Women in Enterprise Sales Forum: 3 Inspirational Lessons From SDRs Turned AEs

On the heels of our last event in December, we were excited to host our next Women in Enterprise Sales Forum focused on the career trajectory from sales development rep (SDR) to account executive (AE).

Our panel of women got candid about their top lessons learned navigating their own professional journeys, and included AEs from high growth enterprise startups including Aimee Garber, Strategic Account Executive at Dialpad, Jennifer Jacob, Enterprise Account Executive at Productboard, Jen Silvestri, Senior Account Executive at Gong, and Stacy Schmitz, Senior Account Executive at Catalyst.

See a full recording of the panel here and the 3 main takeaways below…but first, some inspiration:

“You can only control the controllables — you can’t control everything. Sales is such a rollercoaster, so you just have to ride it. It’s ok if you have a bad day and it’s ok if you have a great day. You can be on the highest high and then the next day the lowest low. Just always try to keep an even keel. The great thing about sales is that you control your own destiny, so if you have a bad day you can put in 10x more work the next day and make up for it.”

— Aimee Garber, Dialpad

#1: Build Your Own Training Program (Don’t Wait for Others to Build One for You)

Moving from an SDR to an AE requires a level of training. So if a formal SDR training program isn’t built out at your current company (and oftentimes it won’t be), have the confidence to formulate one yourself.

What does this look like? It can take many forms, but it’s important to lean on your peers and other sales leaders from your current or past companies. While this may feel awkward at first, our panel reassured us that others are usually more than willing to help! This can be as simple as sending them a calendar invite to chat, but try to dig a layer deeper and approach it the way that you would approach prospecting a potential customer — aka use your skills that make you a great SDR to reach out to people. Do your research about this person and approach them with personalized reasoning for why you’d love to sit down with them to chat.

Another important tip in training yourself for the AE role is to begin building your “closing muscle.” To get this exposure, proactively follow more deals all the way through the sales lifecycle. You can do this by first leveraging product people or sales engineers to learn more about what you’re selling. Then, continuing to stay involved in the process even once you’ve passed a qualified lead off to an AE — shadow other AEs and listen to forecasting calls to understand the language used and determine what went well and what didn’t.

#2: Decide Your Own Future

When making the jump from SDR to AE you have a few options — go after an AE position at your current company, apply for an AE position at a completely new company, become an SDR manager, or move onto a different career journey. While it may already feel like your pathway is set in stone, always remember you ultimately make the decisions about your future.

If you’re facing the decision of what to do next, these questions might help you better shape what to do next: What does the year ahead look like? Do I love my current company and culture? Is it worth the wait? If I explore AE opportunities elsewhere, do I have the experience to showcase that they should hire me even without closing experience and deep knowledge of the company?

#3: Keep Your SDR Skills — Just Build on Them

The skills that you build as an SDR don’t go away and don’t let them. Even as an AE, you’re still qualifying leads as you progress through the sales cycles.

It’s natural for SDRs to be eager to get promoted as soon as possible (who wouldn’t want a promotion, right?), but it’s actually super beneficial to stay in the SDR role for at least 6 months to build up your skill set. It’s a gamble to make the jump too quickly and it may put yourself in a position where you’re under qualified and unhappy.

⭐ BONUS: Misc. Sales Tips

• Personalize every prospect email: While it’s ok to rinse and repeat certain messaging, always do the research and make sure every email is personalized in some aspect. Jen calls this “personalization at scale” and Aimee reminded us it’s important to show you’re human. Level up your emails by looking through the prospect’s LinkedIn / bio to try to find something in common with them. At the end of the day, 3 personalized messages is a lot better than 5 unpersonalized emails.
• Lead with the problem: Always have a reason for why you’re reaching out to a prospect and make that clear. Leading your emails with the problem(s) they’re experiencing is a great way to grab their attention right off the bat.
• Be intentional about your time: SDRs and AEs have a lot of tasks to balance, so its important to learn how to be intentional and prioritize your time early on.
• Compartmentalize: SDRs and AEs have packed schedules consisting of many different prospects and customers, at different stages of the sales cycle. To keep this organized, master the art of compartmentalizing — focus on the topic, customer, contract, etc. in front of you at that time vs. the call you had 20 minutes ago.

If you don’t already, sign up for our #Womenterprise newsletter to stay informed on upcoming Women in Enterprise Sales events, as well as other relevant Work-Bench community events. We hope to see you at the next one!