redrabbit

Account Executive

What's the better path? SDR Team Lead or MidMarket AE

Hello fellow savages - i have the opportunity to grow from SMB AE to Mid Market AE or SDR Team Lead. I'm not sure which path is better or which one will lead to a better outcome. If you have/had the options which one would you take and why? I've been at my current startup for one year as one of the top performing AEs

Is there anything that should be put in place for either job listing before you would even accept a new role? Both positions are fairly new within the company.

What's Better?

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SDR Team Lead Mid Market Account Executive

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CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

Personally, I would do mid market AE. The career growth from there seems less limited and less reliant on spamming out marketing emails for KPIs.

AE you can go into leadership, larger territories, etc. What is the career path for an SDR manager?

What is the OTE for both, and which do you personally feel you align with? Some people are better coaches, and gravitate towards leadership roles. Some people are lone wolf ICs for life. Guess it depends on which type you like best...

At the end of the day there is no right or wrong answer, just whatever you feel you will be most successful in and what will help you grow in your career!

redrabbit

Opinionated

Account Executive

Super valid points. Not sure on the career path for either other than the obvious midmarket goes to enterprise. SDR Team was just created and it would be the first Team lead for that group. Midmarket team was recently created as well (first 2 months), but there's a lack of KPIs, resources, and wins at that level.

Both seem particularly unstable, and as of now, there's no change in base for either of the roles. Potentially the higher deal sizes of midmarket would make it possible to earn more through commission but not sure what the net gain would be for OTE

I typically skew more towards the coaching type, helping reps with their numbers and pitches. There's been a lot of turnover at my company so there's been a lot of opportunities to coach

TheSolicitorGeneral

Politicker

Small Market AE

I can actually speak from experience. I was given the choice of going to an AE position, or be groomed for an SDR manager role. From what I’ve researched, and what I’ve discovered in talks with my network/org leaders is that you can almost dead end yourself by going into SDR leadership too early in your career without robust AE experience. I’d take the mid market role if I were you.

redrabbit

Opinionated

Account Executive

Where does the SDR Team lead typically go? In my mind it's kind of a junior team lead type of position? but not sure that's the case everywhere

TheSolicitorGeneral

Politicker

Small Market AE

SDR team leads from my company, and most others I would think, go to a small market AE role. The goal is typically to go into a full sales role

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

I'm disappointed that the SDR Team Lead voters didn't defend their decision. Go to a mid-market AE role. You can always go to a SDR Manager role in the future if you decide that selling isn't for you. But the AE experience gives you far more options in your career.

Indakitchenwhippin

Politicker

Channel Sales

Team Lead, especially SDR, is a dead end job IMO, especially if you want to eventually move up management. AE will pay better, and will make it a lot easier for you in the future if you want to move up the management track.

I agree with @TheSoliciterGeneral all the Team leads Ive seen have gotten pigeon holed quite fast. I know of a Team lead that is stuck in SDR management because they went straight from SDR to Team Lead, other SDR leads Ive seen get stuck in the lead role unable to get to management and they wasted a year+ floundering until becoming an smb AM/AE or something when they could be an MM AE by then

redrabbit

Opinionated

Account Executive

Interesting. Before this post, I didn't really think that SDR team lead would just be leading to AE.... it makes sense, but seems like a different track altogether. It seems super easy to be passed over for other opportunities. I would be interested to hear how current SDR Team leads feel about it or people who have progressed through that track, but maybe they don't have time to comment on posts like these 😂

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

What did you decide?

redrabbit

Opinionated

Account Executive

I followed a lot of this good advice and decided to stay individual contributor for the ability to grow and opportunity to target larger clients. I ended up being promoted as the 1st member of the newly developed inbound sales team and subsequently burned out a few months later because I was closing 2-3x more deals (in foodtech and more of a transactional sales environment)

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redrabbit

What's the better path? SDR Team Lead or MidMarket AE

What's Better?

10 comments

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