For many sales leaders, it’s an uncomfortable truth: your Account Executives (AEs) are great at closing deals but terrible at filling their own pipeline.
It’s not that they can’t prospect – it’s that in most organisations, the structure, priorities and culture set them up to fail. The result? A reliance on a handful of inbound leads, sporadic outreach and a dangerously thin pipeline.
Inconsistent prospecting is one of the most common and costly AE prospecting challenges we see. If your team’s success is heavily weighted on closing skills but the top of your funnel is weak, you’re building a revenue engine on a shaky foundation…
…the kind we break down and rebuild in our guide → How to Fix Your Sales Pipeline Before It’s Too Late
Why AEs Struggle with Prospecting
Let’s get clear on the reasons first – and spoiler alert: it’s rarely just about “lack of effort”.
Conflicting priorities: AEs are judged on hitting monthly or quarterly targets, so they naturally focus on late-stage deals that are closest to closing. Prospecting gets pushed down the list until it’s too late.
Wrong skill focus: Closing requires a different skill set from opening. AEs who are brilliant negotiators might not have the same persistence, tone and timing needed for cold outreach.
Poor data quality: If they don’t have access to clean, segmented and targeted data, prospecting turns into a slow, frustrating slog. Take a look at → How To Increase Qualified B2B Sales Leads for insights on sharpening lead quality and pre-call readiness.
No consistent process: Without a structured cadence and clear metrics, prospecting efforts become sporadic and inconsistent.
Lack of accountability: If prospecting activity isn’t measured and coached, it becomes invisible – and invisible work rarely gets done.
The Impact on Revenue
When AEs aren’t consistently prospecting, the pipeline becomes dangerously dependent on marketing, referrals or luck. That’s not a strategy – it’s a gamble.
The lag effect is the real killer: a dry pipeline today is the result of prospecting gaps months ago. By the time you notice, the problem is already baked into your next quarter’s numbers.
What to Do About It: Effective Prospecting Strategies for AEs
The solution isn’t to simply tell AEs to “do more outreach”. It’s about creating the right structure, providing the right tools and instilling consistent habits that make prospecting part of the sales culture.
Here’s how to make it happen:
Separate responsibilities where possible: If resources allow, split sales into SDRs/BDRs for outbound and AEs for closing. If not, ringfence daily prospecting time that can’t be interrupted.
Block dedicated prospecting hours: 1–2 hours each day, protected from internal meetings or other distractions, ensures prospecting doesn’t get sidelined.
Create a repeatable cadence: Use a clear, multi-touch process that combines email, phone, LinkedIn and even voice notes to improve connection rates.
Lead with relevance: Personalise outreach with industry insights, role-specific challenges or trigger events such as funding rounds, leadership changes or product launches.
Follow up relentlessly: Build persistence into the cadence – most prospects need several touchpoints before they respond.
Measure activity and outcomes: Track calls, emails, meetings booked and conversion rates. Use this data for coaching, not just reporting.
Invest in skills training: Prospecting is different from closing. Equip AEs with tested messaging, objection handling techniques and the confidence to start high-value conversations.
Refine through testing: Experiment with subject lines, call openers and value propositions, and double down on what works.
Use tech to scale smartly: Sales engagement platforms can automate parts of the process without losing the personal touch, freeing AEs to focus on meaningful interactions.
The Bottom Line
If your AEs are failing at prospecting, it’s not just their problem, it’s a leadership problem. You can either keep asking closers to also be openers (and watch the pipeline yo-yo) or you can focus on managing AE prospecting performance in a way that builds consistency.
That means building a high-performing prospecting process that’s embedded in your sales culture, supported by training, and measured with the same rigour as closing performance.
A strong pipeline isn’t built in the last week of the quarter – it’s built every single day.
Written by: Ricky Hopwood, Head of Business Development at Air Marketing
Need to transform your sales performance?
At Air, we help businesses reignite growth by designing and executing outbound strategies that work in the real world. We uncover where opportunity is being missed — whether that’s in targeting, messaging, cadence or conversion — and build outbound engines that generate consistent, qualified pipeline.
Our approach surfaces what’s holding you back and unlocks faster, more predictable revenue.
