Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Inside Sales Account Manager

🎯 Role Definition

The Inside Sales Account Manager is a revenue-driven sales professional responsible for managing and growing a portfolio of existing accounts while generating new business through inbound and outbound channels. This hybrid role combines account management, consultative selling, and proactive lead development to meet monthly and quarterly quota targets. The ideal candidate uses CRM tools, sales playbooks, and data-driven outreach to nurture relationships, cross-sell and upsell product offerings, and collaborate with marketing and customer success to drive retention and expansion in B2B or SaaS environments.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Sales Development Representative (SDR) / Business Development Representative (BDR)
Customer Success Representative or Customer Support Specialist
Junior Account Manager or Sales Coordinator

Advancement To:

Senior Inside Sales / Account Manager
Enterprise Account Manager / Strategic Account Manager
Sales Manager / Team Lead
Regional Account Executive or Territory Manager

Lateral Moves:

Customer Success Manager
Product Specialist / Solutions Consultant
Revenue Operations or Sales Enablement

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own and manage a defined portfolio of mid-market and/or SMB accounts to achieve monthly and quarterly revenue targets, with responsibility for renewals, upsells, cross-sells, and churn mitigation.
Proactively qualify inbound leads and convert them into pipeline opportunities through consultative discovery calls, needs analysis, and tailored product demonstrations aimed at accelerating the buyer’s journey.
Execute high-volume outbound outreach (phone, email, LinkedIn) following playbooks and cadences to generate new opportunities, re-engage dormant accounts, and expand territory penetration.
Develop and maintain an accurate, prioritized sales pipeline in Salesforce (or HubSpot), logging all activity, updating opportunity stages, and forecasting weekly and monthly revenue projections.
Conduct product demos and presentations (remote or virtual) focused on ROI, business impact, and use-case alignment for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Negotiate commercial terms, prepare quotes and proposals, and collaborate with legal/finance to close deals while protecting margin and adhering to pricing policy.
Drive account growth by identifying expansion opportunities, building cross-functional buy-in, and coordinating upsell campaigns with marketing and customer success teams.
Manage the full sales cycle from lead qualification through contract execution, including discovery, solution mapping, objection handling, and closing.
Use data and KPIs (conversion rates, average deal size, sales velocity, churn rate) to refine outreach strategies and improve quota attainment.
Support product-market fit discussions by collecting customer feedback, feature requests and competitive insights and forwarding them to Product and Marketing teams.
Conduct regular business reviews and QBRs (quarterly business reviews) with assigned accounts to align on goals, adoption metrics, and expansion plans.
Work cross-functionally with onboarding and customer success to ensure smooth handoffs and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction and retention.
Maintain knowledge of competitor offerings, pricing, and positioning to effectively differentiate during sales conversations and competitive situations.
Build and document repeatable sales processes, objection-handling scripts, and best-practice playbooks to increase team scalability and individual productivity.
Manage contract renewals and ramp renewal conversations early, leveraging usage data, account health scores, and success metrics to secure retention.
Collaborate with Marketing to test messaging and content (case studies, white papers, webinars) that improves lead conversion and shortens sales cycles.
Provide accurate, timely forecasts and pipeline hygiene updates to the sales leader to support quota planning and resource allocation.
Attend weekly sales meetings, training sessions, and product updates to stay current on features, pricing changes, and go-to-market initiatives.
Mentor junior inside sales representatives and share successful techniques for prospecting, demoing, and closing.
Maintain professional outreach etiquette and compliance with GDPR, CAN-SPAM and other relevant regulatory requirements when contacting prospects and customers.
Track and optimize key metrics such as MRR/ARR expansion, churn reduction, win rates by source, and average sales cycle length to demonstrate impact on company revenue growth.
Participate in industry events, virtual conferences, and customer reference programs to generate inbound interest and strengthen market visibility.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc reporting requests and provide sales data insights to RevOps and Sales Leadership to inform territory and quota design.
Assist in the development and execution of pilot programs and beta tests with product and marketing teams to validate new offerings within assigned accounts.
Collaborate with Customer Success on escalation management and remediation plans for at-risk accounts to prevent churn.
Help refine lead scoring criteria and SLA processes between Marketing, SDRs, and Account Management to accelerate lead-to-opportunity conversion.
Contribute to content creation for customer-facing materials, including case studies, proposal templates, and competitive battlecards.
Participate in cross-departmental projects, such as pricing reviews, go-to-market launches, and CRM migrations, providing frontline sales perspective.
Provide input into commission and incentive plan design by sharing feedback on what drives desired behaviors and outcomes in inside sales channels.
Aid in training and onboarding new hires by delivering role-specific instruction on systems, sales methodology, and customer objection patterns.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Salesforce CRM (opportunity and pipeline management, reports & dashboards)
HubSpot CRM and Marketing Integration experience
Strong proficiency with MS Excel / Google Sheets (pivot tables, VLOOKUPs, basic sales modeling)
Sales engagement platforms (e.g., Outreach, SalesLoft) and automated cadences
Prospecting tools (LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, Apollo)
Cold calling, cold emailing, and multi-channel outreach best practices
Sales quoting/CPQ tools and familiarity with basic contract terms
SaaS subscription billing concepts: MRR, ARR, churn, renewal mechanics
Sales forecasting and quota management methodologies
Demo and presentation tools (Zoom, Teams, Gong/Chorus optional for call recording)
Basic understanding of ROI/value-based selling and competitive positioning
Experience with marketing automation and lead nurturing (Marketo, Pardot, HubSpot)

Soft Skills

Consultative selling and solution-oriented mindset
Strong verbal and written communication for pitching and contract negotiation
Relationship building and stakeholder management across technical and executive audiences
Time management and prioritization in a high-volume outreach environment
Active listening and empathy to uncover true customer needs and objections
Resilience, persistence and a data-driven approach to continuous improvement
Collaboration and ability to work cross-functionally with Marketing, CS, and Product
Problem solving and creative deal structuring to achieve win-win outcomes
Attention to detail for accurate forecasting, contract handling and CRM hygiene
Coachability and eagerness to learn new tech, product updates and sales techniques

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience. Relevant coursework in business, communications, marketing or related fields preferred.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Communications, Economics, or related field. Certifications in sales methodologies (e.g., MEDDPICC, Challenger, Sandler) are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Administration
Marketing / Communications
Finance / Economics
Information Systems / Technology (for technical product selling)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2–5 years in inside sales, account management, or BDR/SDR roles; experience in SaaS or B2B technology preferred.

Preferred:

3–7 years of inside sales or account management with a proven track record of meeting or exceeding quota, experience with subscription sales models (MRR/ARR), and demonstrated success in upsell/expansion motions. Experience using Salesforce and sales engagement platforms, plus exposure to cross-functional selling and renewal negotiations, is strongly preferred.