ObtaintheGrain

Account Executive

Tech AEs - What are some of the biggest problems you face?

Looking to start a discussion around what some of the largest problems are for Tech AEs and how you're going about solving them.

I'm currently a Mid-Market AE in the networking space and some of the problems that I run into are: staying organized with deals, managing internal timelines, and engaging multiple stakeholders at prospect accounts.

Would love to hear what over problems you all run into and if you've found ways to solve them.

Tech AEs - What is the biggest problem you run into?

Attached poll

Staying organized with deals Pipeline management / generation Managing stress / anxiety with deals Gaining executive alignment Centralization of notes / storing information on accounts Forecasting deals / accuracy Customer care issues Internal processes / managing internal CRM

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

☁️ Software Tech

🦾 Hardware Tech

12

8 comments

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CuriousFox

WR Officer

7

🦊

Internal processes. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Unfortunately the bigger companies aren't better.

revgeek

Contributor

0

Founder

Can you provide more context? An example maybe

TennisandSales

Politicker

3

Head Of Sales

some of the biggest problems ive faced are:

1. marketing being complete garbage and not helping AT ALL.
2. internal process at companies making it fucking way to hard to close deals.
3. Getting senior leadership at companies to engage with me / my team.

Here is how I solved them:

1. leave.
2. Ask for forgiveness not permission (if you are good) and this normally comes around getting the 600 approvals to send a prospect something super simple, or checking all the stupid boxes to move a deal to the next stage before setting a meeting or something stupid like that.
3. This is still a challenge,

bendandsnack

Politicker

2

Account Exec

Internal processes & dealing with internal timelines by a mile.

I sell professional services to SMB(a lot of startups) & we have a $50k minimum deal size/minimum 4 week lead time on a project.

I’m competing with enterprise customers for resources & constantly convincing internal leadership that a deal is worth our time

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

1

Bravado's Resident Asshole

Internal process where I am at is pretty solid. It's everything else that can be touchy at times.

Abstrakt

1

Director of Cloud Solutions

1) inventory. Can’t ship anything.

Beyond that, mostly generating new opps. Full cycle here so I’m in charge of lead Gen through close. Have to think 3-6 months out while trying to close the current deal or pipeline will be shit.

Put time on your calendar to focus’s on those tasks you need help in.
Every Monday afternoon is a channel meeting.
Tuesday is team sync.
Wednesday is lead Gen and cold calling.

Block the time and hold yourself accountable.

BigGuy

Executive

0

Sales Director

I think managing the pilot process can be the most challenging, especially if it requires technical stakeholders to help set up/configure the solution. I have had several pilots delayed/shelved because we couldn't find a resource to join a call or dedicate some time to the evaluation. The other challenge is managing the procurement process because so many new folks get introduced to help with purchasing, security, legal, etc.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

0

Sales Rep

Mine is 100% learning all the products. Tech their can be so many features and products that it takes a while to understand how they truly help the business. Especially if there isnt a good formal training to start.

People always say just shadow demos, but I do not have the attention span for that

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