Question Page

How do you incorporate differing account executive feedback and insights into sales development efforts?

Marleyna Mohler
Attentive Sr. Director of Inside SalesMay 16

If an account executive is sharing feedback (positive or negative!), here are a few questions you can ask to decide how to incorporate it. 

  1. Is the feedback specific? To act on feedback, we have to have enough information to properly diagnose the cause. If an AE shares that an account was unqualified, did they share the name of the account and the particular reasoning?

  2. Do we know what led to the feedback? To act on feedback, you have to know what to change. Identify the specific behavior or process that led to the feedback. In this case, perhaps there was a qualification question that wasn’t asked or we had incorrect data in the CRM about the account. Different causes require different solutions and we shouldn’t assume the cause.

  3. Is this an individual occurrence or a trend? Ask if they have any additional examples for the feedback or even recent counterexamples. Scoping the occurrence of the feedback will help you figure out if you need to work with single individuals or change an overall process. Don’t treat feedback as global unless you have shown a sufficient sample size.

Once you have gotten the above information, you can decide how to implement a change (and if a change is worth implementing). If the feedback seems to be coming from a one-off situation, you may want to approach at the individual level. If the feedback seems to point towards a larger trend, you may want to design an experiment or A/B test to see if the suggested changes work. 

Lastly, make sure to proactively request feedback from the AE team. Their input is particularly valuable for (1) deciding how to prioritize account books and (2) refining your Ideal Customer Profile and even identify new use cases. 

2581 Views
Top Sales Mentors
Brian Tino
Brian Tino
AlphaSense Senior Director, Strategic Sales
Jessica Holmes
Jessica Holmes
Adobe Director, Adobe Sales Academy
Andrew Zinger
Andrew Zinger
Fastly Senior Director, Global Sales Enablement
Rachel Mayes
Rachel Mayes
Carta Senior Director of Sales - Venture Capital at Carta
Sarah Mercedes (Osborne)
Sarah Mercedes (Osborne)
HubSpot Head of Corporate Sales, West Coast
Maria White
Maria White
Sales Training Leader
Helen D'Abreo
Helen D'Abreo
SurveyMonkey Director, Expansion Sales
Adam Wainwright
Adam Wainwright
HubSpot GTM Leader | Building Products that help Sales teams win
Alicia Lewis
Alicia Lewis
Culture Amp Senior Sales Director
George Cerny
George Cerny
Iterable VP, Growth Sales, B2B2C Sales & LATAM