What Is An Account Executive: 5 Key Functions

Are you new to the whole "remote working” thing, or are you an experienced member of the technology sector? Either way, chances are you’ve heard of the "Account Executive” role on a sales team.

But if not—no worries! We’ll go over exactly what an Account Executive is and what their typical day looks like. Account Execs are important members of tech sales teams, and are responsible for bringing revenue by closing sales for the business. An important role, indeed, as these team members effectively bankroll the salaries of an entire company. 

With a focus on high performance by reaching great sales metrics, and with a huge emphasis on client satisfaction, Account Executive jobs are high-touch and high-reward positions.

What Is An Account Executive?

Want your day to be all about bridging the gap between companies and customers through relationship building and expertise? You’re in the right place. As you can venture to guess, this job is all about communication and knowledge.

Whether it’s on the phone, video chat, or email/messaging, either with customers or your exec team, you’ll be talking to people all day here. This is a perfect role for anyone with outstanding social skills and for those who are ultra-organized.

Basically, an Account Executive's primary purpose is to win their company sales opportunities. By prospecting for new customers or through existing customer relationships. They sometimes will also have to focus on managing those existing relationships within their client ecosystem.  

You will be the main link between the company and its clients. This job is relationship and sales-focused. You must understand your clients’ goals and communicate how your company will bring them value. Work with the other teams within your company (like customer success). Ensure that your clients have the best experience possible and are totally satisfied with the value your company is bringing them.

Account Executives are all about finding opportunities amongst existing or new clients. Then they have the responsibility to build long-term business relationships with those customers. The goal is to provide the ultimate customer satisfaction rating. All while improving the sales of your tech product or service for your company.

A Day in the Life of a Tech Sales Account Executive

On a day-to-day basis, you can expect life as a tech sales Account Executive to go a little like this… 

Everything you do will revolve around managing your goals and quotas through Key Performance Indicators set out by the company’s management or your team leader. This means that you’ll need to create plans to achieve these goals. Through the number of phone calls, emails, and messages. It is all based on the performance of your existing sales statistics.

You will also be responsible for managing the sales cycle from prospecting all the way to securing a deal from that client. If you have no outside sales team feeding you leads, you’re often responsible for making these calls and sourcing these leads.

Daily Checklist

Depending on where your clients are located, mornings are usually spent:

• Preparing for calls
• Following up with clients via email
• Prospecting to try to find new business.

If you call your clients in the afternoon, you’ll spend your time speaking to new prospects and closing deals. There will always be a team and/or department meetings (like customer support or marketing, for collateral to share with your clients) and maybe a few coffee breaks scattered throughout. You’ll typically be doing one of three types of calls throughout the day:

• The discovery call: an intro call to meet the client and discuss their needs, challenges and determine whether they’re a good candidate for your product
• The demo call: the second call where a potential partnership is discussed. You may have a presentation prepared based on your first discussion about how you could help the client.
• The closing call: the final call where you seal the deal by answering questions and gauging their interest.

You will also be responsible for networking with existing clients in order to uncover new potential deals and partnerships. A lot of this is achievable simply by being helpful.

After-Sales

After-sales support will sometimes fall on your shoulders depending on the company and stage. So things like using the product properly or conducting training in order to ensure your client is happy with your product or service are paramount. At a more mature organization, this role is normally handled by a customer success team. To summarize your day, you’ll mainly be focusing on:

• Closing new accounts
• Growing existing accounts
• Eliminating competitive threats (other companies trying to take your clients)
• Improving customer satisfaction by adding value

Download the 2022 Tech Sales Account Executive Salary Guide

5 Key Functions of an Account Executive

You may be wondering what makes a great Account Executive. If you feel confident providing all the duties above to the best of your ability, then focus on refining these traits in order to secure your dream role as an Account Exec: 

1 - Collaborate with your team

Working with your team and your customers is the core of your role. You need to be able to understand the company’s goals and how to achieve them all while building relationships and working with customers to offer solutions to their problems. Even if the customer disagrees or has a problem, it's your job to turn that around into a sale. Most of this role has to do with listening and providing a solution that works.

2 - Be honest

Don’t beat around the bush when it comes to providing solutions. It either works or it doesn’t. You’re getting paid not to waste people’s time and to find solutions to their problems while representing the company with your best foot forward. You can be honest and direct without being rude. So focus on refining that skill.

3 - The customer comes first

Now, this is not new information. If you have an existing customer with a problem, your team will understand if you need to miss a weekly check-in to help deal with it and save the sale, especially if it’s a problem with your technology solution.

Problems can happen at any time, even on the weekend. So AEs are often on call or have a customer success manager who can be available when they are not at their desk. But they should always make it a point to reach their customers as soon as possible. 

4 - Achieving greatness

AEs are those who strive for greatness when it comes to their work and representing their company. They take it personally when they are not able to fulfill an obligation, even if it’s not their fault.

This means knowing when you fall short and doing everything in your power to be better for the next time, or even anticipating situations before they arise.

5 - Championing the company

Good Account Executives will only represent companies with missions that they truly believe in. If you can’t see yourself using your own product, or see how the product/service helps your customers, then you won’t be a very convincing champion of your service, will you?

Account Executives often have a dream company or organization they would love to work for, so chasing a career at this company (or a similar one) is ideal. 

The next step on your journey to becoming an Account Executive

If you’re looking to start a career as an Account Executive for a tech sales company and have the necessary skills, many managers would be happy to meet with you. If you’re still searching for the right role, consider starting in an SDR or BDR position to gain a better understanding of the role and company then get promoted from there.

If you need additional support in your career transition, Uvaro is here to help! We offer a 5-Week Account Executive Foundations Course to help you develop the knowledge and skills you need to succeed in the industry, while also building upon your current abilities.

Download our Career Success Catalog to see how our programs can prepare you for a role as a tech sales Account Executive.