The SME market is often underestimated in commercial strategies. Yet it represents in Belgium the most dynamic part of the economic fabric, with rapid decision cycles, versatile contacts and strong potential for long-term loyalty. The right profile still needs to be sent. Managing an SME client portfolio requires a specific set of skills that are not systematically found in salespeople trained on key accounts, and vice versa. Defining these skills with precision is the first condition for successful commercial recruitment in this segment.
| IN BRIEF: The ideal profile for an SME portfolio combines autonomy, versatility and a strong capacity for adaptation. SME decision-makers expect a contact who understands their operational challenges, not a seller of standardised solutions. Time management and portfolio prioritisation are critical skills often overlooked in recruitment. Assessing these skills requires specific role-plays, different from those used for a key account profile. |
Understanding the specificity of the SME context
In an SME, the decision-maker is often the director himself, or a Managing Director who wears several hats. He doesn’t have the time, doesn’t have the appetite for endless sales cycles and doesn’t have the patience for contacts who don’t understand his operational constraints. Selling in an SME context is therefore a sale based on trust, quick to establish but fragile if it relies solely on personal relationships.
The additional difficulty: an SME portfolio generally includes more accounts (30 to 60 depending on the sectors) than key account portfolios. The salesperson must therefore juggle dozens of simultaneous relationships, at different stages of the client cycle, without ever letting an account feel neglected.
The five fundamental skills to assess
We have been using the KOAN tool for 30 years. Thirty years is not a detail: it’s what enables us to read a test beyond the ticked boxes. A well-interpreted KOAN doesn’t just say “this candidate is extroverted”. It says what drives them forward, what blocks them, how they react under pressure, and whether these dynamics are compatible with your team culture. It’s rare, and it’s what transforms a psychometric test into a business decision tool.
1. Situational intelligence
In an SME context, each account is unique. The director of an industrial SME with 30 employees doesn’t have the same challenges as a scale-up founder or a growing retailer. Recruiting a high-performing account manager for this segment means looking for a profile capable of adapting instantly to their contact’s context, without a predefined script.
This situational intelligence is measured in interviews by the quality of questions asked by the candidate about their past accounts: do they distinguish between sectors, decision structures, specific constraints? Or do they think in terms of a standardised offer applicable to everyone?
2. Autonomy and initiative
In an SME, the Account Manager rarely has dedicated marketing support, a customer success manager as backup or a pre-sales team permanently available. They are often alone to identify opportunities, draft commercial proposals, coordinate delivery and manage complaints.
This autonomy is a key skill but also a personality indicator. Profiles who have evolved in highly processed and supervised structures will struggle to find their footing in an SME environment where one must improvise, decide quickly and assume the consequences.
3. Time management and prioritisation
With 40 to 60 accounts in the portfolio, time management is a critical skill. The SME Account Manager must distinguish accounts with high development potential from accounts in routine management, and those showing signs of disengagement. Poor prioritisation leads to over-investing in stagnant accounts and neglecting significant growth opportunities.
In interviews, ask the candidate how they organise their typical week, how they decide to call one client rather than another, and how they react when the urgency of one account disrupts their planned schedule. The answers immediately reveal the level of commercial maturity.
| EXPERT OPINION: The classic mistake in recruiting an SME salesperson is to look for someone who “enjoys relationships”. All candidates say they enjoy relationships in interviews. What needs to be assessed is the ability to maintain a commercial relationship over time without falling into collusion: some profiles become too close to their clients, lose their commercial posture and no longer dare defend price increases or upsells. Loyalty must never be at the expense of account profitability. This calibration is subtle to assess, and that’s exactly why it requires an in-depth behavioural assessment. |
4. The ability to build perceived value
The SME decision-maker is often very price-sensitive. The Account Manager’s added value lies in their ability to reframe the conversation: not selling a product or service, but selling the result, the savings made, the time saved, the risk avoided. This consultative positioning requires good knowledge of the client’s business challenges and ease in speaking the director’s language (impact on margin, operational efficiency, exposure risk).
5. Commercial resilience
The SME portfolio is, by nature, more volatile than a key account portfolio. SMEs close, merge, change strategy or reduce their budgets more quickly. The SME Account Manager must accept a certain level of natural turnover in their portfolio and maintain their motivation and performance despite inevitable account losses.
This resilience differs from stress resistance: it’s about the ability to bounce back quickly, to learn lessons from an account loss without entering a spiral of demoralisation.
How to recruit the right profile for an SME portfolio
The evaluation criteria described above cannot be assessed on a CV. They require a structured interview, specific role-plays and a behavioural assessment grid calibrated to the SME context. For companies engaged in commercial recruitment in Belgium in this segment, support from a recruitment agency specialising in Account Manager profiles is a guarantee of quality in selection and considerable time saving in the process.
To go further on our assessment method.
