salesI’ve been running sales department after the previous manager left and discovered many problems with the sales team. Overall, there isn’t a very clear model and systematic operating procedure to help all sales in the department to succeed.
I’ve done some research online to see how does a successful sales team operate that’s selling to the large enterprise in a business to business environment for software and design industry.
I came across many examples of having Account Executive (AE) and Sales Development Representative (SDR) working together closely. Ultimately, AE is the closer, and SDR is the lead generator.
I tried to implement this system in our department and it seems to be having a lot of problems. Here’s a list of problems I am encountering and looking for people who know what’s going on to give me a hint or show me the right path.
SDR is doing all the hard work by cold calling while AE is just there to harvest. So if SDR is not doing well, AE got no one to sell to.
SDR doesn’t get as high pay as AE but get some commission for any qualified meetings. However, this is still showing problems because SDR feels they are working under AE and they see themselves as a telemarketer only. Thus, the turn over rate for this position becomes relatively high.
When SDR book a meeting, it is hard to hand off to AE. As a customer, who agreed to a meeting, probably prefer to talk to SDR and that’s why they accepted the meeting. So when a customer is passed to AE from SDR, AE really have to rebuild the connection where SDR is already a step closer. This really causes the customer has a way to not give AE any time to explain about our product.
I attempted several times to have AE, SDR working together. However, it doesn’t seem to work.
Please share your thoughts and maybe point out my blind spot or give me any feedback!
Thank you all in advanced!
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