BlackVNeck

Mid Market Account Executive

Dude where are my leads?

I'm a Mid Market Account Executive at a Series B marketing tech SaaS company.

The company has been struggling just like everyone else. There were layoffs in November. We're still cash flow negative but have an acceptable burn rate due to the deep cost cutting. Meanwhile, I was crushing it, consistently over performing.

I just hit the one year mark. I've received 2 promotions in the past year. (still an IC just moving up on the pay scale)

However, since February the wind has come out of my sails. I don't do a lot of prospecting and so almost all of my deals come from inbound and SDR sourced meetings. Part of the drop in leads is the economy and part of it is cost cutting (marketing reducing ad spend, etc.).

Given that I've been performing really well up until this point, part of me thinks this is my queue to leave before I get PIPed out a few months down the road.

I am not a big market hunter eat-what-you-kill kind of AE. I don't have the desire to become that kind of AE. If the company is just going to starve the AE team of hot leads and only the hunters will survive then maybe it's not worth waiting for it to get ugly.

I know the job market is really competitive but I also think I have some level of advantage as a high performer who isn't in the job market because I was laid off.

Am I wrong? Should I just be grateful I have a job as a SaaS AE in 2023 and tough it out as long as I can?

Thanks for reading and for sharing your thoughts. This community has been super helpful to me with tough career choices in the past!

What should I do?

Attached poll

Start applying elsewhere Stay and tough it out as long as you can

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☁️ Software Tech

🙅‍♂ MarketingSucks

15

33 comments

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TennisandSales

Politicker

17

Head Of Sales

sooooo my first thought is that your attitude / approach to prospecting is a huge red flag...

no one LIKES to prospect...its not as fun or easy as having SDRs do that for you or having inbound leads handed to you.

but you need to embrace this, its an opportunity for you to really separate yourself. if you kill it with inbound leads, and learn to have SOME good success with outbound, i would consider you to be a really good AE.

also, its going to be hard to go to a new company when you only perform when the leads are flowing. just my thoughts.

stick it out, commit to fixing whats broken, i think your career will thank you.

SaaSsy

Politicker

8

AE

Yea my reaction as well. Not to say there aren't great spots out there for order takers because I'm sure there are (but where are they for real...), but have you tried to prospect and it didn't go well? I think you owe it to yourself to give it a try for 3 solid months before making a decision to leave - this will impact your career going forward because a lot of SaaS firms won't want someone that can't be successful generating 30% of their own revenue. Anyone can be an order taker but most can't be great salespeople.

punishedlad

Tycoon

7

Business Development Team Lead

I don't have anything else to add, I just want to add support to @TennisandSalesperspective here. He's got it right.

It's been said a few times already, but you are going to have to hunt. Especially in today's environment.

Diablo

Politicker

3

Sr. AE

Exactly these are great pointers @BlackVNeck

jefe

Arsonist

3

🍁

Hard agree with @TennisandSales. This was what came immediately to mind for me as well.

BlackVNeck

Good Citizen

1

Mid Market Account Executive

Thank you @TennisandSales! I will stick it out and commit to fixing what's broken.

Maximas

Tycoon

0

Senior Sales Executive

I second this!

Nairobi

Politicker

0

AE

Amen, that person is exactly the type of AE that I hate… I call it an entitled AE. Prospecting is part of sales, if you think you are above that, might need to look at another career.

BlackVNeck

Good Citizen

0

Mid Market Account Executive

Lol why does this have you so pressed @Nairobi?

Sorry you hate me. I'll try to do better.

Coastal_crusher

Politicker

8

Sales Director

So many people would kill to be in your position. It looks like now that the training wheels came off, you’ve slowed down because of what honestly sounds like a lack of effort.

Harsh reality is that most sales jobs have a strong component of hunting to them. Time to tough it out cause right now people aren’t looking for AEs that rely solely on BDRs

detectivegibbles

Politicker

6

Sales Director

So, would you only apply to companies that have inbound leads?

I think you’re doing yourself a disservice. Learn how to prospect.

If it takes 200 touches a week to create 5 new opps, then make 200 touches.

What if, and this is a crazy thought, you close some deals and it brings in more cash to start turning marketing on and hiring more sdrs?

BlackVNeck

Good Citizen

0

Mid Market Account Executive

The question was whether to apply to companies that have strong inbound lead flow. I am certainly not expert enough to judge what % of companies have that, but RepVue has a ranking for companies by inbound lead flow and I have always asked in job interviews what % of customers are coming from inbound vs outbound

But yes, the consensus here is that not developing my prospecting muscle is a career limiting decision so I will take your advice and learn to do it!

detectivegibbles

Politicker

1

Sales Director

What did most companies say?

I think every company is going to say “oh yeah we get tons of inbound leads”.

A transparent company is going to say “while we have inbound leads, our top reps are allocating 60% of their week for outbound prospecting”.

jefe

Arsonist

4

🍁

If I had a dollar for the amount of times I've heard/come across companies say 'we have more inbound leads than we can handle'....

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

6

☕️

A quote comes to mind: “Nobody cares, try fucking harder.”

Put your big boy pants on and do the god damn work, son! Don’t want to hunt? Don’t want to do the bare minimum as an AE and the opposite of an order taker? Then open that seat up for someone who will do your job happily.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

5

🦊

Stick it out. You could become great at this role.

Diablo

Politicker

4

Sr. AE

Hey 100% I am always thankful to have a job. I understand you are only working on an inbound leads and being in MidMarket I am assuming you are also working with bigger employee counts. Unless you have 100s of leads everyday from inbound that keeps you going on, relying only on Inbound is not going to help long term. It’s never late, learn something if you don’t have the skills and that is going to help you in the future if you wish to stick to what you are doing.

BlackVNeck

Good Citizen

0

Mid Market Account Executive

Thank you Diablo. I will start learning how to prospect

Sunbunny31

Politicker

4

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Why are you accepting a PIP as inevitable? Because you don't want to do any prospecting? That sounds defeatist, and honestly, lazy.

You're going to need to put some effort in. With the job market what it is, companies are spoiled for choice of reps, and it's not easy getting another job. While you could start looking, it would be a surprise if you find anything that's going to have an open purse for marketing budget and reps drowning in inbound leads that is hiring.

Don't be afraid to prospect and hunt. It's part of the job, and you have the advantage of knowing your solution and why customers buy, so you should have the ability to get prospects to talk to you.

BlackVNeck

Good Citizen

1

Mid Market Account Executive

Thank you Sunbunny. I think I saw the PIP as inevitable because I feel like I saw this play out before the recession started. Just with the opposite catalyst.

Tech companies with lots of money to burn would hire an army of new AEs thinking that if 10 reps means $10 M than 100 reps would mean $100 M. Rarely worked out that way. Each slice of the pie was cut smaller and smaller and eventually the place just became a revolving door of new AEs starting -> ramping -> missing quota and getting fired.

Hoping the same thing isn't happening here. Cheaper the fire people for performance issues than it is to lay off and hand out sevvys.

Anyways, regardless. The Council has spoken. Time to start prospecting!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Big tech companies are not immune from adding too many reps. In their case, it’s to ensure market penetration because desperate reps turn over every rock - even if those rocks are highly unlikely targets.

Best of luck to you!

RandyLahey

Politicker

3

Account Executive

Most of the best AEs I work with all can source pipeline themselves...I'd strongly recommend making this a key part of your game.

BlackVNeck

Good Citizen

1

Mid Market Account Executive

Thank you Randy. I will.

RandyLahey

Politicker

1

Account Executive

You got this! I had the benefit of working with an AE who drilled this into me early into my SDR days.

Sounds like you’ve got the most valuable part, closing down.

All I can do is use cheesy ass sports references lol. It’s like free throws.

Even as an AM where my book was almost entirely handed to me, I still try to source my own pipeline when I can. Any business I can bring outside of what my AE/SDR team hands me is a massive bonus.

RedLightning

Politicker

2

Mid-Market AE

Order takers are going to have a bad time these days. You need to learn how to supplement your leadflow with outbound opps

BlackVNeck

Good Citizen

1

Mid Market Account Executive

Valid point, RedLightning.

RedLightning

Politicker

0

Mid-Market AE

If it truly isn't for you, you may want to look into growth or AM type roles.

BlackVNeck

Good Citizen

1

Mid Market Account Executive

I love handling new business and I think it is for me.

I think up until now I focused all my time and energy on maximizing my close rate and increasing my ACV (selling more products, selling to larger/more teams).

That served me really well for the past year, but doesn't matter how high my win rate or my ACV if I'm not creating new opties.

So, yeah. Time to learn how to do that ...

RedLightning

Politicker

1

Mid-Market AE

Think back to all of your opps and understand what external factors led to them realizing they had a problem. If most of your stuff was inbound, you can likely piece together the clues. Then start finding ways that you can look for companies likely to be experiencing that problem. When you do any outreach, your messaging should be about the problem NOT YOUR COMPANY.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

2

Sales Rep

If you main goal is to do as little prospecting as possible, it might make sense to start looking. However, not sure how many roles are going to be like that as the market worsens

CritMaster777

1

BDR

I've been running into an identical problem at the BDR level. Leads and response rate tanked in Jan.

I waited for things to return to "normal" but they just aren't. Personally it's time to skill up, learn more about the industry, and actually become a consultant rather than just another phone monkey.

Took me three months to realize that though, and I'm really behind because of it.

Glad I have a manager that's willing to work with me.

oldcloser

Arsonist

1

💀

I'm late to this and its mostly been said, but l'm going to try to add context so you @BlackVNeckunderstand what you actually sound like.

Can you imagine yourself in a management role? I bet you can. You've now had 2 promotions. You're still and IC just cruising up that pay scale. But you've wondered when that 3rd one is coming, right? And does it come with a title? How cool would it be if you didn't actually have to talk to people that don't want to talk to you, yeah? You'd finally be where you deserve to be in your career. Even after all of the tough times in that last full year. You've thought about bailing on this deal. You just deserve more, right?

Here's what is coming if nothing changes with your attitude toward work. You nailed it. PIP and gone. Here's whats going to happen if you go to the next stop with the same level of commitment to work. PIP and gone.But you're good at what you do, right? That can't last forever. Bad breaks! 3rd time you show up unwilling to prospect? PIP and gone.

Seeing the pattern? Yeah, this is real.

Now, back to the scenario when you become a manager and you're job security now depends on your team hitting quota. But now you're managing you, a guy who won't prospect. And you know that there's no way to get to your number without everyone prospecting. What do you do with you? PIP and gone.

So, when you go to work on Monday, call some people you don't know and ask them for some time next week. Because you noticed something about their company. And you know what comes next after the thing you noticed. And it's not pretty. But you can help them avoid that happening entirely if they'll just hear you out.

Then after you do that, do it again. Or... just get out of sales. A job change isn't the fix.

SiliconBBQ

Politicker

1

The Metal Rooster

Prospecting sucks mostly. Sometimes it can be fun and have great conversations, but mostly not.

There are some categories, industries, ICPs that are much easier to do it though.

Evangelizing a new category is a real bitch. Amazing tech no one's ever heard of.

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