Welcome to the Community @Muzdan! First, the unspoken part: a lot of people who do outreach work quietly worry it’s seen as the entry-level end of sales. I disagree. Getting a stranger to say yes to a conversation is the hardest part of the job, and you’ve been doing it for years. You’re not starting over. So, here’s what I’d focus on as you transition in your career.
I’d first close the gap between booked meeting and signed deal. Right now your work probably ends when the meeting lands. AE and BD roles start there. The skills that fill the gap are discovery, qualification, handling objections, and following up after the call. The Inbound certification is a good start, but it won’t get you hired by itself. Evidence will.
Then, get closer to the middle of the deal. Ask the people you book meetings for if you can sit in on their discovery calls and demos. Then ask what happened after. Why did one deal stall and another close? Most people are generous with this if you ask plainly.
Along the way, be sure to track your own numbers. Reply rates, meeting-to-opportunity rates, and how many collaborations actually signed. If you can say “I turned X meetings into Y signed partnerships,” you sound like someone who understands a pipeline, not just the top of it.
Next, learn a CRM properly. HubSpot has free training and a free CRM. Build a small pipeline in it, with deal stages, tasks, and notes. Hiring managers notice when someone treats the CRM as a working tool and not paperwork. Shameless plug: I created a LinkedIn Learning course on CRM basics here.
Now for a big one: Use your niche. Academic and research partnerships is a specific world that most sales candidates know nothing about. Look at companies selling into universities, research tools, ed-tech, and grant-funded organizations. You’d be a rare fit there.
And finally, practice talking about their problem, not your offer. When you move from outreach to full-cycle selling, the biggest shift is asking better questions and listening longer. Record a mock call and listen back. It’s uncomfortable, and it works.
One honest note. Remote AE roles are competitive, so a smaller company or a hybrid BD role is often an easier first step than a pure AE title. Take the one that lets you own a deal from first call to signature.
You’ve already got the hardest muscle. Now go build the rest around it. Cheers!
