Sales · Chapter 2 of 5
The roles, and how they differ
SDR, AE, enterprise AE, account manager — the ladder, and where each is measured.
| Role | What they do | Measured on |
|---|---|---|
| SDR / BDR | Generate and qualify pipeline; usually outbound | Meetings booked, qualified opportunities created |
| Commercial / SMB AE | Close smaller deals at higher volume | Bookings; short cycles, many deals |
| Mid-market AE | Larger deals, more stakeholders | Bookings; cycles measured in months |
| Enterprise AE | Few, large, long, multi-stakeholder deals | Bookings; cycles of six to eighteen months |
| Strategic / named account | A handful of very large accounts | Growth within those accounts |
| Account manager | Existing customers: renewal and expansion | Retention and expansion rather than new logos |
The corpus is dominated by enterprise account executive and its variants, which matters for preparation: enterprise selling is a long, multi-threaded, committee-driven process far removed from the transactional selling most training material describes.
What changes as deal size grows
- More people must agree. Enterprise deals involve a buying committee — economic buyer, technical evaluator, security, procurement, legal — and any one can stall it.
- Cycles lengthen, so forecast accuracy matters more than activity volume.
- The technical evaluation is real, which is why solutions engineers exist and why the technical 56% figure matters.
- Procurement and security review become gates that have nothing to do with whether the buyer wants your product.
- Relationships outlive deals, so a loss handled well is genuinely worth something.