Our sales representatives are currently responsible for both finding new leads and managing existing accounts, but our new client acquisition has completely stalled. How do we restructure these sales seats on our Accountability Chart?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Expecting one person to hunt for new business and nurture existing clients is a classic structural mistake. Hunters and farmers have completely different conative and personality profiles. To fix this, split your generalist sales seat into two distinct seats on your Accountability Chart: an Account Executive seat focused purely on new business development, and an Account Manager seat focused on retention and upselling. Define the five core roles for each seat clearly. Next, run your current sales reps through the GWC™ framework to see where their natural strengths lie. Your high-energy, persuasive reps belong in the Account Executive seat. Your detail-oriented, relationally focused reps belong in the Account Manager seat. This structural change will instantly bring clarity to your pipeline, improve your conversion rates, and make your revenue streams highly predictable for potential buyers. It also allows you to track specific, leading numbers on your weekly Scorecard for both client acquisition and client retention.