breakfasttaco

Mid Marker Sales Manager

Career in sales other than AE --> Manager --> Director --> VP

Hey ya'll - I am curious has anyone in here gone from an AE to sales management role and then took a different path?

I.e. sales enablement, ops, product, etc?

I moved from AE to Sales manager and enjoy managing teams and people but am not sure I want to stay the strictly sales route.

Would appreciate it if you could share your journey and how you decided what direction to go.

🎈 Mentorship

🧢 Sales Management

🚀 Career Goals

10 comments

Sort by:

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

BDR->AE->AM->Ops Manager->AE->Director Sales->Director Sales & Ops. I find that the ops side of my job keeps my brain in constant sprint, which makes the sales management and strategy side move even faster as well.

breakfasttaco

Catalyst

Mid Marker Sales Manager

What was your thinking as you went AE->AM->Ops Manager->AE?

(You hit on exactly the side of sales that appeals to me).

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Well, I joined a company as their first ops person, and they were absolutely not prepared...and I was not ready to stop making commission yet. Decided to take my talent back to the phones, and luckily I stayed within the same company with that move.

breakfasttaco

Catalyst

Mid Marker Sales Manager

I appreciate the feedback!

How’d you decide on going the Ops route / prepare for it?

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I like to solve problems and produce solutions that make people's lives easier. I also happen to understand how we as salespeople think, so I could get into that mindset and produce solutions that I thought I'd enjoy.

I also find that my brain is really good at breaking things down into individual components so that problems make more sense. I can then ask a business question for what we are trying to solve and reverse engineer a solution from that.

breakfasttaco

Catalyst

Mid Marker Sales Manager

Thanks @poweredbycaffeine. Really helpful.

That 100% jives with me - I am going to set up a few sales ops informational interviews to dig into this more.

SaaSguy

Tycoon

Account Executive

If you miss working deals but don't want the AE stress, look into SE roles.

Champagnemami

Executive

this is smart! thanks for the idea

TheRealPezDog

Notable Contributor

Account Manager

AM-> Higher Earning AM -> Even HIGHER earning AM -> Highest Earning AM in Company History->Retire young->Become a scratch golfer. (Just my chosen path)

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

I like being an AE.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

breakfasttaco

Career in sales other than AE --> Manager --> Director --> VP

10 comments

Related posts

Differences between sales manager & sales director?

Landing a VP of Sales role