SaasStar

AE (Account Executive)

How does OTE work in the enterprise?

I am moving from the enterprise to "jumbo accounts" and my quota is jumping from $1.8M to probably $8M next year.

If my OTE is split 50/50 right now between base and commission, should that calculation stay the same when my quota jumps that high? I feel like asking for an $800k base is a little egregious, but is that just how it goes?

☁️ Software Tech

💰 Compensation

26 comments

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Fribbles

Notable Contributor

Sales doosh

Lol say 800k and see how they respond

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

hahah i like it

Fribbles

Notable Contributor

Sales doosh

oooo but break it down the same way you broke in down here

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

100

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Considering that SFDC reps are at a 50/50 and their average base for ENT AEs is $130k, we can assume their base is not 10% of their AQ. Let's see if we can get some big ENT swinging hogs in this thread.

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

damn really? that seems low but maybe I've been jaded. Would love to hear from other ENT reps on what's a realistic expectation

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I can validate $150K/$150K that doesn't change when quota goes up.

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

Good to know ty!

InQ5WeTrust

Arsonist

No marketing, mayo isn't an MQL

Similar to @Sunbunny31, haven't heard of anyone doing 10% of quota at strategic account level.

I'd recommend checking Salesforce and some of the other big boys on repvue and seeing what the comp split is for strategic account roles.

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

Good idea. I have friends who are ENT reps at companies like salesforce. Will def reach out to them

Tf1859

Good Citizen

Account Executive

You won’t find the strat accounts on there. I cover a couple strat accounts at SFDC as a bdr and there are a bunch of AEs on each account team that have totally different numbers / different products they’re credited for. Then huge differences comes in w timing of deals, specific products that are given multipliers, third party sellers, services, ACV 1 vs ACV 2, etc. It’s pretty complicated

SalesBeast

Politicker

Sales Director

Anything above roughly 150k base is asking for trouble. More base= more pressure to perform.
Take 130- 150k. Double OTE or a bit more. Maybe 300-350 OTE.
Crush numbers make way more. And repeat yr after year.
***Please video record yourself asking for the 800k base if you do. Then share for everyone to laugh at results.

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

I’m going to propose the same 50/50 split and see what they say. Shoot for the moon and land on the stars. Why not

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I have never seen any rep move to a 10% base of quota for jumbo accounts, but that's just me. I'm interested in finding out if anyone else has a different experience or take on this.

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

Interesting and good to know. Do you have a sense of what percentage reps are making for commission on jumbo accounts?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

The 50/50 split sounds accurate, but I don't know of reps making significantly more than their non-strat but still enterprise counterparts. Realize that your company won't be interested in bumping you much more even though the quota is higher. Do you have any colleagues you can connect with and ask?

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

unfortunately no. I'm the only one who will be making this move since we just now started to break into the jumbos

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I think your best play is to check with industry peers and see what the going rate is, and use that. Looks like you have some friends at SFDC, so I'd tap that.

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

Yep agreed

emooney

Opinionated

RSM

50/50 split.. The strategic account folks usually have much higher quotas, harder to consistently blow it out (175+%) in my experience these higher quotas will have more favorable acceleration rates for overachievment. So more likely of a huge w2 maybe once every 3 years

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

And this is how the best of the best get to $800K. Base will likely never be higher than $150K, OTE $300K, but accelerators for sure push it. That one $3M deal does it.

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

This is good to know - thank you!

EQSales

Opinionated

VP of Sales

there's no change to the formula of your nominal pay rate (% paid per dollar you sell). its simply your variable compensation (the amount you make in your OTE that is based on revenue closed) divided by your quota. YES you should expect a decent paybump to move to a Majors rep, but your nominal rate will definitely go down going from $1.8M to $8M. ex- $150K variable against $1.8M is 8.33% while $150K variable against a $8MM quota is 1.875%

SaasStar

Contributor

AE (Account Executive)

Thank you this is super helpful going into the conversation for next year. At least I have some sort of expectation of how they will approach it and can plan accordingly

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

I'm an Enterprise rep and I'm on a 50/50 split, 240K OTE.

Our strategic reps generally have similar or higher OTE's with a similar 50/50 split, but a larger quota. However, this is with less total accounts.

Most Strategic roles I've interviewed for discussed with reps have been in the 240 - 350 OTE range.

I think the overall comp situation depends on the support you have (e.g. are you doing this alone, or do you have a team of specialists and SE's to help?). Comp should be bigger the less support you have relative to overall quota.

For other Strategic roles that I've either held, interviewed for, or talked to reps in, it seemed that the split was different. I have seen 60/40 be the most common, with some at 75/25.

By putting you on a larger quota with (typically) a smaller account list, you're facing both longer deal cycles due to the nature of the business and less total pipeline turnover due to the smaller scope of your territory. Effectively your commission risk is more concentrated in a smaller number of deals and total accounts. This is worse if you have a specific industry focus - For example if you were a Retail-focused rep in 2020, good luck hitting your number.

If I were in your shoes, I'd be careful about asking for anything over 300K OTE. That seems to be roughly the high end except for the very rare, very experienced, well-embedded AE's.

I'd shoot for something with a 60/40 or 70/30 split, so you have more guaranteed income to manage those big accounts and insulate you from both the lower volume and slower deal cycles (more of your time will be working on things unrelated to a current transaction, such as services issues, contracts, etc... to keep them happy).

As others have said though, with more base comes more scrutiny. The Eye of Sauron is attracted to high bases because that means the company is transferring more of your performance risk to them per my example above.

Upper_Class_SaaS

Politicker

Account Executive

ask for 200

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SaasStar

How does OTE work in the enterprise?

26 comments

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