SDRs And AEs, Do We Have Things Backwards?

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1. Some of you will argue that AEs don’t have the time to do this. I don’t buy that. In complex B2B selling we are looking at higher average deal sizes. Salespeople don’t need to close hundreds of deals to achieve their goals. Probably, it’s a few dozen, which means they may be managing a hundred or so opportunities. (the better they are, the fewer they need to manage.) Not all of those are active at the same time. So I don’t buy the argument they don’t have the time to prospect. (I do agree they don’t want to prospect.) Based on my experience with organizations selling complex B2B opportunities, I’ve seen AEs manage the whole process effectively. There’s more, but I’ll stop the argument here. “We want them to engage the customer credibly, talking about their business challenges, understanding their goals and problems. Perhaps we want to incite our these people to change.” The toughest part of selling is actually engaging the customer, initially. Getting them to engage, getting them to think differently and gaining their interest in continuing the conversation.

   In SDR job descriptions

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