In today’s hyper-competitive SaaS market, IT Account Executives (AEs) who shy away from cold calling — whether through LinkedIn, phone, or email — are operating as half-cycle salespeople, not full-cycle.
As stated in my books, Sales Management Power Strategies and How To Sell Management, de facto, many IT salespeople think they are senior salespeople, but in fact, they are junior salespeople. This happens because they believe that time in the industry is a measurement of their seniority. But just because you have 10 years of IT sales experience doesn’t mean you are a senior salesperson.
Many AEs believe that cold calling is beneath them. They rely on Sales Development Reps (SDRs) to generate leads for them. The overreliance on SDRs by SaaS companies in today’s go-to-market strategy programs is a costly operating model that has reduced the selling skills of Account Executives (AEs).
SDRs, who are often entry-level salespeople, try to generate leads by outbound email and phone calling, and typically engage mid-level management. Their limited scope, stemming from their lack of experience, means they lack the strategic finesse to connect with executive buyers (VPs and above in North America) and succinctly communicate value, leaving AEs to bridge the gap.
However, the salaries, training, and overhead of SDR teams significantly inflate Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) for SaaS companies, often making sales expenses difficult to justify. High customer acquisition costs (CAC) in the SaaS market erode profitability, especially when sales cycles are prolonged due to inefficient prospecting by experienced salespeople.
To be a professional, successful full-cycle IT salesperson, AEs must target senior management through cold calling to secure new businesses in the value-selling zone. VPs and above operate in the value selling zone, where decisions are driven by perceived value factors, where professional AEs can control the buyer’s perception of your value through tailored messaging and communication.
Below the VP level, when prospecting in North America for titles like supervisor, manager, and director, you are selling into the commodity-buying zone, where purchasing decisions often hinge on price, features, and functions, which commoditize your SaaS offerings and shrink your margins.
Many AEs avoid cold calling senior leaders, either due to discomfort or lack of expertise, preferring to rely on SDR-generated inbound leads. This approach forces them to work their way up the organizational hierarchy to reach decision-makers, elongating sales cycles and further inflating the customer acquisition cost (CAC). To counter this, AEs must adopt a trifecta cold-calling strategy using a sequential outbound hunting sales model, incorporating cold email, LinkedIn email, and telephone outreach as a planned process to reach decision-makers. This multi-touch approach fosters familiarity, boosts response rates, and empowers AEs to own their pipeline from prospect to close, enabling them to become full-cycle sales professionals.
Research validates this approach to outbound AE hunting:
The research underscores that SDRs, while valuable for volume lead generation with middle-level managers and smaller-dollar SaaS opportunities, are not equipped to navigate the nuanced conversations required for executive-level sales to decision-makers.
If SDRs could sell to the VP and C-suite… they would already be AEs.
To shorten sales cycles, increase closing ratios, reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC), and boost gross margins, SaaS companies must empower account executives (AEs) to make strategic cold calls. In North America, where executive relationships are key to buyer success, AEs who leverage the trifecta approach of cold calling by email, by LinkedIn, and through telephone prospecting will sell more and become full-cycle salespeople.
Cold calling isn’t just a tactic; it’s the hallmark of an AE who owns the deal from start to finish. Embrace the trifecta. Win big.
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