Return of the Full-Cycle Account Executive

Return of the Full-Cycle Account Executive: A Strategic Imperative for the Consumption Economy

Sales organizations are undergoing a shift, and the old playbooks need to be updated. For decades, the hunter-farmer model reigned supreme, neatly dividing sales professionals into those who aggressively pursued new accounts and those who diligently nurtured existing relationships. Bifurcating your coverage model is justified by win rates with existing customers sitting around 60%-70%, and while win rates can be as low as 5%-20%with new customers. However, in the age of consumption and usage-based revenue models, this once-sacred division is resulting in disjointed client experiences and constraining growth. It's time to provoke a re-evaluation: is the specialized sales rep an outdated concept, and are we witnessing the return of the full-cycle Account Executive?

The Allure of Specialization: A Fading Dream?

The traditional sales organization often celebrated the "lone-wolf rep" focused on product-driven, transactional selling. This led to a natural division: "Hunters" were tasked with acquiring new customers, stimulating interest, and expanding market reach. Once a deal was closed, the customer was often handed over to a "Farmer" or Account Manager, whose role was to maintain the relationship and seek out new opportunities within the existing account base, or "penetration". This specialization aimed for efficiency, ensuring reps focused on what they did best. However, does role specialization actually add value, or has it just become the default model since the SaaS boom hit? The answer depends on how account growth is delivered. 

The Consumption Economy's Demands

Today, many industries, particularly technology and SaaS, are rapidly shifting from product-centric or one-time sales to cloud and subscription-based revenue models. In fact, 61% of Saas or xPaaS companies have already made the move to usage-based pricing. This fundamental change isn't just about how revenue is recognized; it's about a continual value delivery model that necessitates constant customer engagement. Customers now expect ongoing service, education, and support throughout their contractual relationship. Revenue leaders recognize this as both a responsibility and a profound opportunity to enhance Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and reduce churn.

In consumption-based models, the actual value of a sale might only be realized month by month, rather than entirely at contract signature. This means that once the initial deal is signed, the real work of ensuring usage and value realization begins. If customers don't find value or fail to consume the product as expected, the risk of high churn dramatically increases. Companies are now heavily focused on "land and expand" strategies, where an initial smaller sale is expected to grow significantly over time through increased adoption and usage.

Why the Hunter-Farmer Model Falters

This new reality clashes directly with the entrenched hunter-farmer paradigm:

• Hunters  move on: The hunter's incentive is typically tied to new logos and hitting acquisition quotas. Once the contract is signed, their attention quickly shifts to the next new pursuit, leaving the critical post-sale "consumption" phase to others. This creates a disjointed customer experience where the initial excitement generated by the hunter can fizzle if value isn't realized effectively post-sale.
• Farmers are ill-equipped for proactive growth: While farmers (Account Managers, Customer Success Managers) are responsible for retention and  building relationships, their traditional focus might not be on aggressively driving new business or expanding beyond familiar offerings. They might lack the "hunter" mindset or direct incentives to aggressively pursue new cross-sell or upsell opportunities that arise from deepening product usage.
• Misaligned Incentives: Compensation plans often remain tied to the old model, rewarding "primary sales" by individual sellers at different rates than cross-sales, disincentivizing comprehensive engagement. Sales reps might avoid including subject matter experts if it means sharing incentive pay. When companies shift to consumption, incentive plans need strong alignment between deal acquisition and actual volume realization. If sellers aren't motivated to ensure usage post-signing, churn can increase.
• Customer Frustration: The strict division can lead to customers being contacted by too many different people from the same organization, negatively impacting their experience. It becomes challenging for a single customer to have a consistent point of contact who understands their evolving needs throughout their lifecycle.

The consequence? Longer Time to Revenue and Time to Value. If the initial sale isn't quickly followed by adoption, usage, and subsequent expansion, the projected revenue from consumption models remains unrealized. Sales organizations can find themselves with "stalled momentum and unexpected churn", harvesting past success rather than actively cultivating future growth. We’ve seen sales organizations address this by involving their hunters in cross-sell or renewal deals. Through Time & Motion studies, we’ve seen hunters spend as much as a third of their time on existing customers. This redirects effort away from hunting new logos and creates costly duplication of resources in the coverage model. 

The Resurgence of the Full-Cycle AE

The answer isn't to abandon specialization entirely, but to rethink how the core sales accountabilities fit together, and build the seller profile(s) around these accountabilities. In many cases, this means the return of a modernized full-cycle Account Executive – a sales professional who is equipped, incentivized, and accountable for the entire customer journey, from initial engagement through sustained value realization and expansion.

This "renaissance seller" would embody a holistic approach, moving beyond the traditional transactional focus to cultivate long-term relationships and act as a trusted advisor. Their responsibilities would span:

• Acquisition: Still bringing in new logos, but with an eye towards long-term partnership potential, not just initial booking.
• Onboarding & Adoption: Collaborating closely with customer success to ensure seamless implementation and initial product usage. This directly impacts Time to Value.
• Deepening Penetration & Cross-selling: Identifying new opportunities within existing accounts by understanding evolving needs and proactively positioning additional products or services as value-adds. This shortens the Time to Revenue for subsequent sales.
• Retention: Maintaining strong relationships to ensure ongoing satisfaction and renewal, minimizing churn.

This is a shift towards a solution-selling approach that prioritizes value propositions and deep customer understanding over simple product features. These AEs would act as orchestrators, coordinating internal specialists (such as Sales Engineers for technical support or Marketing for lead generation) rather than simply handing off the customer. The traditional "jack-of-all-trades" sales representative, once a familiar figure in territory-based forces, serves as a historical precedent for this integrated approach.

Paving the Way for the Full-Cycle Renaissance

Implementing this shift requires thoughtful organizational change:

• Redesigning Roles & Processes: Jobs must be configured to match the evolving buyer journey. This involves defining clear responsibilities and understanding how roles collaborate across the sales cycle to avoid gaps and overlaps.
• Aligning Incentives: Compensation plans must move beyond simple dollar-to-dollar performance. 

• Consider the same commission rates for primary and cross-sales to encourage collaboration.

• Explore milestone or stage-gate-based incentive programs for long sales cycles

• Pay on dollar one for new offerings, but balance upfront payouts with incentives tied to realized revenue and consumption over time. Utilize MBOs (Management by Objectives) for behaviors like coaching, teamwork, and driving collaboration, especially as teams become more cross-functional.

• Investing in Talent & Training: Reps need training in empathy-based selling, effective communication, and customer-centricity. They must develop stronger business acumen to deliver value propositions that enhance customer financials and confidently sell across an evolving portfolio. Continuous learning is crucial for adapting to new selling motions and technology.

• Leveraging Data & Analytics: Sales operations must use data science to identify patterns of behavior that lead to success, optimize processes, and provide actionable insights for sales teams. This includes robust market sizing, customer segmentation, and territory design based on workload and value rather than just geography.

Conclusion

The era of hyper-specialized, siloed sales functions is losing its efficacy in a world driven by continuous consumption and customer lifetime value. Companies that cling to outdated hunter-farmer models risk stagnation and increased churn. It may be time to usher back in the full-cycle Account Executive – a versatile, customer-obsessed professional who can navigate the entire customer journey, driving adoption, expansion, and retention. This isn't just a tweak to the sales organization; it's a strategic transformation, integrating redesigned roles, aligned incentives, and data-driven insights. Embrace this change, and you won't just keep pace; you'll lead the charge in the new consumption economy.

More teams are starting to question whether the traditional hunter-farmer split still makes sense, especially in a world where growth depends on usage, not just bookings. If you’re exploring how to align roles and incentives with today’s revenue realities, we’d love to connect.

Reach out to Andrew Harris [andrew.harris@revenueshift.com]to discuss what a full-cycle approach could look like for your team.