Navigating Tension Between SDRs and AEs Over Meeting Qualification

Adam · 2025-12-02T19:11:34.861Z

Is anyone else seeing tension between SDRs and AEs over meeting qualification? I've heard of 2 approaches: SDRs qualify during disco calls and hand off to AEs, but then AEs complain about wasting time on unqualified meetings Or AEs have final say on what counts as "qualified", but that seems unfair since SDR comp depends on someone else's judgment... Has anyone actually figured this out or is it just always messy?

Navigating Tension Between SDRs and AEs Over Meeting Qualification | RevGenius

10 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Mike C.
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It's on 'enablement/sales ops/ToFu leadership to create both a structure to ensure only high-quality 'SQLs' are being booked and a mentality. Do not hold your ToFu reps to qualifying BANT (or similar) but DO hold them to detailed, clear, concise company/contact attributes...I'm actually damn good and building these out...happy to whip a few out for you. DM me.
🙌1
✅2
Richard H.
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This is normal tension, and can be blamed on poor leadership for the following:
1.
assigning a sales rep to “manage” an SDR compensation plan is outside the scope of the ae role.
2.
Happens when there are not very specific guidelines around what “qualified means”
3.
Happens when the SDR is required to only set meetings based on ICP and do no discovery at all and it's left to ae to decide.
4.
Fails to recognize the issue that the AE may actually be terrible at qualifying in the first place
5.
Fails to recognize the ae doesn't want to be held accountable for something going on the pipeline, which then means their goals may be unrealistic in the first place.
It's simply stupid for companies to do this. If a company is concerned about overcompensating an SDR they are simply clueless about sales and it's an indication that they don't have enough money to survive or seem to think it's better to leave money in the bank account to impress VCs.
Colin M.
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it comes down to have extremely clear rules of engagement on sales stages and what is required of SDR and what is required of AE. What has worked for me in a few different organizations is having clearly defined Exit Criteria for stages 00-02. Contact Role/Responsibility, Initial Use Care, Current State, Identified Pain (detailed challenges), Firm Future Commitment. This should roll into Current State process documented, Indicated Pain (quantified impact documented).
Adam
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Colin M. So essentially SDRs ask the same core questions every time to fill out those fields? I guess that removes ambiguity for sure.
✅2
Adam
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Thanks Richard H., feels like a lot of this is a leadership/structure problem...
Dan N.
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Richard H. is right on the money- it's not a classification problem, it's a people problem. If it's really a classification problem, then put the right people in the room, hammer out better qualification criteria, embed it into the CRM, and off you go. This should be the normal course of business, revisited on a semi-annual basis... ...but if you don't get the right people in the same room with leadership holding up core values, willing to spend real $$$ on a fair and equitable sales motion, then yeah, prepare for tribal warfare.
✅4
Ben B.
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All incredible points here, having already covered the important ones. I would only add that this happens when leadership doesn't set clear parameters - people make up their own. Structure over vibes, always.
✅2
Marylou Tyler
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I love this question. And my "future" self as both co-author of Predictable Revenue and author of Predictable Prospecting answers your question about messiness this way: In Predictable Revenue, we originally optimized for:
Fairness
Alignment of incentives
Scalability
Now, however, AI-adaptive (rewired) workflows allow the process to be dramatically more precise:
Compensation ties to objective pipeline value created, not AE or SDR/BDR sentiment.
“Qualified” becomes an observable, measurable state — not a conversation.
Many of my clients are redesigning their entire business development workflows to include a more asynchronous, adaptive style along the path from lead-to-qualified-opportunity by leveraging data so that qualification becomes a "system" rather than a "role".
Adam
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thanks for your insights Dan N. Ben B. Marylou Tyler
🫡1
Moyosore O.
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Yeah, the SDR ↔️ AE qualification beef is universal — most org have the same scars 😂 What actually works (without turning it into a war):
Co-own the definition of “qualified” (literally one Google Doc both sides edit)
Pay SDRs on meetings accepted by AE within 24h, not just booked
Bonus both if it turns into pipe (aligns incentives fast)
5-min pre-handoff Slack/Loom from SDR + mandatory 2-min post-call feedback from AE
Biggest game-changer I’ve seen: weekly 30-min “calibration calls” where SDRs + AEs listen to one good + one bad handoff on Gong together. Resentment melts, quality shoots up. It’ll never be drama-free, but the teams that do the above go from constant fights to “we’re in this together” vibes in like a month.
👍1

Mike C.
·
·
It's on 'enablement/sales ops/ToFu leadership to create both a structure to ensure only high-quality 'SQLs' are being booked and a mentality. Do not hold your ToFu reps to qualifying BANT (or similar) but DO hold them to detailed, clear, concise company/contact attributes...I'm actually damn good and building these out...happy to whip a few out for you. DM me.
🙌1
✅2
Richard H.
·
·
This is normal tension, and can be blamed on poor leadership for the following:
1.
assigning a sales rep to “manage” an SDR compensation plan is outside the scope of the ae role.
2.
Happens when there are not very specific guidelines around what “qualified means”
3.
Happens when the SDR is required to only set meetings based on ICP and do no discovery at all and it's left to ae to decide.
4.
Fails to recognize the issue that the AE may actually be terrible at qualifying in the first place
5.
Fails to recognize the ae doesn't want to be held accountable for something going on the pipeline, which then means their goals may be unrealistic in the first place.
It's simply stupid for companies to do this. If a company is concerned about overcompensating an SDR they are simply clueless about sales and it's an indication that they don't have enough money to survive or seem to think it's better to leave money in the bank account to impress VCs.
Colin M.
·
·
it comes down to have extremely clear rules of engagement on sales stages and what is required of SDR and what is required of AE. What has worked for me in a few different organizations is having clearly defined Exit Criteria for stages 00-02. Contact Role/Responsibility, Initial Use Care, Current State, Identified Pain (detailed challenges), Firm Future Commitment. This should roll into Current State process documented, Indicated Pain (quantified impact documented).
Adam
·
·
Colin M. So essentially SDRs ask the same core questions every time to fill out those fields? I guess that removes ambiguity for sure.
✅2
Adam
·
·
Thanks Richard H., feels like a lot of this is a leadership/structure problem...
Dan N.
·
·
Richard H. is right on the money- it's not a classification problem, it's a people problem. If it's really a classification problem, then put the right people in the room, hammer out better qualification criteria, embed it into the CRM, and off you go. This should be the normal course of business, revisited on a semi-annual basis... ...but if you don't get the right people in the same room with leadership holding up core values, willing to spend real $$$ on a fair and equitable sales motion, then yeah, prepare for tribal warfare.
✅4
Ben B.
·
·
All incredible points here, having already covered the important ones. I would only add that this happens when leadership doesn't set clear parameters - people make up their own. Structure over vibes, always.
✅2
Marylou Tyler
·
·
I love this question. And my "future" self as both co-author of Predictable Revenue and author of Predictable Prospecting answers your question about messiness this way: In Predictable Revenue, we originally optimized for:
Fairness
Alignment of incentives
Scalability
Now, however, AI-adaptive (rewired) workflows allow the process to be dramatically more precise:
Compensation ties to objective pipeline value created, not AE or SDR/BDR sentiment.
“Qualified” becomes an observable, measurable state — not a conversation.
Many of my clients are redesigning their entire business development workflows to include a more asynchronous, adaptive style along the path from lead-to-qualified-opportunity by leveraging data so that qualification becomes a "system" rather than a "role".
Adam
·
·
thanks for your insights Dan N. Ben B. Marylou Tyler
🫡1
Moyosore O.
·
·
Yeah, the SDR ↔️ AE qualification beef is universal — most org have the same scars 😂 What actually works (without turning it into a war):
Co-own the definition of “qualified” (literally one Google Doc both sides edit)
Pay SDRs on meetings accepted by AE within 24h, not just booked
Bonus both if it turns into pipe (aligns incentives fast)
5-min pre-handoff Slack/Loom from SDR + mandatory 2-min post-call feedback from AE
Biggest game-changer I’ve seen: weekly 30-min “calibration calls” where SDRs + AEs listen to one good + one bad handoff on Gong together. Resentment melts, quality shoots up. It’ll never be drama-free, but the teams that do the above go from constant fights to “we’re in this together” vibes in like a month.
👍1