CRO Handover · 23 October 2026 · 2 min read
Page 10: The first thing to fix
After nine pages, a new CRO needs one place to start. For most sales development motions, it's the handoff to account executives: the qualification standards an opportunity must meet and the service level agreement holding both teams to them. Page ten tests Motions.
By Jeremy Heap, Founder, RepAgentic
Nine pages have each asked one question of an inherited go-to-market. A new CRO can't fix all nine in the first quarter. The useful question is which fix makes the others easier.
For sales development, my answer is usually the handoff to account executives. It's where pipeline value is created or lost, and where most of the earlier pages meet: pay, stalled opportunities, forecast trust and xP.
What should a new CRO fix first in sales development?
Start with the qualification standards an opportunity must meet before an account executive accepts it. Write them in terms of what the buyer has said or done, not what the representative believes.
Then agree the service level agreement both teams are held to: what sales development hands over, how quickly an account executive responds, and what happens to an opportunity that is rejected or left untouched.
Get both right at the outset, then manage and measure them. Accepted pipeline value becomes comparable, stages become trustworthy and xP reflects progress, not opinion.
One fix, then the next
Motions, in RepAgentic's framework, covers the defined plays for finding, qualifying, progressing and winning business, and whether they're run the same way twice. The handoff is where that's easiest to test. Page six showed where opportunities stall. Page nine showed why stage trust matters.
Pick one handoff from last month. Ask the representative and the account executive, separately, why it was accepted. If the answers differ, that's the first thing to fix.
That completes the Handover File.
Fix the handoff first, and every number after it gets easier to trust.
Where this starts
Where does your handoff break?
The free Outside-In Read examines your public go-to-market and identifies visible gaps and where to look first. Its Executive Brief names the first area to fix. It cannot see your qualification standards, your service level agreement or which opportunities account executives accept. Those need internal evidence through Inside-Out Verification. Start with the free read, then decide what to examine next.