Account executive

Career overview

The job role of an Account Executive is to be responsible of looking at the company’s client as well as keeping the company’s-client relationships at a high standard. With an Account Executive, they are not based in one industry, they work in variety of industries. From advertising and marketing to technology and fashion. The role of an account executive includes being familiar with the totality of the company’s service and knowing all the products as well as having the ability to make a sale without any problems. ^[1]

Marketing and advertising industries

In the marketing and advertising industries, account executives are typically responsible for client servicing and client acquisition. The account executive serves as the direct link between the advertising agency and the existing client, managing day-to-day affairs and ensuring customer satisfaction. The word "executive" in this instance means to "execute" - that is he/she is mostly responsible for more practical parts of the advertising jobs (i.e. media placement, distributions, contract negotiation, etc.). The account executive is also tasked with bringing more clients into the agency to increase revenue. The account executive will typically have 1-2 assistants and reports to the respective account supervisor/manager^[2] and/or to the client service director/account director. This depends on the country and on the account (s)he is working for.

IT organizations

In IT organizations, an account executive is a senior management role, responsible for executing large (50 mln +) contracts. Control of the profit and loss is one of the main activities, together with customer alignment on a senior level. Usually an account executive has one or more account managers in his/her staff, to cover the various towers a large contract is mainly built of. The account managers directly or indirectly control the program and project managers performing the actual job.

For very large contracts (1 bln +), 600 + people could be involved in contract execution.

Contract life cycle

In an ideal situation, at the end of a contract life cycle, the account executive and part of the staff will be involved in new contract negotiations. This could be for the same account or for a new customer. Once the contract is signed, the account executive and staff will be directly up to speed.

Duties and responsibilities

Account executives have many different duties and responsibilities that they have to fulfill, such as day to day liaising via a contact method which can include email and telephone calls. This job role includes many different responsibilities such as:

• Preparing regular client reports and attending client meetings

• Developing sales and marketing strategies

• Developing plans target new customers

• Retaining existing customers ^[3]

Working with clients

Mentioned above are a few of the duties and responsibilities in becoming an Account Executive. One big responsibility would be to help produce a successful campaign for clients as the marketing sector could possibly need some further help. Where the role would be to act as an important link between advertising agency and the clients. ^[4] they will have a routine and have required tasks that they have to complete for the clients. For example:

• Account planners – Working with account planners to analyse the clients brief and the chosen budget

• Meetings - Having regular meetings to discuss the advertising needs and their requirements

• Deadlines – Agreeing to deadlines for specific tasks with the clients

• Management – having to manage accounts and different invoicing the clients

The bases of this role is to be able understand what the task the client has set out. From this they will then have to organise the agency’s creative and administrative staff in order for the clients request to be completed to the standard.

Required skills

Working in this field as an Account Executive, there are many skills that they have to have to perform numerous of account executive tasks, where they have to have the ability to demonstrate many different skills in different areas. The skills that are required consist of the followings: ^[5]

• Motivational and Excellent communication skills

• Having the ability to prioritise tasks as well as multitasking

• Have a good understanding of Business processes

• Being organised

• Taking on task independently

• Working well in a team

These skills are a requirement when applying for a position as an Account Executive. For example, good communication skills are needed because the employee will need to be confident in addressing with a variety of clients. Motivational skills are required as they need to motivate junior employees and represent the company as efficient to the general public and the clients. ^[6]

In any company when working as an Account Executive, each agency will be expecting and looking for different sets of skills from the employees. It is important that they have these skills and have a developed the skills. These include of: ^[7]

• Having a keen eye for detail and an understanding of budgets restraints

• The confidence in themselves and give the client trust in the work

• Having the ability to digital platforms to create processes and technology

• Be able to work under pressure without showing the workload

When an Employee has developed these skills or enhanced their skills and built a trust worthy reputation with the company and other employees they can then go forward and request for a higher position such as Account Director.

Salary

Salary of account executives vary depending on each company and the experience the employee has. In the United Kingdom, an Account Executive earns on average base of £20,828 per year. ^[8]However, executives you have the skills of Insurance and sales will have an increase of pay.

Account executive by location

Depending on where your office is based, the salary can vary as different areas have different expensive. For example, an employee working in the London offices, the pay can be much higher compared to an employee who is working In the Manchester offices. The different locations include of: ^[9]

• London with a salary of £28,869

• Leeds with a salary £24,687

• Manchester with a salary of £23,333

• Birmingham with a salary of £21,272

Similar to salary payment for locations working within United Kingston the pay also varies depending on the country you are working in. For example, an Account Executive in United Arab Emirates earns an average salary of 96,208 AED per year which is 17, 026.73 GBP. ^[8]

A Senior Account Executive can be offered a starting salary of £25-£29k per annum in which they will also get benefits from the company, training provided and enhance their development. However, with the training and development, employees can improve their experience and background knowledge and move over to a new company who will then offer a higher salary than their previous work. ^[10]

Average salary by skill

There are various type of account executives that vary in salary. For example, Designer earns £25,000 on an average yearly bases whereas, the team for applications earn £22,000 on average early bases. The design team and the Advertising team both earn a salary of £25,0000 and the business-to-business (B2B) have a salary of £22,000.^[11] The range of a starting point falls between £19,000 and £24,000. This would be the starting point for new employee, however with more experienced executives and account managers they can earn up to £30,000 to £40,000 where directors can earn even higher with a salary of £55,000. Senior account directors they can earn up to £65,000 per year. Depending on how much experience, the salary will increase. ^[12]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, February 09, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.