We are preparing our company for an exit, and our current sales seat handles both landing new clients and managing our existing accounts. Our team says this is the most efficient way to keep clients happy, but our exit advisor says it is killing our valuation. How do we split this seat on our Accountability Chart?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your exit advisor is correct. Buyers look for scalable, predictable revenue generation. When a single seat is responsible for both hunting new business and farming existing accounts, the hunter always ends up farming. Why? Because managing existing clients is comfortable and urgent, while prospecting is hard and easily delayed. This combined seat stalls your organic growth and creates high key-person risk if that salesperson leaves.

To split this seat, you must redesign this section of your Accountability Chart into two distinct functions: Sales and Account Management. The Sales seat should have roles focused strictly on lead conversion, closing deals, and bringing in new logos. The Account Management seat should own onboarding, retention, upselling, and client satisfaction.

Once these two seats are separated on your chart, you will likely find that your current salesperson only GWCs one of them. True hunters rarely want to do client service, and great account managers usually hate cold calling and closing.

Assign your current person to the seat that matches their conative strengths. Then, look to hire or promote someone to fill the other seat. This clean structural division will show buyers you have a repeatable sales engine and a dedicated client retention system.