Sales Job

Exceptional Tips To Become An Outstanding Account Executive

Trying to make a sales call to a person who has not shown any interest in the product?

Are you confident enough to crack the deal?

Selling is hard work, but it is also extremely rewarding. Soon after the SDRs or Sales Development Reps have done their job, AEs or Account Executives are sales professionals who are the first ones to interact with prospects. They have a tough job of doing product demos, working with other functions, following up on email leads, updating the CRM,  and striving for achievement in the sales objectives set for them.

Account Executives, often called Sales Managers, are responsible for closing company sales and are directly responsible for generating revenue for your business.

This area has become essential to any successful business over the years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for AEs is at an ever-increasing high and will probably continue in the years to come. As a critical part of the sales team of any business, account executives need to prioritize tasks and focus on other people.

As an account executive, getting into the sales field is quite a lucrative opportunity. The pay package varies from place, industry, and location, but on average, Glassdoor reports that the approximate CTC for an AE is around $63,000 per year, along with incentives, perks, and other allowances of $31,000.

Job Role of Account Executives

Account Executives are well positioned for success. They handle the core of the organizational sales process, from qualifying leads to discovery calls to closing a deal. AEs need to demonstrate an impeccable sense of pragmatism, creativity, discipline, authority, and responsibility excel in their field.

As an Account Executive (AE), you are the primary channel of communication between a lead and the brand you represent.

Skills Required to Be an Account Executive

AEs need to hone the following skills to close a deal and take the organization to the pinnacle of success –

  1. Negotiation Skills: An account executive’s job is to negotiate new contracts with customers and renew contracts with existing customers. 
  2. Interpersonal Skills: Correspondence with customers, both oral and written, forms a large part of an Account Manager’s job
  3. Project management skills: As an AE, you should be well-equipped to handle a single large or multiple client projects simultaneously.
  4. Sales Skills: You must have exceptional sales skills to attract new customers and sell new services to existing customers.
  5. Critical and Analytical Skills: Account Executives should be well versed with the latest industry trends and competent enough to set appropriate goals for their sales team.

Practical Tips to Be an Effective Account Executive

Here are some practical tips that will help an account executive to perform his job well!

Be Competitive

Salespeople are optimistically competitive, resilient, and always come back with alternative solutions to win. A professional account executive never stops believing and never gives up. Their maximum efforts are directed towards achieving their sales objective and pursuing the client to close the deal successfully.

Work closely with others

Sales is not a shell – you need to interact with all departments and communicate with all levels of hierarchy in the business. A successful account manager recognizes that it is not a one-player game and that cooperation is the key to organizational growth.

To attribute the success of complex B2B deals, you need to attribute a high value to collaborative selling that requires other teams, stakeholders of the company, and prospects to be well-calibrated and peacefully collaborate with the sales process.

Be Friendly

You cannot close deals with sheer professionalism and business talk. Yes, you must communicate formally, but you need to develop a relationship of trust, transparency, and comfort with your clients.

AEs are an important link between the company and customers, so you must make the potential customer feel as if you have known them for years within the first few minutes of meeting. This enhances your possibility of getting the account and making the customer feel that this was the best meeting he has ever had.

This doesn’t mean you confuse your business relationship with a personal friendship. A friendly conversation should strictly mean business.

Manage Your Time Well

Time is Money – and who can better understand the true relevance of time other than sales professionals? You may feel the entire burden lies on your shoulders, but don’t forget – the results of specific agreements help to assess your work.

You must pay attention to all sales cycle stages and spend time converting a sales pitch. Implement an intelligent system for creating meeting agenda templates for each sales pitch to ensure the interaction is results-driven.

Be Responsive

Don’t forget to follow up. You must be thinking about how to respond to ‘I’ll think about it’, should you wait for their response or be responsive and follow through as soon as possible? If you don’t get an answer to your question, don’t wait a day to respond.

Acknowledge the problem and let the lead know you’re working on it. Try to figure out what can go wrong, make all possible efforts to resolve it, and re-establish contact with the lead.

Be Meticulous In Discovery Calls

A good account executive understands that on-Target Earnings are a crucial part of sales compensation, so he will focus on ensuring the right fit for the customer and the product. The money rarely stops at sales conversions, especially in SaaS.

The real deal is when the customer keeps returning for more and stays loyal to the brand. AEs not only have sales to cater to, but they are equally responsible for improving customer retention metrics. Make sure the clients see real value in your product.

Manage objections like a champion

How do you deal with the following objections?

  • I need to think about the objection
  • I want to think about its objection

This is where a need to demonstrate their empathy and communication skills. Feel the pulse of the customer, listen carefully, and understand what they do not say explicitly. The good AES manages customers’ objections before turning into full-fledged refusal.

Objection management is the fine art of complying with a series of “NOs” before getting a “YES.” Managing objections is an opportunity for AEs to gain a deep understanding of customer psychology, their concerns, and guide them to an acceptable resolution. Most EAs use conversational intelligence to handle objections.

How To Respond To ‘I’ll Let You Know’

Professional, smart, and efficient Account Executives know how to follow up proficiently. When the client is taking his time and gives an “I will let you know” waiting stance, find creative ways to add value and close the deal. Patience is not something that Account executives can boast of. But while waiting for the final “yes”, ask questions and learn things that can be used in the follow-up. It’s an extension of your consultation process.

Stay in touch with your buyer throughout the process and offer them a different solution if the previous deal doesn’t seem to work.

Listen more, talk less

An Account executive practically works as a therapist – with courage, patience, and the ability to face rejection, handle objections, and be responsive. Have meaningful conversations, and display your skills of active listening to gain a fundamental advantage in building relationships, using effective negotiation techniques for closing more deals or getting desired results during a conversation.

Conclusion

Besides all the above-mentioned tips, Account executives proactively seek feedback and training. This is supported by research suggesting that B2B salespeople who hit their share 75% of the time have had more qualified sales coaching initiatives in their organization than others. New AEs must accompany senior managers on sales calls to gain knowledge and experience. Good AEs have a long-term vision of their working performance, the field in which they work, and the changing standards for customer behavior.

Therefore, they are continuously learning with the latest tools and gaining knowledge to accomplish their tasks and help the business achieve its income targets. The ultimate goal of account executives is to work hard on monetization, which will keep your business growing for a long time to come.

Sandy leads the US Sales team at JustCall and he has been integral in growing JustCall’s ARR by 5X while bootstrapped. He is a big believer in using tech to enable sales and is the first person to try out every new feature in the JustCall stack. While he’s not writing high performance email cadences for his team, he dabbles in blogging about Sales Strategy, Sales Tech and Sales Training.

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