My face when I hear sales leaders say:
“We don’t want our AEs to outbound, their time is too valuable.”
Here are 3 reasons why this thinking is dangerous:
⛔️ 1) Entitled Culture
Self-sourcing will always be a must. The SDR : AE ratio in your sales org will never be perfect. Marketing can ebb and flow.
And if you plan on moving up-market—execs don't fill out demo request forms. You must proactively start conversations.
Building a self-sourcing culture from scratch is WAY harder than turning up the dial when you need to.
Don't allow a "my pipeline isn't my responsibility" mindset.
⛔️ 2) Missing opportunities with execs
I love SDRs. I've worked with and trained dozens of top-notch SDRs.
But here's the thing: most SDRs haven't spoken much with execs. They're not as equipped to engage a senior exec if they happen to catch them on a phone call.
AEs have had more of those conversations. They have more business acumen and experience.
They'll be much more effective at engaging execs and landing meetings.
⛔️ 3) AE sourced pipeline is usually better
This is almost always the case with my clients.
AE self-sourced pipeline has:
-Higher win rates
- Shorter sales cycles
- Larger deal sizes
Have ops run a report on this. If any of the above is true for your sales org, all the more reason why self-sourcing should be encouraged.
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AEs don't need to self-source 100% of their pipeline. And I agree that the majority of their time should be spent selling. But they should know how to self-source at-least a third of it.
Agree or disagree?