How do you all set up the relationship between AEs and SAs? I have some AEs that view me as 50/50 to them, and even if some calls involve me less, it becomes my choice not to join.

However, I have a new AE that said they value us building different champions, and essentially said they’d leave me off of calls with our main customers so that they can’t possibly get distracted by technical conversations.

This feels odd to me, but want outside perspective.

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The pair selling arrangement in technical sales is the most important heuristic in determining success. I work as close as I can with the reps I support, to the extent I would consider them family.

The cadence, the energy, flow and how things work in meetings, calls, prospecting, discovery, etc are all practiced skills.

SE’s aren’t question monkeys.

We aren’t there to put propeller hats on and spin pencils. We are as important to the deal motion as the rep is. Culture is everything in a company and your higher ups should evangelize healthy and productive pair selling relationships. I have worked very hard in my life to insure the reps I work with are open and willing to build successful selling motions. We are there to make money and close deals togethern. If a rep wants to go it alone and lose, well, show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.

Talk to your boss. You’re on good ground here and talk about these issues. They are some of the most important aspects of our job and you have every right to be considered a paired team and teams are equal. Sure, do some calls not involve me, yes. But we are tied at the hip on every single deal motion we do, there is no “this doesn’t involve you, so go play with your test environment, I’ll let you know..” bad bad bad form.

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This is EXACTLY my philosophy. Well said.

Contd: I understand the importance of staying focused, and I agree not to go off-topic, but it’s valuable to me to also be on the calls with non-technical customers, even if I’m quiet.

What do you think?

100% agree with the comment above. I’ve recently found myself in a position where I’m able to offer different and valuable viewpoints when joining non product calls and the AEs are starting to understand the extra benefits of a more engaged SC/SA.

It would be great if you could reset rules of engagement and present how you’d like to be involved in deals from discos to closing and explain the why so they can clearly see it would be a benefit for them and increase success rate of deals closing.

It could be this AE is going for a more streamlined, focused approach, allowing them to handle the sales pitch while keeping the technical discussions separate. It's a strategy, for sure, but it might be worth having an open conversation about it. Maybe there's a middle ground where you can join strategically to provide that technical insight when needed.

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