The Successful Account Executive Formula
I have worked with many Account Executives (AE's) during my career. If you are building your sales teams they are probably the first hiring you are going to do.
I have seen all backgrounds, nationalities and cultures. I was fortunate to witness the most successful and the ones who struggle. (me included, sometimes).
I have seen the ones who went consistently to President Club and those who were fired for underperformance.
I sat down and started thinking about what makes a great AE and what makes a not-so-great AE. I talked to friends who are in the role and managers who managed them.
These are the top 3 skills that came out more often:
Business Acumen: you have to understand your prospects' business quickly and think about a solution. Biggest deals are closed with Return on Investment in mind and impact on the wider organisation. (wall-to-wall solution).
Forecast: best AEs are always in control. They don't get surprised or wish luck. They also forecast very accurately. They know which deal is coming and which is not. They write them down on a piece of paper at the beginning of the month and cross them when they closed won. They are the CEO of their business.
Consistency in creating pipeline: the most successful AE have control of their time and break down their days and activities. They tell you NO and work hard on always creating the pipeline. They show up every day. It's very hard to beat someone willing to show up every day.
The latter is the most difficult to learn and develop.
Day in and day out, you have to work on your pipeline creation to have at least 3X coverage pipeline vs target.
That is actually where most AE's fail. They are not consistent.
I'm going to share with you the AE successful formula. As you can see it's super simple.
Let me break it down for you.
If you are an Account Executive with a 30 / 60 days sales cycle and selling with monthly goals here is what I have seen working:
Half of the month focus on pipeline creation and activities. Run webinars, attend events, and do everything in your control to build a strong pipeline for the coming weeks.
In the second part of the month, you will split your time. Half closing and follow-ups. Half building more pipeline.
Simple as that. Say NO to anything that is not building and closing. Prioritise your time.
It's very hard to beat someone willing to show up every day.
Even the most talented people will struggle against somebody like that. If you show up every day, with sun or rain, with energy or not, you will outpace the rest because consistency can beat talent sometimes.
