What's the best way for an SDR to prepare to become an AE? Develop your questioning strategies.

First, congratulations to the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals @AA-ISP for winning the 2019 Chapter of the Year Award! Fabulous job!

At a recent SV AA-ISP meeting Joe asked, “What should a Sales Development Rep do to prepare to become an Account Exec?”

Great question!

Since Sales Development Reps (SDRs) know it’s an entry level job, most are thinking about the next step. But wanting to move into an Account Exec role and actually preparing yourself to do so are two different things.

One of the best responses from the group was, “Be the best SDR you can be.” This makes a lot of sense. If you don’t do your current job well, you’re more likely to be moved out of the organization than moved up.

Someone else said, “Be the best employee you can be. It’s not enough to do your job well, you’ve got to be willing to go the extra mile. Show up 10 minutes early every day. Stay 30 minutes late every night. Ask what else you can do. And don’t cut corners just get it done.”

A third response was, “It’s hard to learn how to sell without actually selling. So, you should focus on learning the administrative aspects of the Account Exec’s role. What’s the sales process look like? Who needs to be involved at what stage? What information do you need to move an opportunity from one stage to the next? What does your sales agreement look like and what questions and concerns will your prospect likely raise?”

I like all these responses because they touch on the three corners of the Sandler Success Triangle: Behavior, Attitude, and Technique.

• Behavior – do what you need to do every day to be successful. If that includes coming in early and leaving late, then do it.
• Attitude – strive to be the best, without being cocky. Prospects tend to trust reps who are positive and confident in themselves and the companies they represent.
• Technique – understanding (and following) your company’s sales process is important; understanding your prospect’s buying process – from their motivation to meet with you, to their commitment to change, and their internal decision-making process and timeframe – is key to success.

Diving a bit deeper into Technique, good SDRs hone their skills in quickly developing rapport with prospects. They are also good at handling initial objections and closing for meetings. But, because their engagements are short, SDRs usually don’t qualify prospects beyond a superficial level. In many cases, this means they don’t fully understand or internalize why prospects ultimately buy their company’s products. 

So, here are my tips for SDRs who want to prepare themselves to become excellent AEs and for existing Account Execs who want to become even better at their jobs.

Learn about the business problems your prospects face then use those problems to evoke an emotional response to your product or service.
Unfortunately, messaging from most marketing departments still focuses on features and benefits. For example, a network security company offers “Airtight security without the cost and complexity of stacks of appliances. And a fast, secure user experience, whether users connect from an office, coffee shop, or airport, at home or abroad.”

As a Sales Rep, you need to make this message resonate with your prospect. One way to do so is to evoke emotion related to the challenges your prospect deals with every day. Using the example above, the Sales Rep might engage an IT leader with a statement like, “We work with IT leaders who are frustrated by the cost and complexity of managing, updating, patching, and housing hundreds to thousands of pieces of equipment across geographically distributed data centers. I don’t suppose that’s something you have to deal with, is it?” Then wait for their response. If it is a source of frustration for your prospect, you’re bound get a lot of valuable information from that one question.

Learn who are the decision makers involved in purchasing your company’s products.
As you think about the roles and responsibilities of the people involved in buying your products, you’ll quickly come to understand they all have different problems and challenges. So, the questions you’ll want to ask the IT Leader in the example above might not work for the Chief Information Security Officer at the same company. You should develop questions specific to the role and responsibility for each type of person, or persona, that you sell to. In other words, when it comes to engaging prospects, there is no such thing as a cookie cutter approach.

Finally, take a few of your Account Execs to lunch.
Start interviewing the AEs on your team who are doing well. Specifically, ask them to list the 10 (or 15 or 20) most difficult questions prospects ask. Then ask how they respond. The most important thing to consider about questions from prospects is not what they are asking, but why they are asking it. What’s the intent behind their question. For example, if a prospect asks, “Do you do business with other companies in my industry?” What’s the right answer? In fact, you have a 50% chance of being wrong no matter how you answer. That’s why answering with a question is the best response, “That’s a great question, why do you ask?” Now, when your prospect tells you she doesn’t want to work with a vendor who is working with her competition, you won’t mention the three companies you were going to tell her about. Or, when she says she wants to work with a vendor with deep knowledge and experience in her industry, you can explore why that’s important to her.

So, as you start to understand the types of people you’ll be selling to, the day-to-day business challenges each faces, and the types of questions each is likely to ask, you’ll be able to formulate your own set of questions and responses that will enable you to uncover their real questions, concerns and motivations. Do that, and when the opportunity comes, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a top Account Exec.