Seal the deal: Essential tools for AEs and how RevOps can support them

How RevOps can empower AEs to sell more

Crushing it as an account executive (AE) is only possible when you have tools that work together to make your selling workflows more efficient. 

In a world full of tools built for sellers, however, it can be difficult to assemble a tech stack that helps your sales team exceed their goals.

To make that task a bit easier, Sean Murray, director of sales development at LeadIQ, recently hosted a webinar called Seal the Deal: Essential tools for AEs and how RevOps can support them that featured:

• Adam Ochart, manager of commercial sales at Gong;
• Jeff Ford, senior vice president of global revenue operations at Procore; and
• Mike Lynch, senior enterprise account executive at LeadIQ. 

In this post, we cover some takeaways from the webinar that you should keep top of mind as you begin rethinking what your ideal sales tech stack looks like.

For AEs, efficiency is the name of the game

AEs — like everyone else these days — are being asked to do more and more. One new responsibility many AEs are tasked with is sourcing their own pipeline. Even though they have more work on their plates, Adam suggests this responsibility is a good one because it makes it easier for AEs to hit their numbers. That said, it’s important to make sure AEs aren’t drowning in work.

“I do think that anytime you add something to your team’s plate or to your plate as a seller, something has to be removed on the backend,” Adam says. 

So how exactly can AEs navigate their jobs if they’re being asked to do more? 

“I personally think the biggest thing we have to think about is efficiency,” Adam explains. “I think the biggest efficiency blocker right now is just context switching and folks doing a million things at once.”

To reduce context switching, Adam suggests a two-pronged approach. First, AEs need to become laser-focused on the task at hand. To do that, they can block off time on their calendars for deep work and turn off all notifications. Second, teams need to do everything to consolidate their tools so they’re not bouncing between tabs all day.

“The main thing is allowing you to have tunnel vision and stay focused on one area,” he says.

One tool that Adam recommends AEs use to cover more ground, perhaps not surprisingly, is Gong, and its AI-powered features in particular.

“I as a manager can go in and say, ‘I’m the CEO of Gong, I’m meeting with their CEO — what do I need to know?’ and it gives me a brief of everything that’s happened in that opportunity,” he says. “It’s really sophisticated.” 

Fighting back against macroeconomic conditions

As capital has gotten more expensive and interest rates are higher than they’ve been in many years, sellers are also facing significant macroeconomic obstacles.

“The economy has shifted — the gravy train that was up until about two or three years ago, I think everybody feels something a little different,” Jeff says. “It just means that the hurdle rate and the profitability that companies need to prove to buy software is harder than before.” 

In Jeff’s experience, the economic conditions are giving sellers across all industries a headache.

“Fewer and fewer reps are hitting plan,” Jeff says. “Sales cycles are longer. Initial deal sizes are smaller. Deals that used to be approved by directors are now requiring approval sometimes at the CEO and sometimes at the board level, which is pretty unprecedented.” 

While companies were posting 30, 40, and even 50% year over year growth just a couple years ago, today most sales organizations are hitting 30, 40, and sometimes 50% of their plans, Jeff continues. To pick up the slack, Jeff sees organizations requiring AEs to do more and more of most everything — except what they do best. 

“We’re actually, ironically, taking sellers out of the field where they need to go to spend time with customers to generate sales results,” Jeff says. “We need efficiency of tool sets, but we also have to be really cautious about doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on things that are removing sellers from their customers, where they can be most successful.” 

Bucking these trends and winning more business is only possible when AEs have great tools, great data, and great focus.

“There are still reps hitting 200, 300 percent of their number and it’s because they’re disciplined and they're focused and they’re data-driven,” Jeff says. “The ones that are spraying and praying and trying the old tactics that maybe brought you to your plan a couple years ago, it’s not going to work anymore.”

The way Jeff sees it, RevOps leaders can help AEs sell more effectively by looking at how to add technology that makes life easier for reps. He suggests looking into tools like Gong, Clari, and Outreach for conversational intelligence.

There isn’t a single tool that does everything

In the ideal world, sellers would be able to deploy a single tool, build their entire workflows on top of it, and take that system from company to company as their career progressed.

Unfortunately, we’re not quite there yet.

“Right now, I truly think that there’s no one solution that’s going to enable every enterprise seller to build their territories and prioritize your accounts the way they need to when moving from company to company,” Mike says. “I think that there’s a level of customization that is required when you’re prioritizing your accounts and building your territories. And that’s why you see more enterprise sellers being reluctant to adopt technology and end up building out these plans in spreadsheets. There isn’t a system that is agnostic across the board.” 

While you can’t solve every AE problem with a single tool, you can empower them to do their best work by building an integrated tech stack designed to support the way they work. In Mike’s case, that stack includes tools like Gong and LeadIQ. And it also includes LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which he believes is the best tool for developing a strategy to penetrate a particular account.

“We live in a world where we have a human capital database that is updated in real time by its users,” Mike says. “I think it’s incredibly powerful to know that — early on in an opportunity — I don’t have to rely on an org chart that may or may not be accurate. I can figure it out right there on LinkedIn.”

In addition to these tools, Mike recommends equipping sellers with a tool like Lucidchart or Miro.

“You need to be able to build your own charts and be able to put together and visualize your timeline,” he says.

What tools should be in your tech stack?

While this should give you some insights into our lively discussion, these gems are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

To learn more about what these sales leaders suggest AEs should have in their tech stacks — and what RevOps can do to support totally swamped account executives — watch the webinar in full on-demand.