As a Sales Development Representative (SDR), you may be at the entry point of your career and looking for ways to climb the ladder.
One of the most obvious, and most common, next step in your career progression path is the role of Account Executive (AE). Whilst as an SDR, you're spending your time sourcing, qualifying, and pitching the product to leads, an AE’s job is to showcase the product and strategise to convert these leads into clients.
But it’s not a simple move. So how do you get yourself there? And sooner rather than later?!
TL;DR: As an SDR, you’re already on the path to becoming an AE. Accelerate your way there by planning ahead and working not only on performing in your current role, but learning crucial skills for your future one. This can be done on the job, with mentorship from your colleagues, making it known to your manager, and proactively seeking more responsibilities to get yourself closer to your goal.
1. Become a top-performing SDR
Yes, that’s right. Before you can consider moving anywhere, you should work hard on your current role and showcasing what you’re capable of. This of course means hitting your targets, but there’s much more to it; prove that you can manage your admin, be on time, and have a strong work ethic.
Not only will this help you be seen and therefore be more likely to be considered for a promotion, but by making sure your primary workload is handled, you’ll leave yourself more time to put into your training and career development.
2. Master the must-have AE skills
There are many skills that go into making a good AE, but certain skills are key to showing you have what it takes to handle the role:
- Product knowledge
- Problem-solving
- Persuasion
- Prioritisation
- Time management
- Communication (written & spoken)
- Active listening
- Proactivity
Many of these are also skills required in your job as an SDR, so try as much as you can to develop them on the job. For example, become an expert in your product and improve your product pitch, evolve your discovery skills over time by improving how you listen to leads, learn what it really takes to successfully qualify and prioritise leads.
You’ll need to also focus on acquiring new skills that don’t exist in your job today, such as your presentation skills, writing effective follow-up emails, and building relationships with prospects, pushing yourself to become skilled across multiple channels.
3. Observe and learn
One of the best things you can do really get a grasp of the AE role is to observe your AE colleagues, or even seek mentorship from them. Try as much as possible to watch and learn from how they work, to better understand what goes into managing deals, how to view the sales cycle more holistically, what key vocabulary you need to know, what techniques you can pick up, etc. It’s even better to diversify and speak to a variety of people - everyone has different approaches, so the more people you can learn from the more you’ll be able to pick up.
A couple of great ways to get started with this are:
- Watch recorded sales demos. This way you’ll be able to experience and take notes on how the AE digs into the prospects needs, presents the product, and uses persuasion strategies.
- Follow your leads' progression through the pipeline. Once you’ve handed the lead over to the AE, following how the rest of the sale unfolds, to help you connect the dots from initial contact and qualification right through to closing.
4. Show that you are motivated to grow
Your qualifications and experience are not everything - you may be less qualified than other candidates in the running for AE roles for the time being, but you can prove that you’re capable of growing into the role.
Don’t be afraid to express your desire to evolve to your manager and ask for more responsibilities - being proactive will allow you to demonstrate leadership skills, coachability, adaptability, and a motivation to learn.
5. Prepare a plan
A career path is so-named for a reason - it’s about progress, and taking steps to move forward. That being said, the point of taking a particular path is to get you where you’re going. With both these short- and long-term elements in mind, outline a plan for yourself that will help you have the right objectives in mind.
Some tips to get you started:
- The first step is right now - you’ve already taken it! Being in an SDR role means your progression is underway.
- If you don’t feel ready, have a go anyway. For example, start interviewing with the goal of practising and learning on the go, helping you figure out what gaps you need to fill before really throwing yourself into it.
- Integrate regular feedback. Being self-aware is a great strength, and will help you know what you need to improve and what makes you unique.
- Aim for the right companies. It may be an option for you to be promoted from within, but if it’s not, try to start by aiming for companies with smaller deals and simpler sales processes. You’ll be more likely to get the job and less overwhelmed than dealing with a complex sales model as your first experience.
- Have the full picture in mind. Think about where you’d like to be a few years from now, and aim to make this a reality with every minor step you take.
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