and that part can be found on zoominfo).

With that said, an SDR who doesn't want to stay an SDR and wants to move up should be running qualification calls. Get that lead teed up so when they pass it to an AE it's for a demo and not a qual call.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

In some instance it make sense when the expected ticket size is big.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

SDR's should have the core responsibility. AE's can jump in if they:
1. Think the account is important (enterprise / churned customer / etc)
2. Know for sure the SDR would duck up

countingmyinterest

Politicker

Account Executive

I went from an org where SDR's just booked the meeting only to a new org where SDR's perform qualification calls.

It's really nice to have qualified opps, but it's better from a customer experience POV to have the closer qualify it and set demo if necessary.

Also depends on AE pipeline and bandwidth as Sunbunny31 said

FinanceEngineer

Politicker

Sr Director, sales and partnerships

I have had many calls where the qualification wasn’t done. Moreover, the SDR is just to get someone interested in the product and get at least one of the BANTs to then pass off for the AE to really dig and explain the product

RckChlkG33k

Big Shot

AE (Account Executive)

I think it really depends on how complex a sale is going to be. If you're selling chocolate (as I started my career) then it's not complicated enough to justify multi-stage qualification. If you're doing enterprise SaaS deals with multiple stakeholders and potentially multiple stages of qualification, then I would say yes, but only because qualification doesn't happen in a single phone call.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

White

Should closers take the qualification call?

Should closers take from the qualification call instead from the demo call?

15 comments

Related posts

Does getting buy in from the prospect to take the cold call work?

Don't Go For A Run Right Before A Discovery Call

First Discovery Call