Everything You Need to Write an Account Executive Job Description

In business, effective relationship building can be the fast track to making or breaking a company’s success, so it’s crucial to appoint someone who has proven success in fostering long-term relationships.

That’s where Account Executives come in.

If you’re in a business that involves building client-relations, you will benefit from hiring an expert in your field to ensure needs and expectations of both new and existing clients are met on a personal level.

Whether you’re new or seasoned to writing job descriptions, this article will explain what Account Executives do and what they expect out of a job description with a few actual examples and a template to help get you started. Then, we’ll end on some salary info.

Skip to the section that most interests you, or continue reading.

Table of Contents

• What Does an Account Executive Do?
• Five Account Executive Job Description Examples
• Account Executive Job Description Template
• Account Executive Salary Information

What Does An Account Executive Do?

Though the term is used in many industries, for the sake of this article, Account Executives are entry-to-mid-level roles in the sales department. They generally have a bachelor’s degree and some experience in a communications related field, like marketing, advertising, statistics, business and even psychology.

The role focuses on the beginning stages of the sales funnel, meaning they are tasked with the goal of acquiring new business and clients. They are often the initial point of contact for leads and prospects. They pitch the product or service, qualify and convert prospects into customers and negotiate deals.

Account Executives play a crucial role in acquiring new business, building relationships with prospects and clients and ultimately reaching revenue goals for the company.

Beyond the Account Executive role, their career may continue to Sales Manager, Director of Sales or VP of Sales.

Five Account Executive Job Description Examples

Enough from us. Let’s see a few real examples from actual companies hiring Account Executives that we sourced from our online communities in seven markets. While these are real job descriptions, we have redacted information from the original post to protect the privacy of the companies.

Account Executive Job Description: Example 1

About the role:

We are looking for a dynamic, high-performing Account Executive with experience selling [redacted] within the [redacted] sector. The ideal candidate will be responsible for the full sales cycle, from lead to close, and must love the thrill of the hunt. They will also help internal teams continue to innovate by sharing knowledge of client challenges as well as their understanding of [redacted] portfolio of our offerings to [redacted].

We want you to work with these prospects to uncover needs and opportunities to expand the use of our products and services, helping them to achieve success with their fundraising, financial, academic [redacted], website, and organizational goals.

What you’ll be doing:

• Qualifying, pursuing and closing sales opportunities within a territory
• Exceeding monthly, quarterly and annual sales quotas
• Using/maintaining internal sales tools (salesforce.com) for CRM and pipeline management
• Engaging with technical and/or executive team members in complex sales scenarios
• Developing client proposals that effectively communicate our products and offer customized solutions for each unique nonprofit organization
• Ongoing, self-directed monitoring of non-profit marketplace and competitor developments
• Regular engagement with product management to deliver intelligence on client needs

What we’ll want you to have:

• 3+ years of software sales (SaaS) experience in the [redacted] marketplace
• Effective tele-sales and online presentation skills
• Understanding of sales methodologies (i.e. value selling, target account selling, solutions selling, strategic selling)
• Proven history of consistent over-quota achievement of sales goals
• Ability to thrive in a competitive environment and to adapt to change easily
• Demonstrated success in client relationship management
• A bachelor’s degree
• Prior experience selling/implementing in [redacted] market a plus
• Additional skills might require a combination of previous experience working/selling [redacted] or having a background in Accounting or Finance.

Account Executive Job Description: Example 2

[Redacted]’s Account Executive is an integral partner for clients and internal team members in the delivery of marketing initiatives that drive business impact for [redacted] brands.

This person is motivated to be a key point of contact to interpret the client’s strategic objectives and collaborate with the agency team in building innovative marketing tactics.

Responsibilities:

Characteristics

• Driven and possesses an eagerness to learn and a high level of accountability towards a quality work product
• Values collaboration, engaging cross-functional partners to solve marketing challenge to ensure the agency’s best thinking is applied to the work
• Possesses a natural curiosity and desire to understand the business, customer insights, multichannel marketing and platforms

Relationship building

• Earns trust and builds relationships with agency staff, agency partners, and client contacts
• Understands the components of marketing and advertising strategies and applies them to making decisions
• Proactively recognizes client's needs and partners with team to incorporate into project plans
• Identifies potential conflicts and problems before they materialize

Communication ability

• Facilitates great communication between the client and agency teams to identify and discuss marketing communications opportunities and requirements
• Ability to communicate both written and orally in an organized and logical manner; reflecting, be accuracy, concision and persuasiveness
• Able to lead conference calls with clients that have objectives, structure and focus
• Runs effective meetings by setting objectives and desired results, including appropriate participants and creating an environment that delivers against the objectives
• Ensures accurate follow-up on agreements in meetings; both in-person and via conference (internal and external)

Executional excellence

• Has strong knowledge of agency workflow, processes and key individuals involved at each step
• Able to write accurate scopes by engaging appropriate functional leads and asking relevant questions of clients to gain clarity around deliverables and needs
• Ability to accurately identify key data or customer insights to solve a problem and inspire innovative and creative solutions; understands the business implications and impact of data or action on subsequent events
• Actively contribute to the creative process, from project initiation to delivery.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree required
• 1-2 years of agency experience in Account Management
• Experience presenting information both orally and in writing
• Strong business writing skills

Account Executive Job Description: Example 3

[Redacted] is a fast-growing [redacted] company in [redacted] in the [redacted] space. We’re growing fast! No longer do you have to move to Silicon Valley to join an amazing technology company with significant career and equity potential. The right candidate will join an amazing group of people and will play a big role in the future success of [redacted]!

What You’ll Do:

• Hunt for, and secure new customers
• Achieve quarterly and annual revenue growth targets by pursuing and securing net new business
• Pursue leads generated by our Business Development Team as well and prospect independently
• Provide mentorship to Business Development Representatives (BDRs)
• Prepare Sales Engineer for demos and Sales Director for closing by understanding clear drivers for buying, the buying process, and key champions
• Utilize solution-selling techniques to effectively guide sales process to close
• Enter new leads and critical customer and prospect data and activity into Salesforce
• Keep up to date on our product as well as industry trends that may impact client business activities
• Contribute to our broader sales organization that values learning from each other and sharing ideas

About You:

• 3 + years of [redacted] sales experience, with proven track record of exceeding quota
• Customer-focused with proven knowledge of [redacted] sales and solution-selling strategies
• Demonstrated success in building customer relationships at the VP and C-level
• Excellent communication and presentation skills with an ability to partner with senior business leaders to understand needs and deliver solutions
• Success in prospecting, engaging, and acquiring net new logos
• Openness to mentorship and coaching, regardless of past history of success
• Bachelor’s degree preferred, but a lifelong learner required

Account Executive Job Description: Example 4

What you’ll be doing on the Sales team at [redacted]:

• Connect and consult with inbound leads and marketing generated opportunities
• Actively prospect new business opportunities
• Develop and manage a pipeline of [redacted] prospects/clients
• Drive complex deals from initial contact, all the way through to close within a fast paced sales environment
• Prepare and present [redacted] with prospects and guide them through the buying process
• Leverage sales management tools to track sales activities
• Build and manage a strong pipeline of prospective customers and work with management to provide an accurate sales forecast
• Sell to key decision makers within organizations of all sizes
• Helping grow the sales team and build a scalable, repeatable process

About you and what type of skills you’ll need:

• Bachelor’s degree or comparable experience
• 3-5 years of sales experience within a fast paced and transactional environment preferred
• Must have 2+ years experience working complex deals with larger organizations from procurement to close.
• The ability to demonstrate a strong aptitude for Sales
• Technologically savvy and ability to learn new technology fast
• Proven ability to achieve and exceed quotas and goals
• The ability to work individually and collaborate within a team environment to achieve set goals
• Exceptional verbal and written communications skills
• Love crushing goals

Account Executive Job Description: Example 5

[Redacted] is seeking multiple Account Executives to join our fast-growing sales team. These individuals will engage with companies in the mid-market and enterprise segments to identify how the [redacted] platform can help them to drive key business and growth objectives. As a trusted advisor, you’ll evangelize [redacted] solutions and help prospects understand how a [redacted] platform can allow them to reduce customer churn, increase customer engagement, and grow customer relationships.

You must be very comfortable wearing multiple hats in a highly ambiguous environment, identifying qualified opportunities, and managing multi-stakeholder procurement processes. This is a fantastic opportunity for driven, strategic, and high-performing sales executives to get in at the ground floor of a rapidly accelerating startup that is already helping hundreds of [redacted] organizations build lifetime customers.

Responsibilities

• Work cross functionally to manage a pipeline of potential opportunities, navigate closing processes, and consistently achieve individual sales quotas.
• Identify and engage with prospective new customers via phone and email to introduce to introduce the [redacted] platform and use cases
• Accurately forecast sales activity and revenue achievement through proper use of sales tools.
• Understand prospect pain points and develop a value proposition specific to the customer’s needs and business goals.
• Navigate complex procurement cycles with multi-stakeholder sign-off including executives, legal, information security, etc.
• Develop and negotiate mid-market to enterprise level proposals and contracts.
• Create and deliver customized sales presentations and high-impact demonstrations, by phone and web.
• Collaborate effectively and engage various pre/post sales resources including Account Development Representatives, Account Managers, Solutions Consultants, and Customer Success.

Requirements

• 3+ years sales experience (Inside sales preferred) selling a [redacted] product on quota in a dynamic and fast-paced environment.
• Highly data-driven and experienced with sales automation and CRM tools.
• Ability to share, measure, and implement best practices with the team.
• Excellent sales organization skills, attention to detail, and customer focus.
• Proven ability to develop, implement, and execute an inside sales strategy with little oversight or direction.
• Highly self­-directed and comfortable in a small, unstructured environment with ambiguous and rapidly changing market feedback.
• Startup experience a major plus.
• A collaborative team player with excellent communication skills.
• US work authorization and criminal background check are required.

Account Executive Job Description Template

To further help in your writing process, we’ve created a template that you can tailor to your specific needs. Again, this is a template and not a form, so make sure to customize it as needed.

Company Bio

[Use this section to provide an attention grabbing overview of your company. Include information about your culture, perks and benefits, career development opportunities and anything else that will get candidates excited about your company.]

Responsibilities

• Identify, qualify, pursue and close a pipeline of new business opportunities.
• Manage the full sales life cycle to consistently exceed monthly/quarterly/annual sales quotas.
• Pitch [insert your product or service] in a professional, confident and articulate manner.
• Build and maintain relationships with clients and prospective clients.
• Utilize [insert your CRM] to effectively track and report on your pipeline.
• Think strategically to qualify and convert the right prospects.
• Manage the customer procurement process and negotiate cost and contract with clients.
• Work closely with marketing, technology, design, product and sales departments to deliver effective solutions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a communication or business-related field, such as marketing, advertising, statistics, business or psychology.
• [X] years of experience in a sales role.
• [X] years of experience with [insert your CRM].
• History of success building relationships with [insert seniority or industry] clients.
• Proven track record of exceeding sales goals.
• Exceptional written and verbal communications skills.
• Effective and confident presentation skills.
• Clear understanding and proven execution of sales techniques and methods.

Account Executive Salary Information

By now you should be feeling a bit more confident in writing a job description for an open Account Executive role. Before you wrap up, make sure to include on of the most important elements: salary. Not sure where to start? We’ve gathered Account Executive salary information from seven of the country’s hottest job markets. You can click each bullet for further information from our local compensation analysis tools.

• Austin, TX: $64,835
• Boston, MA: $69,694
• Chicago, IL: $61,435
• Colorado: $63,933
• Los Angeles, CA: $67,630
• New York, NY: $79,915
• Seattle, WA: $80,856

Cross Market Average Salary for Account Executives: $69,757