Top 15 Account Executive Skills to Stay Top of Your Career

This post provides a list of important account executive skills and qualities that you should have to be effective on the job and succeed in their career.

Please, read on:

The relationship that exists between customers and the organization is always the basis of whatever the organization wants to get from the customers.

Particularly for marketing firms, the account executive has a pivotal role to play in establishing a relationship with customers.

Who is an Account Executive?

An account executive is a marketing and advertising executive who serves as a link between the organization and clients, with the duty of managing the everyday affairs of the customer’s accounts and ensuring they get utmost satisfaction.

Top 15 Account Executive Skills to Stay Top of Your Career

If you are an account executive or someone aspiring to become one, here are important skills and qualities you need to have to succeed in your career:

1. Creativity
2. Organizational skills
3. Strong interpersonal skills
4. Leadership
5. Analytical skills
6. Decision-making
7. Management skills
8. Communication skills
9. Client relation
10. Empathy
11. Problem solving skills
12. Determination
13. Presentation skills
14. Goal oriented
15. Persuasion.

1. Creativity

Creativity is needed in any kind of job. It is impossible to talk about problem solving skills without linking it or finding its basis in creativity.

It is a necessary tool for unlocking impossibilities in the business world or workplace where you find your job.

Creativity comes into play in the account executive job as a tool needed to widen your scope in the area of problem solving.

It is necessary to know that the challenges that you face in your workplace may demand just a little bit of creativity to overcome it.

Creativity is born out of critical thinking/analysis coupled with natural intuition or instincts.

These two need to be merged if you must be creative in your job.

The truth is that there are better ways to do your job if only you can add little creativity to it.

2. Organizational skills

In some organizations, the account executive is seen as the account manager while in other organizations, they are higher than the account manager as a different role altogether.

This varies with different organizations.

However it is, organizational skill is one skill that is prevalent in this job description.

It is not possible to be disorganized and achieve notable success in any job, not to talk of a more critical and important job as that of the account executive.

An account executive is expected to have this skill as basically the head of the accounting department of the organization.

The activities of the department is largely dependent on the day to day decisions of the account executive, which are expected to be products of his/her administrative skills.

3. Strong interpersonal skills

Your relationship with people in the workplace is still a key factor that determines how successful you will be in that job and also how far you can last in that job.

This is because, unity and relationship building is very important to the success of the organization.

First is your relationship with other executives in the organization.

There is the need to keep cordial relationship with other executives from other departments to ensure harmonization of activities or operations in the organization.

Secondly are the members of your team.

As much as the members of your team are under your custody and are bound to do whatever you ask them to do, it is important that you understand that your personal success is also tied to your ability to relate well with them.

4. Leadership

By your job description, it is safe to call you a leader in that department and one of the leaders of the organization.

This is because you have people who are bound by your position to do whatever you desire as long as it is within your job description in the organization.

Howbeit, this does not totally entail barking out orders for them to follow. It goes far beyond that.

You have to be a leader the members of the team can emulate and learn from. You have to set the example you want them to follow.

This means that you have to be highly professional in your conduct within and outside the organization.

It is important that you be a role model to anyone desiring the career of an account executive.

It is more like being a coach to the team.

5. Analytical skills

Analytical skills are one of the skills you need to have as an account executive to excel in your career.

In fact, you should be so good at this skill that it should form one of the things you can teach members of your team.

Analysis is part of what you should be good at. You should be able to analyze the trend of events in the department and know what the outcomes have been over time.

You analyze situations in the department and you make your judgment from there.

Also, you as the head of the accounting department should be able to analyze the financial behavior and habit of the organization and give corresponding advice to your overall head based on what your observations are.

This will go a long way to correcting anomalies in the financial behavior of the organization.

6. Decision-making

At the end of every research or findings, the next step is the decision making based on the powers made available to you in the job description you are giving.

This is why you were placed in such a sensitive position as the account executive.

Before making your decisions known or established, it is assumed that you have done your researches well, as well as your personal analysis of the trend and financial behavior or habit of the organization.

This will help you make better decisions.

Also, it is important to know that you don’t make decisions when you are under pressure.

There is always the tendency to try to make up for maybe the lost time and in the process make some irrational decisions which may hinder the growth of the organization.

7. Management skills

Management is always at the driver’s seat of every organization.

This is one of the major factors of production and sometimes considered the most important factor of production, reason being that it is the factor that organizes every other factor of production.

Management of self and the department are two aspects of management you should care about.

First, managing yourself is important if you really want to be effective in managing the team or department.

You have to keep yourself in good shape to be able to manage the department.

Managing the department is expected to be easy if you have kept yourself in good shape.

Managing the department entails supervising and monitoring the department to ensure that the department meets up with the expectations of the organization as a whole.

8. Communication skills

There is no doubt that the beauty of relationship building in the workplace hinges on the effectiveness of communication.

This is because communication will be needed among the equals and bigwigs of the organization for smooth running of the organization.

That is why you as an account executive, you have to be a good example of an excellent communicator in the organization.

You should be good at both oral and written communication for you to be able to pass across relevant information to the department or organization as a whole.

So that is what you need to know about being effective in the area of communication in the workplace.

Communication remains an indisputable factor that cannot be omitted in any organizational set up regardless of the size of the organization.

9. Client relation

This is more or less customer service skills. It’s important for you to know that though this is not your primary job, it is a basic skill you need to know how to use in the workplace because you do not have an idea the number of customers you have to meet in a day.

So, if eventually you find yourself discussing with the clients of the organization either in the form of presentation or unofficial working hours, it is still important that you treat them well and make them happy with your response and empathy.

Based on this logic, it is important that you learn customer friendly languages.

Customer friendly languages are words which are needed when interacting with clients.

The words are meant to soothe the heart of the client and make them see reasons with you.

10. Empathy

As you know that the interest of clients must be protected by the organization if the organization truly wants to remain in the heart of its clients for a long time.

Therefore, there is a need to empathize with clients in the areas where they feel the organization is not meeting up with their expectations.

It could be as a result of bad experience while using a product or lack of quality in services rendered to them.

They have every right to air their view and dissatisfaction.

You have to be sure not to make them think that they are lying or what they are saying is not in order.

This only tells them that you do not have empathy as a skill. It is a bad customer service and leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of the clients.

That is why you should be able to do your best to enhance this skill in your services always.

11. Problem solving skills

Your research, findings, recommendations, and decision making activities for your organization are affected by your problem solving skills.

As an account executive, you have to at least be able to solve basic accounting problems in the organization and work with your team to tackle future accounting problems as they arise.

This requires quite a lot of hard work and discipline on your part.

Your job also includes rendering timely and relevant advice particularly when it is not in your power to sanction some decisions.

Though you may not be able to do that, yet you should be able to give some timely advice from your wealth of experience and expertise to help solve some pressing needs.

12. Determination

Jobs bring with them some form of frustration both in the short and long run.

This is a natural phenomenon which may not change anytime soon.

It can only be managed and work on with your expertise and experience of your past jobs.

One thing is sure to help curb the menace of frustration in your job and that is determination.

Determination is what you need to make the most out of every ugly situation you are confronted with in your workplace.

It is you allowing your willpower to prevail in such circumstances.

It may not be entirely possible to do away with some challenges in the workplace, especially if it has to do with natural factors.

All you need to do is to embrace the natural challenges and determine to still be effective in your job.

13. Presentation skills

One of the ways you can present your ideas to the department or organization’s board is through presentation.

Organizations have room for creative minds to express their creativity through apt presentations, especially during board meetings.

If that is so, then it is important that you learn presentation skills to help you relay your ideas to the organization.

Remember that you can still good intentions and wonderful ideas, but you will let yourself down if you are not able to do that in the course of your presentation.

The end point of every presentation is to relay ideas and also give your audience a reason to believe you and buy into your ideas.

14. Goal oriented

Keeping your eyes glued on your target or goal is what we mean by being goal oriented.

It means that you have your eyes fixed on achieving a certain goal for the timeframe needed to achieve such a goal.

Being goal oriented is an act of professionalism in your job.

Your goal should be to use your position or capacity as an account executive to fix the financial leaking pipes in your organization through subjective recommendations and implementation of some acts within the ambits of your office.

That should be your basic goals because that is the yardstick that will be used to judge your performance in the long run and this could be the key factor in your promotion to greater responsibilities or demotion at work if the outcome in negative.

15. Persuasion

This is a business skill you need to convince others about the potency of your ideas to work wonders.

There is no gainsaying the fact that without having persuasion as a skill, you may not be able to win over your doubters and critics in some critical moments.

Jobs in the 21st century are highly competitive in nature and demand that you be at your best always.

When you are creative, the next obstacle to overcome is how to persuade others into seeing things from your angle.

If you are not able to convince people in the workplace about your proposals, it will be a minus to you and can affect your confidence going forward.

So, this is why you have to learn presentation skills and be trained in the act of persuasion.

It is very important if you are to make headway in your job for the foreseeable future.

But one thing that will help your course in persuading people to believe in you is your past success record.

Account Executive Skills for Resume

If you are writing a resume or CV for the position of an account executive, you can make an impressive Skills Section by applying the skills and qualities discussed above that an account executive should have to succeed in their job.

Your resume/CV will be more impactful on the recruiter/employer if its Skills Section shows that you have some of the skills and qualities account executives should have to excel in their career.

This increases your chances of being invited to an interview and hired for the account executive position.

Conclusion

The job of an account executive is to ensure that there is a working link between the organization and the customers.

He/she establishes leads to make sure that the organization gains more customers from the marketplace.

This article has emphasized some of the important account executive skills and qualities that they need to be effective in their job.