bandabanda

Senior AE Mid Market

Should all AE's prospect?

Saw this post the other day and it really got me thinking about the efficiency of the sales team at my org. My previous mindset was: ALL top AE's prospect. Period. Why?

ensures your pipeline stays fat without having to suck on the dry, chapped teat of marketing leads
makes you bulletproof as a seller - master prospecting and you'll be fine in just about any sales role.

Don't get it twisted, I still believe this.

But this has me thinking about sales being a team sport and making the team be more efficient. It insinuates leadership is looking for strengths on the team and catering to those vs. trying to make every seller fit one mold.

Didn't post this just to blow my own horn. However, I'm the top closer at my org right now and this sounds sweet.

(And I get it, I can see the incoming objections now - "duh it sounds sweet, you jackass, because you'll just be closing deals all day and you don't have to prospect or cold call! This isn't fairy land. Now go pound the phones.")

Let the discussion and/or the inevitable rotisserie style roasting of my ass commence.

🔎 Prospecting

👑 Sales Strategy

13

18 comments

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Pachacuti

Politicker

9

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Having SDRs or other people 100% dedicated to lead generation is relatively new. I didn’t have them, nor did anyone else I know, when I started in sales not too long ago. So I would 100% agree that AEs should be responsible for making sure their funnel is full.
IMO any AE who blames the SDRs for their lack of a funnel should be immediately fired.

Goomba

Opinionated

6

Director

I shit you not an AE that quit my current company had no clue how to cold call, had to do mock training with our BD head and fucking left a $150k OTE with 100k of it as a fucking base for a $150k base 220k OTE at another company.

Hands down the worst salesperson I’ve ever seen. Actually glorified order taker. Couldn’t riff a conversation to save their life.

The same company keeps hiring in non SDR experience AEs that suck while denying senior SDRs the promotion path.

Absolutely shit tier company.

Pachacuti

Politicker

2

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Been there. I feel your pain.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

4

🦊

Shit it would be sweet if I trusted someone else to prospect research and QUALIFY the way I do, but I don't.

bandabanda

Tycoon

1

Senior AE Mid Market

If you could train them to be at the same caliber as you, would you let them do it?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

3

🦊

The hunter in me doesn't wanna.

Lioness

Good Citizen

2

Sr Field Enterprise Account Executive

So true. When you're good, you want to do it.

SADNESSLieutenant

Politicker

4

Officer of ♥️

the problem is that AE's can prospect better get better meetings, have better sit rates, and therefore shorter deals/cycles. depending on the SDR inevitably leads to a waste of the AE's time more oft than not

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

4

Burn Towns, Get Money

I think this depends on your definition of prospecting and the maturity level of the sales process.

Of course, pipeline health is a core Accountability for sales reps. But I would say it should not be their chief Responsibility (if we're thinking team RASCI chart coverage).

End of the day, your pipeline is a core indicator of the health of your business. However, when it comes down to it, the AE's #1 priority is closing.

I think it's critical to have consistency in outbound. AE's cannot commit to this, as it's at best priority #3 on any given day (behind closing and qualifying). Therefore it makes sense to have a team that's Responsible for that constant drum beat.

As an AE, prospecting can very well be taking first calls and qualifying early-stage leads, instead of cold outbound. I don't need BDR's to qualify, I am happy to do that. I need them to make dials while I'm tied up for 5 hours with Janice and Todd from legal arguing over the font size of a semicolon.

This is different for every organization's culture and stage of maturity. But I think the larger and more complex sales teams become, the more important it is to have a separation of duties to ensure each 'position' on your team is getting someone's full attention as their #1 priority.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

3

Rolling 20's all day

I get the logic of "have your AEs who are the best at discovery and closing" do the discovery and closing, but that is in a perfect world.
The team that sets this up would have to have more leads/prospects ready to have a conversation than they can shake a stick at.

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

2

Professional Day Ruiner

I've worked at companies before where the number of SDR meetings an AE gets is based strictly off of his closing %. To me it makes sense. As a company, you invest a lot of money into getting those meetings. Wouldn't you want the best chance of getting a return on your investment by giving them to a strong closer?

Likewise, people who are strong closers have typically busted their ass to reach that skill level. They've earned that ability to get more meetings. A green pea AE hasn't proven themselves for that yet.

My current company just round robins off the meetings from SDR's. I have seen some awesome, well qualified meetings go to shit because of TRASH AE's. Not always, but definitely happens.

For the most part from my experience though - a strong AE doesn't need those leads. His pipeline stays full from referrals, past clients, and leads he picks up from networking in the field and with partners. I have yet to meet an enterprise AE in real life who is regularly pounding the phones.

CaneWolf

Politicker

1

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

@bandabanda Are you Gwen Stefani in 2001?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

👀🍿

bandabanda

Tycoon

1

Senior AE Mid Market

Rock Steady baby...shhhh, don't tell anyone.

But seriously, I'm a little slow here so help me out...what?

CaneWolf

Politicker

2

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

That is the only situation in which an adult is allowed to say Hella.

bandabanda

Tycoon

1

Senior AE Mid Market

fair

Cabbie

Good Citizen

1

AE (Account Executive)

Like, yeah?

I agree with the idea that in a perfectly efficient organisation you'd be getting banging leads from SDRs, that your closing masters would then handle.

In reality I think the SDR model is usually really poorly managed.

From my time in the call-monkey trenches: over-policing on hitting meeting quotas is pretty rife; and generic messaging can be a problem.

Tbh, I think it ended up being less efficient for our AEs - lots of poorly qualified meetings went through, and often just to hit target. I've heard similar things from other orgs, but happy to be corrected.

My view now is that in a realistic sales org: AEs should be both prospecting & closing, and SDRs should be brought in when there's too many inbounds from marketing to efficiently triage; OR when they're absolute killers and the org is set up to let them properly market map & design messaging/outreach strategy.

At which point, the AE should be helping them prospect anyway.

Cabbie

Good Citizen

1

AE (Account Executive)

Although it may just be that the idea of giving up control of my pipe makes me feel nauseous so 🤷

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