Clip: Colin Specter of Namely on successfully transitioning from SDR to Account Executive (AE)

Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

For today’s SDRs, and I tell this to our SDRs internally, if your goal is to become an account executive and we now have the fortune of aligning ourselves with SDRs or Business Development Representatives depending on what your company calls them. It’s really shadowing the account executive. Asking key questions. Not only learning about the front end of the sales process. The sales development rep’s role in my opinion is to get folks excited. You’re out there in the marketplace cold calling, dialing for dollars so to speak, getting prospective clients excited about whatever it is you’re representing. The difference with an account executive is more of a consultative approach, at least within our company, it’s digging into the process of that prospective client. So I always like to tell my sales development representatives, the ones I get aligned with anyways, why don’t you start becoming that consultant for them. Not only get them excited, but start practicing early on asking key questions. I give my sales development representatives the same questions I ask prospective clients that I cold outreach to. So they get that rehearsal lesson on becoming an account executive. They start to understand when an objection comes up, how to handle that objection, and how to guide a prospect through a sales process. Just some simple advice would be start early on shadowing the top account executives. They’re going to be busy, but I’m sure they’re going to be open to allowing you to hop on some of their calls shadow some of their calls. If you have the luxury of being in the same office see if you can sit near them, see if you can take them out to lunch.