Strong alignment between Account Executives (AEs) and Sales Development Reps (SDRs) improves lead handoffs, shortens sales cycles, and boosts conversion rates.
But while miscommunication and unclear expectations often cause friction, shared goals, regular check-ins, and mutual respect create a collaborative, high-performing sales culture.
The takeaway? Uniting AEs and SDRs through transparency, feedback loops, and role clarity turns two functions into one seamless revenue-generating team.
Whether you’re a sales manager, an account executive, or a sales development representative, you play an integral role in making sure that the AEs and SDRs on your team work well together.
Here’s why the relationship between account executives and sales development representatives is critical to your company’s success, and how you can contribute to making that relationship healthy and productive.
Here’s what happens when SDR and AE teams don’t work together: deals fall through cracks, prospects go cold, and revenue stalls. According to industry research from Nukesend, 68% of lost deals stem from poor SDR-to-AE handoffs—meaning misalignment between these two critical roles is directly costing your company money.
But the good news? When SDRs and AEs align effectively, the impact is dramatic. Research shows that teams implementing structured handoff processes with comprehensive documentation see higher conversion rates on qualified opportunities. Teams using warm introduction protocols experience 40% higher meeting attendance rates. And organizations that create continuous feedback loops between SDRs and AEs improve pipeline accuracy by 32%.
The difference between a struggling sales team and a high-performing one often comes down to one thing: how well the SDR and AE functions are integrated.
SDR vs AE: What’s the difference?
If you’re new to sales or you’ve just joined a new sales team, it’s important to have a complete understanding of the role each person on the team plays in the sales process. Account executives and sales development representatives each have specific responsibilities, quotas, and key performance indicators to meet.
What is an SDR?
At the most basic level, sales development representatives (SDRs) are responsible for booking meetings or appointments for the account executives. SDRs serve a very important gatekeeper role, ensuring that leads are qualified through an initial conversation, then passing them to the account executives (AEs).
Note: The term “SDR” is more common in inbound sales organizations, where sales development reps have to qualify prospects who have already expressed interest. Business development representatives (or BDRs) are more commonly found on outbound teams; while the roles are very similar, BDRs generally have more responsibility to make first contact with prospects.
What is an AE?
Account executives (AEs) are responsible for establishing relationships with those leads and nurturing them through a pipeline.
SDRs are often viewed as grunts in a sales operation, but their work is mission-critical; without a steady stream of meetings with qualified buyers, AEs can’t make the sales they need to meet the company’s revenue goals. The two roles need to work hand-in-hand to get their jobs done, and do them well.
Four tips for uniting your AEs and SDRs into a championship team
Key article takeaways:
Sit your SDRs and AEs together and make them mutually accountable.
Decide if you’re going to judge your SDRs by output, team revenue, or both.
Make sure everyone on the sales team is using your CRM to log important information.
Encourage your SDRs and AEs to support each other beyond the requirements of their roles.
Tip #1: Establish open communication
Creating a successful, collaborative relationship between SDRs and AEs depends on frequent communication as well as candid two-way feedback.
“One thing that works really well to create open lines of communication between AEs and SDRs is to have a weekly meeting where everyone reviews where they are regarding their goals, including updates on leads that SDRs have passed over,” says Alex Manwaring, ISR Manager at Privy.
“This is a great way to foster mutual accountability, because if an SDR is qualifying leads and AEs are neglecting to follow up with them and nurture them to close, the sales manager is going to be aware and the AE will be held accountable,” Manwaring says. “Conversely, if an SDR is setting up low-quality opportunities, that will come out in the meeting. This encourages SDRs and AEs to work together.”
Manwaring also suggests seating AEs and SDRs next to each other (which is something we advocate for at Nutshell as well). “It’s a great way to foster natural communication, since your AEs and SDRs can have one-off conversations rather than needing to Slack or email each other,” Manwaring says.
Uniting all your sellers into one unit or pod also helps junior team-members develop their skills faster. “Help create an atmosphere where your AEs are responsible for training and mentoring the SDRs in their pod,” suggests Nutshell Head of Growth Mike Carroll. “As a single team, they are responsible for driving revenue together, and that single measurement of success will incentivize their collaboration.”
Beyond physical proximity, you should also encourage your AEs and SDRs to get closer in terms of process. “The AE/SDR relationship is one of the trickiest in sales,” says Tom Briccetti, a seasoned manager of AEs and SDRs who is preparing to launch a consultancy that specializes in scaling the impact of smaller teams. “The AE often holds the keys to the SDR’s commissions and that can create friction. SDRs should have lots of visibility into the AEs pitch and process so they’re not in the dark on the whole thing. Also, making some percentage of everyone’s goals being a team goal—even something small like 10-25%—creates a team-first atmosphere.”
Establish shared qualification standards
Beyond just meeting frequently, SDRs and AEs must align on what “qualified” actually means. When both teams have different definitions of a qualified lead, friction and wasted time are inevitable. The AE spends discovery calls re-qualifying leads that the SDR thought were ready, or worse, the AE rejects good opportunities because they don’t match the SDR’s criteria.
The fix? Create a shared qualification framework that both teams agrees on before any handoffs happen. Some teams use frameworks like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) or CHAMP (Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritization), while others build custom criteria specific to their business. What matters most is that SDRs and AEs literally sit down together and define: “What does a sales-ready lead look like in our business?”
Once you’ve defined it, document it in your CRM and review it quarterly. As market conditions change and your product evolves, your qualification criteria should too. This prevents the constant back-and-forth where AEs question the quality of SDR handoffs, and SDRs feel like their work isn’t appreciated.
Execute a warm handoff (not a cold pass-off)
There’s a world of difference between handing off a lead and introducing an AE to a prospect. A cold handoff—where the SDR simply forwards contact info to the AE—loses momentum. The prospect feels like they’re starting over. The relationship resets to zero.
A warm handoff maintains momentum and builds trust. Here’s the proven protocol:
Step 1: Pre-Call Briefing Before the AE’s first call with the prospect, the SDR provides a detailed brief covering the prospect’s background, pain points, and what was discussed. The AE reads this and prepares accordingly.
Step 2: The Three-Way Introduction Call Schedule a brief call with the prospect, SDR, and AE together. The SDR opens by reaffirming the value and introducing the AE. For example: “Sarah, I wanted to connect you with Mike, our Account Executive. Mike specializes in exactly the kind of workflow optimization we talked about, and he’ll help you explore whether our solution is the right fit.”
Step 3: The AE Takes Over After the brief introduction, the AE takes the conversation. They acknowledge what was discussed, thank the prospect for their time with the SDR, and outline next steps. The key here is continuity—the prospect feels like they’re talking to a team, not a relay race.
Step 4: The SDR Steps Back (But Stays Available) Once the AE has ownership, the SDR isn’t completely gone. They remain available for support if needed, but the AE leads. This prevents confusion and establishes clear ownership.
Why does this matter? Research from Gong.io shows that warm introductions increase meeting attendance by 40%. Prospects who experience a three-way handoff feel more invested in the next meeting because they were part of the transition, not surprised by a stranger reaching out.
Align on messaging and value proposition
One of the biggest missed opportunities in SDR-AE relationships is messaging misalignment. The SDR builds rapport with a prospect by focusing on one pain point—say, operational efficiency. But then the AE gets on the call and leads with pricing or feature depth. The prospect gets confused. The message that seemed resonant with the SDR suddenly feels off.
This is a coordination problem that kills conversions. Here’s how to prevent it:
Before the Handoff The SDR and AE should have a brief sync (even just a 5-minute call) where they discuss:
What pain point did you emphasize?
What language did the prospect use when describing their challenge?
What did they say was most important to them?
What’s the best way to transition from your discovery into the AE’s demo?
This doesn’t require a long conversation. It requires intentionality.
During the Handoff Call When the AE joins, they should acknowledge the pain point the SDR surfaced and build on it. For example: “Sarah mentioned you’re struggling with team coordination across locations. That’s exactly what we help companies solve, and I’d like to show you how.”
This creates continuity. The prospect feels heard. The message is consistent.
Why this matters: Inconsistent messaging across the handoff is like changing the story midway through. Prospects lose confidence. They wonder if the company is aligned. When messaging is consistent, prospects trust that they’re talking to a real team that understands their situation.
Tip #2: Judge your sales team members by the right metrics
As SDRs and AEs strive to foster good working relationships with each other, it’s important to choose the right metrics by which the members of the sales team are judged. For example, if SDRs are judged by the number of meetings booked for AEs and AEs are judged by opportunities won, these varying metrics could have an impact on how AEs and SDRs communicate with one another and how they focus their time.
There are competing opinions on how an SDR’s performance should be judged. The more traditional and easily measurable metrics relate to output.
“Calls and emails are literally the only two things that are within the SDR’s control,” Briccetti says. “Output should be measured and factored into commissions—at a relatively low percentage of about 10-20%—which will undoubtedly encourage reps to increase output.”
“The metrics which SDRs should be judged are strictly the number of dials and new prospects added into the system,” adds Blake Grundell, SDR Leader at Botify. “These two KPIs are telling signs of a healthy pipeline. The more people we call, the more real conversations we can have. The more new people from our accounts we bring in, the more impactful our message can be. Impactful messaging equates to more meetings booked.”
While the end goal of an SDRs efforts should be booking meetings for AEs, judging SDRs by the number of booked meetings can encourage the wrong behavior. SDRs should always strive to book successful meetings, but if they’re only booking to hit a meeting quota, they might let unqualified prospects through the door, and hinder the sales pipeline. For that reason, judging the sales team collectively by revenue can be a more effective approach.
“Measuring sales activities like calls made, demos given, meaningful conversations created, or even speed to contact will help your team improve their ability to better execute the tactics associated with their role, but the ideal metric is revenue,” Mike Carroll says. “If your team isn’t ready for that, then you’ll want to work backwards from the behavior or outcome you want to see and find the metrics that drive and incentivize that behavior.”
Balancing individual & team success
The debate about how to measure SDRs often becomes binary: either measure output (dials, emails) or measure revenue (deals closed). But the best-performing teams use a hybrid approach that balances individual accountability with team success.
Here’s how it works:
Component 1: Activity/Output Metrics (10-20% of comp)
Dials made per week
Emails sent per week
Meetings booked (quantity)
Why include them? These are the only metrics fully within the SDR’s control. Including them in compensation encourages hustle. But keep the weight low—you don’t want to incentivize volume over quality.
Component 2: Quality/Qualification Metrics (40-50% of comp)
Meetings booked with qualified prospects (not just any meeting)
Opportunities accepted by AEs (AE signal that the lead is actually good)
Pipeline contribution (revenue-generating potential of leads created)
Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate
Why include them? These metrics reward the SDR for qualifying well, not just prospecting hard. They create alignment with the AE because the SDR’s comp now depends on whether the AE actually accepts the lead as good.
Component 3: Team Revenue Goals (20-30% of comp)
Percentage of team revenue goal achieved
Pipeline acceleration (speed to move leads through stages)
Why include them? A small portion of the SDR’s compensation tied to team revenue creates a “we’re all in this together” mentality. It incentivizes the SDR to support the AE beyond their stated responsibilities.
Example comp split for a $60k base SDR:
Base salary: $60k
Activity bonus (10%): $6k
Quality bonus (40%): $24k
Team revenue bonus (30%): $18k
Total on-target earnings: $108k
This structure rewards SDRs for working hard, qualifying well, and supporting the broader team. It creates alignment because the SDR’s success depends partly on the AE’s success. And it’s not so heavily weighted toward metrics the SDR can’t control that they feel demotivated.
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In the hustle and bustle that comes with a salesperson’s life, it’s easy for crucial information such as phone numbers and appointment times to get lost. That’s why your CRM should be your single source of truth across your sales team. SDRs can input all the information the AEs will need for each prospect and qualified meeting, and AEs can input all the information they gain from the meeting and whether the prospect will be a good fit.
Sometimes busy schedules prevent SDRs or AEs from debriefing or communicating as much as they would like to. Keeping your CRM as your team’s central source of information when it comes to conversations with prospects and meeting schedules, as well as your pipeline health and the status of your deals will help your team stay up-to-date even during the busiest times of the quarter.
Create a handoff information checklist
Poor handoffs often fail because crucial information is missing. The AE gets a name and email—but nothing about the prospect’s actual pain points, their budget, or who else is involved in the decision. This forces the AE to start from scratch on the first call, killing momentum and wasting time re-asking questions the SDR already asked.
Research from RevNew demonstrates that salespeople who use standardized templates and comprehensive documentation achieve significantly higher conversion rates. Here’s what your SDR-to-AE handoff should include, every time:
Prospect & Company Information
Company name, size, and industry
Prospect’s role, title, and decision-making authority
Department or team they work in
Pain Points & Business Drivers
Specific challenges they mentioned
Current business goals or initiatives
Problems they’re trying to solve
Current Solutions & Environment
What tools or processes they’re currently using
Why those solutions might not be working
Any competitive tools you know they use
Buying Signal & Timeline
Budget availability (if discussed)
Timeline for making a decision
Who else is involved in the buying decision
Any objections or concerns already raised
Previous Conversation Details
Key talking points from SDR calls
Prospect’s level of interest
What specifically resonated with them
Next steps the prospect expects
Any follow-up commitments made
Pro tip: Log all of this in your CRM before the handoff happens. When AEs can review this information before their first call, they show up prepared, confident, and respectful of the prospect’s time—which dramatically improves first-call outcomes.
Tip #4: Always look for ways to support each other
Overall, a successful SDR-AE relationship is one in which each person has the other’s back. While each role has their own goals and quotas to meet, the sales team as a whole cannot be successful without each person’s contributions.
“SDRs can support AEs by going above and beyond their stated responsibilities,” Manwaring says. “When I was managing BDRs at Mavenlink, the BDRs were only compensated for opportunities that reached a certain stage, not if the deal closed. Regardless, supportive BDRs would still offer to rope in additional stakeholders and drive deals forward even after they no longer had additional compensation to gain from the deal closing. AEs would in turn support BDRs by helping them prospect and break into accounts even if they were not directly compensated for it. This sense of teamwork and support is a great way to foster a healthy, ‘We’re all in this together’ culture.”
“One of the biggest things an SDR can do to support their AE is to learn how they sell,” Grundell says. “Being able to have conversations with prospects and then transition them into a similar atmosphere with the AE on the next call leads to more natural conversations and a better first impression. On the flip side, an AE properly supporting their SDR depends on remembering what they are doing on a day-to-day basis, and understanding how they get paid and why they are asking for certain things. It’s hard being the tip of the spear.”
“I think the key to supporting your team members is the same for both sides, and it’s the eagerness to learn and get better,” says Briccetti. “AEs can be arrogant. SDRs can be naive. But if both sides check their egos and are genuinely hungry to improve the process on both sides and be there for each other in every way, that will lead to the most success.”
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Consider the case of Richards Supply, an industrial distributor managing over 50 employees. For years, their inside and outside sales teams operated in complete silos—what their President and CEO Eric called “church and state.” Communication breakdowns between the teams were constant, finger-pointing was rampant, and despite having a solid sales process, they couldn’t get their teams to work as one unit.
The turning point came when Richards Supply implemented a CRM system, but not just any system. They explicitly positioned it as a communication bridge between inside and outside sales teams. They involved end users in the decision from day one, adopted a peer-to-peer training model, and presented the solution as solving a pain point that tenured employees had felt for years.
The results were immediate. Within one month of going live, Richards Supply saw:
$3.4k in incremental revenue per active user per month
23.67% conversion rate on pitched items
72% daily usage among monthly active users
Dramatically improved accountability between teams
As Eric reflected on the transformation: “Proton’s helped us open those lines of communication and bring a lot more accountability between the inside and outside sales teams. When a CRM works, everybody gets on board pretty quick. So far, we’ve had a lot of wins. That makes it contagious; if everybody sees that guy got that sale, they want to get the next one.”
The lesson? Alignment isn’t just about better processes—it’s about giving your teams the tools and culture to actually work together toward shared goals.
Structured 1:1 Meeting Between SDR and AEs
Weekly or biweekly 1:1 meetings between SDRs and AEs are essential, but only if they’re actually productive. Too many teams schedule these meetings and then spend them on small talk or surface-level updates. Instead, structure them like a real business meeting with a clear agenda.
Weekly 1:1 Meeting Template (30 minutes)
Opening (2 minutes)
Quick personal check-in
“How’s your week going?”
Goals & Progress Review (8 minutes)
Review previous week’s goals
Discuss progress on pipeline
Celebrate wins (especially important for morale)
Lead Quality & Feedback (12 minutes)
Review handoffs from the previous week
AE gives feedback: “This lead was great because…” or “This one wasn’t quite right because…”
SDR shares observations from calls: “I noticed prospects in this vertical are concerned about…”
Discuss what’s working and what needs adjustment
Alignment & Next Steps (8 minutes)
Discuss target accounts for the coming week
Align on messaging and value props
Clarify any blockers
Set specific goals for both roles
Closing (2 minutes)
Action items recap
Confirm next meeting
Why structure matters: Unstructured meetings feel like a waste of time. Structured meetings with clear outcomes—feedback shared, goals set, wins celebrated—create accountability and keep both SDRs and AEs engaged.
One more tip: every month, ask your SDRs and AEs whether these meetings feel valuable. If they’re not, the structure probably needs adjustment. High-performing teams often evolve their 1:1 format over time based on feedback. Some add rotating topics (one week focus on messaging, next week on target accounts). The point isn’t rigid structure—it’s intentional communication.
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Uniting your SDR and AE teams starts with the right tools. A CRM like Nutshell makes it easy to log comprehensive handoff information, track metrics that matter, and maintain visibility across your entire sales pipeline—whether your team is in the office or distributed across time zones.
Strong alignment = better handoffs = faster pipeline movement = more revenue.
SDR and AE FAQs
1. How often should SDRs and AEs meet to stay aligned?
SDRs and AEs should meet weekly or biweekly at minimum. Weekly 1:1s work best for high-velocity sales teams, while biweekly meetings suit longer sales cycles. Each meeting should review pipeline health, discuss target accounts, and align on messaging. Keep meetings focused—30 minutes is usually enough to cover goals, progress, and upcoming priorities without cutting into prospecting time.
2. Should SDRs be measured by meetings booked or revenue generated?
The best approach is a hybrid model. SDRs should be primarily measured on qualified meetings or opportunities accepted by AEs (not just booked), with a smaller portion tied to team revenue goals. This balances individual accountability with team success. Measuring only meetings booked can encourage quantity over quality, while measuring only revenue may demotivate newer SDRs who have less control over deal outcomes.
3. What information should SDRs include in the handoff to AEs?
SDRs should provide: prospect’s role and decision-making authority, specific pain points discussed, current solutions they’re using, budget and timeline indicators, key stakeholders identified, and detailed notes from all conversations. The best handoffs also include next steps the prospect expects and any objections or concerns raised. Log everything in your CRM so AEs can review before the first call.
4. Should SDRs and AEs be paired 1:1 or work in a pool model?
1:1 pairing typically drives better results. When SDRs are dedicated to specific AEs, they build stronger working relationships, learn each AE’s selling style, and develop deeper account knowledge. This creates accountability on both sides and improves lead quality over time. Pool models can work for smaller teams or inbound-heavy organizations, but dedicated pairing is the gold standard for outbound sales teams.
5. How can AEs provide effective feedback to SDRs without damaging the relationship?
Focus feedback on specific behaviors, not personal traits. Use the format: “When you did X, it helped me do Y” for positive feedback, and “If we tried X, we could improve Y” for constructive feedback. Give feedback quickly after meetings while details are fresh, and always tie it to shared goals. Most importantly, create a two-way feedback culture—ask SDRs for their input on your discovery calls and be open to their observations.
