Moving to sales
I’m a solutions architect, what’s the best process to bridge the gap and transition to an AE role? TC: 📄
Foremost, why do you want to go into sales? That will dictate advice.
tech sales comp is ridiculous. can hit 1m comp within 5 yoe.
That’s just flat not true. Less than 1% of sales people hit $1M, and the vast majority don’t get close to that. I’m an L6 and hit 120% in quota and made $500K — 80% of the other 70 reps didn’t make quota and made closer to $300K.
Just speak to your manager. An AE doesn't require any formal education. Just some CRM experience is helpful. But really, it is a pretty unique job. You'll constantly be hounded for updates on deals, you need to be able to pressure customers to sign in the right moment, feel comfortable dealing with legal BS. Most importantly, you need to feel comfortable engaging with prospects that might not have engaged with you proactively. You had a great Q1? Well, nobody cares about that in Q2. It's an infinite cycle..
Make sure that's really what you want. A) sales forecasts B) quotas C) Nightly phone calls from an angry manager wanting to know why you aren't closing business. It nearly cost me my life.
Everyone wants to be an AE until they get assigned a shitty territory and can’t hit quota. The thing I like least about sales is the luck. I’ve seen top tier sellers have to change jobs simply because they were unlucky, while their ignorant and low integrity colleague gets celebrated all because they picked up the phone when a customer came calling.
Luck is part of it yes. But luck only goes so far. You can inherit an account that explodes with growth. Luck is getting the account. Skill is being competent enough to scale an account. Smart sales people pick their employer, products, and territories. They negotiate heavy upfront with job changes to maximize their chances of success.
@Amazon you’ll never convince me that sales is more than a 70/30 split between luck and skill, and that’s being generous. If every sales person got to “pick their territory” we’d have very large patches of the US and world that no one covers. 99% of sellers aren’t in a position to negotiate every detail of their employment, especially if they’re out of a job. I’m not saying there aren’t great sellers. There’s a lot of hard work, finesse, and strategy involved when it’s done right. But you can have all of those things, and still get handed a shit sandwich. Luck is a component of any career, and in sales it’s tenfold.
Don’t. Yea money is great… The stress is debilitating. 2023 TC:350k
Sales engineer
That’s my current role
Oh, sometimes solutions architects aren’t customer facing. Just take on more of the AE responsibility in your current role. They’ll be glad to let you take it off your hands. Ask an AE you work with to mentor you. You can be open about the goal, I think. Just make sure you understand the role is about delivering business value and revenue rather than the technical focus