aenima

Principal Account Manager

Principal Account Manager - $450K+ OTE - Ask Me Anything

Background

I’ve spent 10 + years in sales, spanning many verticals - SMB to enterprise. I started my career in outdoor retail of all things and took my first corporate sales gig working for a company like Dunder Mifflin. I pivoted after 2 years from selling copiers to IT, and in 4 years became Director of Sales for a mid-market technology company. From there I moved to a large cloud provider where I manage a large Federal account.

Ask Me Anything

Sales is incredibly difficult in the early years, where clear paths to success can be hard to see. I’ve made countless mistakes while falling into lucky situations, but I’ve also learned a great deal and am happy to share with anyone if it is helpful.

Income Timeline

35K

45K

75K

85K

185K

280K

350K

460K

🎈 Mentorship

🏰 War Stories

💰 Compensation

67 comments

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jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Those are some major jumps, well done.

What is your work life balance like? Stress levels? Basically how hard do you have to grind to pull that in?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Hey Jefe, thanks. So my work life balance was worst in the beginning and middle, and it’s actually best now. I travel a lot at the moment — but I actually enjoy the travel and the destinations. The meetings are productive so it makes travel an easier pill to swallow.

I start most my days getting up at 6AM, so that I have a solid 2 hours to myself before I start my day. I live in the middle of the country but my client spans all time zones, so usually my meeting start 7:30 - 8:00 AM my time to accommodate east coast teams.

That said, I set my own schedule - so I am done by 3PM most days. I have my calendar 50% white space throughout the week (or at least try to), and can say that the discipline to do that is likely the largest contributor to my work life balance maintaining. If you’re in a meeting, chances are you aren’t getting work done. Back to back meetings = no work getting done.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Thanks for answering, that actually sounds pretty solid.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Some weeks are worse than others, but absolutely have great quality of life.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

Welcome to the War Room, savage! 3 from me:

1) Luckiest situation in your career?
2) Hardest situation in your career?
3) Did you know, at that time, you were simply lucky / acting the toughest you can, or was it later you could connect the dots?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

1). LUCKIEST: Oh man so much luck and so many things I am thankful for that weren’t my doing. I think the luckiest though, would be falling into a job selling copiers. I hated it, it was awful - but I learned an important lesson: where deals are won and lost by pennies (literally), you learn how to squeeze out small amounts of value that were important to the customer. When you learn how to sell while fighting tough competition, lack of market interest, in a flat or declining market — and then you go sell something that is in high demand, you will run CIRCLES around your competition IF you keep those same sales habits. I wipe the floor with Microsoft every day where I’m at now, and I owe it all to the worst job I had.

2). HARDEST: The hardest situation in my career was the “inter years” where I felt my perception of my value didn’t align with the job positions in front of me. I spent 3ish years jumping from job to job, which hurt my income substantially.

3). DID I KNOW I WAS LUCKY?: Since I’m sure my answer above wasn’t what you were expecting, let me tell you about a time when I “lucked” into a good patch. At a year mark at my copier company, I walked into a large production printer opp. It was a current customer but the circumstances allowed the revenue to be counted as “net new” - and the deal size was massive and sent me to Presidents Club. I knew I was lucky for running into it, but I also matured my envy/jealousy of other reps who had landed on lucky opps, because I realized: selling is hard no matter what. There is rarely an easy big deal. I worked my ass off for that, and yeah I lucked out for finding it, but I realized how much work I did to close it, and took that with me looking at others. I no longer harbor resentment to reps who seem like they are swimming in money.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

This is written with fantastic clarity @aenima. Regardless of where you are or how much you earn, being grateful can never be a bad strategy. Thank you for your answers!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

This is really great insight. Thank you for sharing.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Sure thing - please ask away with any other questions. Nothing off the table.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

are those numbers total comp or base?

going from $35K to $460 in 8 years is pretty fucking massive, and sales is the ONLY industry where this is even possible haha

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Not all base - wouldn’t that be nice 😊?

My current base is 168K. And the change was SUBSTANTIAL. It’s had a large effect on our quality of life as you can imagine, however, it’s important to note that the biggest change was going from 60-80K range to 150+. That is when your quality of life changes dramatically - because you have TONS of breathing room. Equally important to note, your quality of life changes very little going from 150K to 250K+. Now you can just afford to be stupid with your money, but the value of what you buy is close to nothing because it means nothing. Dismissing returns…. ad I think it’s important to be rooted in a strong system of virtues so you don’t lose yourself.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

yeah i feel you. I am at $130K right now. the jump from $65k base to $90K was a massive shift.

But the biggest was from $90k to $130K our whole life really changed here.

I will hit over $200k total earnings this year for the firs time and its been crazy how much we have been able to do because of that money.

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

Yep, I've been asked why I've had so many jumps in my career but gettign a near 50% raise every time is good enough for me.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

for real. ive seen this too (not 50% each time but WAY more than sitting around waiting for a raise)

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

Pretty much brother.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Government accounts. Am I right? 🤣

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

No, 90% commercial. Only recently has it been government.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

You didn't do this in 8 years, though, am I right? How many years did it take you to get to where you are?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Not sure what you mean. It was roughly 8 years from the first real sales job. My first official gig was selling copiers. I did this for roughly 1.5 years, and transitioned to IT in the same company. I spent 6 months doing that before being recruited by another IT firm. That didn’t work out, so I spent 8 months making little money or progress. I then worked at a SaaS company with a base of 60K - but they told me (after being hired) I couldn’t make any commissions for 6 months. I promptly left after that. Landed as a sales rep at a Cisco VAR as employee number 7 - as the only person in sales took us from $7M/AR to $22M/AR in 2 years. Mid way through was tapped as Director of Sales. Left there to large cloud provider, where I have been 2 years now.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Sorry I wasn't clear. You had 8 data points for your salary, and I'd been curious how long you had been on each step. It's Friday and my brain is tired so math is hard, but based on your comment, it sounds like you did make these salary jumps over 8 years.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

All good, I was probably confusing you by saying 10+ years in sales and only have 8 years of salary. I worked in the bike industry for 4ish years before all of this; while it was in sales it’s a false equivalency to suggest that was a similar career path.

I feel you on the Friday bit, today couldn’t be over soon enough.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

LOL. Great summary, though. I really enjoyed all your responses. Have a great weekend.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

You too!

CSmith

Congrats on the great success you've achieved in your sales career. Most of us in sales could only aspire to make the income jumps that you have. You've definitely made some right decisions along the way with the companies you've joined and made the most of them with your sales skills. Keep up the great work.

Unfortunately, I've made a few bad decisions with some start-ups and new sales teams that have slowed my career progression. So, to say the least, I am very inspired when I read success stories like yours. Just gotta keep pushing along and moving forward.

Would love to work beside and learn from a colleague like you. So, if your company is needing any coachable, experienced, tenacious SaaS/IT solutions reps please let me know. :)

BTW, I love that you're a mountain biker. I guess it only makes sense seeing as you live in Denver. I mountain bike too but in the Dallas area where it's more like trail biking instead of mountains. :)
If you ever make it to this area please let me know and I'll take you riding. I have an extra bike you can borrow.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Thanks CSmith. I would challenge your perception of salary jumps being hard. It’s all visibility into what’s possible and then intent to see that vision through.

What’s you’re current role and salary/OTE now? And can you share any context of the current work you do: size of customers, size of deals, platforms/products you sell?

CSmith

Thanks for your reply and inquiry.

Oh, I wasn't trying to imply that the salary jumps were hard. I was just congratulating you on how well you've ascended with your salary jumps by applying yourself and doing the right things with each role you've moved into.

Currently I'm looking for a new hunting SaaS sales role. Unfortunately, I was lied to at my last role which led to my departure. Before that I had high hopes with a couple start-ups (around 20 employees) I joined being one of the first sales people but those led to short stints because of covid layoffs and then poor executive leadership creating a very negative culture.

Unfortunately, these short stints are playing against me with my job search. In other words, I've discovered that a lot of hiring managers and recruiters are "judging the book by it's cover" and seeing those short stints on my resume or LinkedIn and automatically jumping to the conclusion that I'm a job hopper before talking to me about my value and allowing me to explain what had transpired.

Overall, I've been in a hunting sales role for about 20 years with the last 10 being in SaaS and IT hardware solutions. Most recently I was selling commercial real estate software. Most of the software deals I sold had ARR of $70k-$150k. Some of my IT hardware deals ranged from $125k-$250k to one that was $1.2m.
I've sold to almost every industry of every size from mid-market to some enterprise.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

I would focus on targeting companies and industries that have high compounding growth. You have the background and experience, focus on those high-growth areas and pound them until you get in. Took me 20 applications to get to the org where I’m at now.

I would focus on high-growth VARs in the IT space, and cloud and SaaS providers.

detectivegibbles

Politicker

Sales Director

Read through all the comments to help phrase my question accordingly:

You mentioned the $60-$80 k to Mid $150s base salary jump as being the biggest change.

I'm currently with a Series A startup. $65k base with $100k OTE. Not many reps are hitting quota.

I have leadership experience, I've been an upper 20% performing rep at last 2 sales gigs and I took this new job because of the product.

My question, what was the biggest "ah ha" moment to get from the $65k salary into the 6 figures?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

You can be a phenomenal salesperson and make little money if you’re in the wrong industry and with the wrong employer. Carefully vet the industry and companies you work for.

Look at CMGR and YOY growth of the companies and the industry as a whole. Point is if your employer is experiencing 5% CMGR growth in an industry that’s growing 30% - 50% YOY, it means its much easier to sell something and make more money.

detectivegibbles

Politicker

Sales Director

Love it, this is super helpful. Much appreciated!

Coastal_crusher

Politicker

Sales Director

I like how the copier experience changed you! Have you ever had a sale there or elsewhere that made it ‘click’ and pickup the habits you have now?

Also, y’all hiring? 😂

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Yes, I can’t remember what exact sale it was, but I remember what I realized and I live by this every day:

**

The value I being to my customer doesn’t come from my knowledge of my company’s products, it comes from me being able to tell my customer something about their business they don’t already know. You can’t sell to a company if you can’t sell for that company.

SaasSlingin

Politicker

Sr AE

It seems you know sheer grit will only get you so far. Obviously many AEs have made enough cold calls and busted their asses enough into promotions and 6 figures.

What seperates those AEs from those who will carry their success into Enterprise roles? Bc as an SMB AE, it’s more of a volume play vs knowing your prospect’s business super well- as you point out is crucial to become a successful ent seller

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

SMB AEs have a small-minded headspace, they think small and they don’t discriminate against who they work with. Enterprise reps are highly discriminatory of their cold call targets and clients, and they are extremely talented at separating the noise from what’s important.

As an example: I ignore the vast majority of my emails, skip the vast majority of my internal meetings, and focus EXACTLY on the few levers I know if pulled, will generate an impact.

^ The above is critical, and then I would add true enterprise reps spend more time understanding their client than they do trying to understand the services they sell.

BillyHoyle

Tycoon

Senior Account Executive

How much of this has felt like lucky timing?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

There is always luck, but you can always make your own luck. Your odds increase when you walk through doors. The more doors you muster to walk through, the more you learn. I have been extremely lucky in some regards, but I’d consider myself intelligent enough to know when something good is in front of me, and brave enough to pursue it further.

Luck is a break, an opportunity to fail. I’ve failed and I’ve succeeded. Have goals, aim high, and be persistent, luck will be part of your success, but there are plenty of lucky failures.

anothersalesgiy

Good Citizen

Enterprise Account Executive

Read through all these comments and appreciate you taking time for this post.

I’m looking to find a better role with the growth opportunity and won’t even ask if you’re hiring since you’ve answered that multiple times here.

You did mention finding the 5% company growth and 30-50% YOY industry growth. Can you share resources to do research and find this?

Seems like cloud and data security could fall into these categories but I’m pretty new to the enterprise game (8months) coming from start ups and SMB side of things. So any guidance on resources to do the research are helpful

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Ask during your interview about their growth if they aren’t public. If they are public all that information is available online.

Don’t think companies first, think markets. You’ll find a lot more general data about growing markets than you will companies. Just know that if a company is in a growing market… they are likely experiencing similar growth.

anothersalesgiy

Good Citizen

Enterprise Account Executive

This might be a dumb question but other than googling - “industry/market trends” how do you find that kind of market data?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

I’ll say this, the smartest sales reps I know are extremely resourceful and sourcing information relevant to their clients, and that informs their career paths too. The information you’re asking for requires time to search, there is no silver bullet. There are a myriad of sources that can help you stitch together a pulse on markets.

News headlines, market movers, stock prices, headcount growth on LinkedIn, following magazines and journals tied to industries.

How do you know the stock market is down? How do know which segments are growing or shrinking?

You should be plugged in to resources everywhere.

How much do you read per day? Not just books, but across LinkedIn? Across Apple News? WSJ? Motley Fool?

There is never an easy button in sales. Everything is gray, and you have to make judgments in the aggregate.

anothersalesgiy

Good Citizen

Enterprise Account Executive

This is great feedback thank you - most of my time is spent in books and LinkedIn for reading but it seems I need to go wider for more breadth of knowledge.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

I curate my Apple News feed, and it’s very helpful. I have markets, history, specific sectors, etc. so the topics relevant to interest areas is always populated. Same with LinkedIn, following companies and specific people is helpful to stay in orbit of interest areas.

LifeLearnerCanada

Personal Narrative

Founder of Non Profit: Life-Learners Canada

Thanks for sharing. I'm enjoying the responses.

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

One question. Do you even lift bro?

Ace3

Contributor

BDR (Business Development Rep)

1. Do you prefer working for smaller companies or large companies? 2. I’m a BDR at the moment and want to get to the AE then director role eventually. I see you jumped around a lot at first. Do you recommend moving around a lot to others or sticking through things at their current company?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

1). Small companies the sales are harder but the opportunity for personal growth is way bigger. I like both and hate both for the normal reasons. Big companies are bureaucratic, small companies can be very toxic. On the flip side, big companies usually have large marketing teams and strong proven services, whereas in small companies you need to make a name for yourself. I think you need to do both and decide which one best suits your strengths and weaknesses.

2.). My moving around as much as I did hurt as much as it helped. If you move, do it for the RIGHT reasons. I see lots of young sales reps move because they think they know more than they do. At the end of the day, you need stars to align in sales: you need a good product/company, a good manager, and a good customer/territory. If any of those are off…. that is a reason to leave. If those do align, then stay…. and only leave when you’ve hit your growth ceiling. If you get bored or its easy, time to move on.

General Advice: when you’re young, push yourself to your limits early so you can find where your limits are. If you take it too easy, you’ll be under-indexing your capacity for the rest of your life.

Ace3

Contributor

BDR (Business Development Rep)

Thanks boss!

KB_FarmerType

Opinionated

Strategic Sales

Love the under-indexing part

Juancallclose

Catalyst

Director

I've gone from a 43k base to now a 150k base, OTE is essentially 50/50. The challenge is not spending all of it. You suddenly realize you need a bigger house, need a nicer neighborhood, etc. IF you can keep your standards of living low, you'll retire much sooner.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

That’s what we did. I didn’t buy a new car or new home. Kept our living expenses mostly the same, though we bought new furniture.

Claire52

Client Excellence

Hi! My goodness, I can't say enough how impressive your career is. I have been working in client success for the last 4 years, and I'm trying to transition to sales. I currently work at a tech startup. Could you give me any advice on how I could break in? Do you know of anyone I could connect with, have a call with, etc? You're amazing. I know my questions sound pretty basic lol. I would just love any bit of advice.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

My Advice: realize that sales is NOT selling your products, even though all of your training and your manager will tell you it is.

Focus on putting yourself in your customers shoes, and think about what they face, and find ways to solve their problems that DONT relate to a product you sell.

^ this will get you into the right mindset

As far as getting a job, you’ll have to accept an entry level position at first but the good news is everyone is hiring sales people, I wouldn’t say it’s hard to land an interview. Don’t over complicate it.

Set a goal of applying to 15 jobs a week, you’ll have a job in a few months.

SleepyJoe

Good Citizen

Business Development

Is your company hiring any SDR's :)

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

We employ 1.1M people so yes, though hiring freeze until next CY is hitting most orgs

SleepyJoe

Good Citizen

Business Development

Ah got it. This was my post from yesterday:

https://bravado.co/war-room/posts/vaxx-required-for-a-100-remote-role-in-nov-2022/comments/316659

Only reason why I'm asking :/

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Plenty of companies are dropping vax requirements, just pivot to others.

avlisc

Personal Narrative

Mortgage Loan Officer

Do you think your career trajectory is repeatable? How much of it would you say was right place right time?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Absolutely repeatable. I was stumbling forward throughout this process, relying less on deliberate focus of career trajectory and more just random applications and pivots.

If you’re focused and deliberate I think this path can be achieved much faster.

As far as “right time right place,” I wouldn’t attribute the majority of the success to that. As I’ve said in other comments, I’m grateful for the luck I’ve had and the so many things I benefit from that aren’t my doing.

However Ive come to learn luck and seizing a lucky opportunity are two different things. To where luck has played a role, I’m confident my work ethic and intellect combined to make the most out of that luck.

TLDR: find 3 industries with over 30% YOY growth and companies within that have the same growth rate; apply to them until you get in. This will give you a huge slavery jump.

legaltechsales

Good Citizen

Regional Sales Manager

How did you pivot from copiers to cloud?

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

I networked with sales reps in and out of my company who I guessed were making more money, solicited their advice and got their support over time to refer me into the IT division of my company.

Your network is your net worth.

cariani

Digital Strategist

Nice, man! I have certain kind of experience but I'm still new, how can I start?

lloydotu

Sales and Marketing Development Rep

Seeing all these, and being hopeful to get such deals. How does one project a great job angle. The pay out here for someone like me just starting out is unbearable to say the least

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

One - not sure how old you are but when you start out, you need to accept you know close to nothing and provide minimal value - and this more than anything else dictates your low pay. You don’t deserve high pay yet. Remember that as a motivator.

Two - I eluded to this in another post here but if you want to grow your salary faster you need to be selling in a market segment that’s growing fast. Have intent and deliberateness with your career path. Have a 5-10 year out look.

Quitting jobs because you feel your pay is low, and moving to a next job without a plan and likely landing

lloydotu

Sales and Marketing Development Rep

I totally understand this. I am 32, at my 6 year mark in general sales and 1.5 year mark in tech sales. Do not know if this difference matters. Since I have been in Europe, I noticed the pay has reduced, so I try to still work remotely in the US.

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

What industry are you in? What’s your background and experience? Current role and OTE?

lloydotu

Sales and Marketing Development Rep

Now in real estate (wholesale). Product Sales background. OTE 35-45k

aenima

Celebrated Contributor

Principal Account Manager

Get out of real estate, that whole industry is imploding.

You need to use your tech/software experience and move into B2B SaaS for products that drive value across MULTIPLE verticals.

You’re selling ONE thing to ONE industry. That means less growth and more single threaded risk.

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aenima

Principal Account Manager - $450K+ OTE - Ask Me Anything

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