Juancallclose

Director

Best city to be an enterprise AE?

This is strictly an intellectual exercise. But if you were looking to be an AE, which city or geo area do you think would be the easiest to get a job while having a decent market to sell to. Most people will say, LA, SF, NYC, Chicago, Seattle. But to me, there are just a ton of AEs in those areas. To me, I think Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Houston and possibly Atlanta? Smaller geographies, a lot of commerce around, and feels like less competitive markets.

For the exercise, pretend that your pay is based on geography, ie, you don't get a NYC salary in Birmingham.

☁️ Software Tech

36 comments

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jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Full remote. Getting paid based on where you live doesn't make sense to me.

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

I feel like we're moving back to Geo already. Location is now a factor. I don't entirely disagree with location shouldn't matter but I'm not sure I want a guy in KC selling into the SF market either. A local presence will help.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

I've never had an issue selling into the US, or globally, from Canada. If there's a lot of in-person, then perhaps.

But I think it's less important than ever.

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

LOL getting negged for having an opinion?

aSaaSinator

Good Citizen

Sales Director

You're right from a logical standpoint, but hiring managers aren't logical. I can't tell you how many job descriptions I've seen that mandate the rep must be in the region. They don't mind if you are remote, but so many of them feel like you'll sell better if you live in the region. I'm not sure if there is any data to prove it, though.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

It only makes sense if in-person visits are required on a regular basis. But you're right, they're often not logical.

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

Up until maybe 4 years ago, Geo was a must have. "what companies do you have relationships with in your market?" Then Covid happened and now there's been a shift to verticalization. But I've noticed that Geo is creeping back up.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Vertical makes more sense to me. There are more similarities in companies within the same vertical compared to those in the same region.

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Depends on what you sell. But as an entrprise seller in Minneapolis I can tell you it's a great patch.

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

I have a friend that lives there. HE agrees it's underserved. Lots of educated people and it is a tech hub, but there's a dearth in AEs and a lot of jobs. Quite a few F500 companies too.

aSaaSinator

Good Citizen

Sales Director

Minneapolis is good. Their Fortune 500 numbers have dropped, though, by one or two each of the last three years. They still have about 24 in the Fortune 1000.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

What product?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I'm fully remote and sell across the US and CAN, have a customer in Australia and one with all my contacts in Europe . I'll probably be on a lot of flights next year. Ideally, most of my eventual territory will be more geo-centric, so I can be more efficient in my travel, but with everything remote the past couple of years, it hasn't mattered.

That said, Minneapolis is indeed a great city. :)

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

I would say Boston and Austin are at the top too

SoccerandSales

Big Shot

Account Executive

The remote city

BostonHound

Opinionated

Enterprise BDR

Come to Boston😉 remote 100000% is the right answer though

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

Boston's the best!! COL is NYC like though

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

We do everything virtually as well

KingofGIF

Politicker

SF if you can convince yourself to live there, but I’d go for Austin

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

You could sell to one zip code in SF and do well, depending on your product

aSaaSinator

Good Citizen

Sales Director

The hardest thing in SF would be making a million dollars and then having to use all of it to buy a 1,200 s.f. home in a bad neighborhood. Oh, and you wouldn't actually be able to even do that in SF proper. It would have to be Oakland or farther out. Austin is super expensive but more manageable than SF for sure.

ChickenDinner

Politicker

Account Executive

Houston and Atlanta seem good, Austin is crowded like SF

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

You could buy a nice home in both for 400k. What does that get you on the coasts?

ChickenDinner

Politicker

Account Executive

that'll by you a government housing studio apartment on the West coast!

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

Actually, yes. I've seen subsidized housing in SF starting at that price

FranchiseSalesQB

Politicker

Franchise Sales QB

BUFFALO NY! GO BILLS!!

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

Great game yesterday! But now you've made Mahomes mad!

FranchiseSalesQB

Politicker

Franchise Sales QB

Not too worried bout it

JDialz

Politicker

Chief Operating Officer

Move to some shitty state like Tennessee or Oklahoma, work remotely, be wealthy.

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

Not the worst idea for sure.

JDialz

Politicker

Chief Operating Officer

Honestly there are really beautiful parts of TN - can’t say the same for OK though.

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

I think Tulsa was paying people to move there at one point. Nashville is awesome if you like to party. Tennessee the state is beautiful.

aSaaSinator

Good Citizen

Sales Director

While being remote lets you sell into other locales, sometimes management wants their salesperson to be in the region in which they are selling so that their flights are shorter and they can come into the office a bit easier when necessary. If you are looking to be an EAE, then it might be good to be where the most Fortune 500 companies are. Dallas is a fantastic option because it has 22 of the F50 and 45 of the F1000. Also as a side note, Seattle has a little over 700,000 people in it. Houston has 2.3 million and about 8 million with it's surrounding suburbs. You might want to switch those two in your list. :-)

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

Seattle was intentional. Houston definitely has more companies but Seattle is catching up. But my point is there are a lot of AEs in Seattle and the COL is high. Houston, jmo, likely has less AEs and it's certainly less expensive.

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

For me? Wherever your mom is...

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

I just took your mom out to a nice seafood dinner. And I'm not gonna call her back.

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Juancallclose

Best city to be an enterprise AE?

36 comments

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