KermitdaFrog

Account Executive

Opinionated

Catalyst

Valued Contributor

New Biz AE -> Current Customer AE…. Helpful or hurtful to career?

does moving into an upsell role hurt your career as an AE? does this reflect poorly?

I.e you've done new biz for 5 years and want to explore a Growth/current Customer/Expansion role

let's hear the communities thoughts!

🧠 Advice

🎈 Mentorship

😎 Sales Skills

11 comments

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CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

As long as you are a quota carrying rep and don’t work in an order taking role at Oracle (for example) my opinion is holding a variety of different roles over your career is always beneficial. It makes you more marketable as an individual, and sets you up well for a managerial role.

KermitdaFrog

Opinionated

Account Executive

Hahaha too many friends at Oracle…. All relevant from what I understand. But yeah totally makes sense. Great advice on this. Unbiased points

GDO

Politicker

BDM

What is wrong with an order taking role. I would love that if it pays well

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

It can be very hard to convert that into another IC role downroad.

KendallRoy

Politicker

I made the shift to pure Account Management roles and love it. It’s rewarding to build relationships with accounts over time rather than close and throw them over the fence, especially when you take a relatively small account and grow it massively. You also commonly have new business opportunities selling into different departments etc, so it isn’t like your cold outbound skills will completely fade away.

KermitdaFrog

Opinionated

Account Executive

That’s excellent feedback! Thank you, my friend 🙌🏻 I’ve never looked at it that way and it sounds great. Love the new perspective

ABCvs

Valued Contributor

VP of Growth

If you want to move into upper management, holding a variety of sales roles can be a huge difference maker.

If you are making the move to Account management/upsell, make sure you company has new or better shit for you to sell. You don’t want to get stuck just renewing and making small incremental improvements.

KermitdaFrog

Opinionated

Account Executive

Hahaha never thought about that. Such a solid point. Getting pigeon holed is the worst. Putting yourself in a pigeon hole is nonsense

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

This isn't a step back at all. You still have quota, goals, kpis.

KermitdaFrog

Opinionated

Account Executive

Great points. I feel public consensus is the opposite. Most people probably say that though because they’re insecure about their performance in New Biz :-)

JuiceBox

Opinionated

Director

I moved from an IC AE role into a partnership role in the past and loved that as well, so I assume it all depends on what you like and your end goals. What's your end all be all job goal?

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