SportsSalesGuy

Enterprise Account Executive

ENOUGH ALREADY! - CONNOR ROY

As a young sales account executive, i've been facing overwhelming pressure and seeking some type of advice here from the savages.

Struggling for Support: Ive found it a task to get older folks (much older than me) to meet the tasks and initiatives I give them or ask of them. I feel as almost my tasks are looked at as lesser and irrelevant. These folks are in support roles for a reason but do not support me and ultimately looks poorly on me when it shouldn't. Thus, prolonging deals and new pipeline and much more. Ultimately, everything falls on me and looks poorly. I am under a lot of pressure to preform as the company did first round of layoffs and will def do another.

I find it hard to tell someone significantly older and more experienced than me to do shit I asked after many times of follow up and no action. My boss told me to come to him if this continues and I have done it twice now. Things change but then go back to the way it was. And you can tell the person I had to rat out gets pissy and butthurt in the way they interact with me. I feel like a bitch and I hate being a snitch/"tattle tail". I know that may not be how it looks but its how I feel. I almost have to babysit these people and they have been in the workforce longer than I have been alive. Some double my age in experience for sure (I work at a legacy software company). To me its fuckin bullshit, lazy, disrespectful and unprofessional. The classic cop out is "sorry i've been swamped" the same old story everyone says. Well, so am I and if I don't get you to do your shit, I wont be swamped anymore because I will be out of a job.

(And they say my generation has terrible work ethic and is unprofessional!)

This unsupported feeling constantly leaves me to question my organizational fit and whether a change is necessary. I have been here for 5 years (one of the most tenured AE's here even for my age) and have worked my ass off to get where I am.

Have any of you encountered similar struggles now or in the past? Any advice how to fix this issue? Should I move to a company with younger demographic?

🎈 Mentorship

🕧 age-related

20

24 comments

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Filth

Politicker

13

Live Filthy or Die Clean

I have a few things for you fellow savage that may help in order of nice to "fuck you pay me":

A. Grease the wheel. This can mean buying lunch, alcohol, supporting little Timmy's scout fundraising sale or just listening to them explain why the new Top Gun is the greatest thing since penicillin.

B. Make sure to include the size of the deal and revenue it's going to bring in for the company every chance you get. Put it as a header/footer template if you have to and spam that shit into their brains on why financially it matters to the company and to you.

C. CC everyone that is expecting you to sell things on every ask. I don't care if its their manager, your manager, a VP, or a CEO make sure that when they blow you off they are blowing off the owner of the fucking company and telling them everyone has to settle in and wait till Peggy gets off her ass.

D. Physically walk to them and stop them from doing their other tasks until they do exactly what you need them to do and don't leave until you have what you need.

Feel free to use them in combination but once you get past A. and it doesn't work, FUCK EM. Get dirty and play hard and its shape up or ship out and if they don't like it ask them what they think their job requirement is and run it past their boss and department goals.

Happy Hunting Savage and don't let the peasants stop you from taking the kingdom.

RealPatrickBateman

Politicker

6

🔪Amateur Butcher🔪

BIG Fan of jumping straight to "D", but maybe thats just me...

SportsSalesGuy

Tycoon

2

Enterprise Account Executive

Unfortunately, we are fully remote so that is not an option

RealPatrickBateman

Politicker

3

🔪Amateur Butcher🔪

Tough....

displayguy

3

Trusted Advisor

As a 69 year old selling machine it often comes down to a matter of respect for their years of experience. You are the new guy coming in and telling them what to do when asking them to handle the work in a nicer way may work.

If not, tell them if they don't like the work, stop cashing the cheques!

Pachacuti

Politicker

6

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Feeding people (ie take them to lunch) and then explaining things to them is always a good method to get some basic results. And doing it in private, not publicly, is the right way to go - at least for now. However, I'd look for someone to make an example of if things don't change for you.

SportsSalesGuy

Tycoon

4

Enterprise Account Executive

this was great thank you!!

oldcloser

Arsonist

4

💀

I can’t do better than that filthy rant. I’ll just add this: Do not shy from confrontation when your job is on the line. 5 years is a great run. You’ve got more stroke than you think. Keep that fucking job.

2

Physical Therapist Technician

SPIT THAT SHIT!

punishedlad

Tycoon

4

Business Development Team Lead

At my first job out of college, I worked with a guy probably 10-15 years my senior who was the biggest slacker on the team. Family friends with the CEO. Never updated his pipeline, was always lying to prospects/overselling our solutions, always slacking and using business travel as an excuse to party with his friends. Everyone on the team, including our manager (friend of mine), was fed up with his shit but there was nothing we could do.

I know how frustrating that stuff can be. Ultimately, you're going to work with shitty people no matter where you go. If you think age is the #1 contributing factor here, it might be worth trying to get into a younger org where you'll be taken more seriously.

detectivegibbles

Politicker

4

Sales Director

Our org has been tackling this issue the last few weeks.

Product managers taking their sweet ass time to get back to the account executives with pricing and costs.By sweet ass time, I mean sometimes 2 or 3 days. Time kills deals.

How'd we solve it?

1) Immediately call. "Hey, to do my job successfully, I need ABC and if you need more info, tell me right now so I can go get it."

2) Loop in leadership to see that you're doing your part.

3) Call out, respectfully, when others aren't being accountable. Respectful confrontation takes place in healthy organizations.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

3

🦊

ALWAYS HAVE THAT PAPER/EMAIL TRAIL

Fenderbaum

Politicker

1

Retired Choirboy🪕

Yes, being fully remote is going to require an organized paper trail, whether it's by email or certified snail mail. It just boils down to that pesky human nature BS that some take advantage of...simple respect. Some people put more effort into testing authority than they do in performing their duties. Sad.

CPTAmerica

Opinionated

3

President/CRO

Dale Carnegie wrote a pretty popular book on this 😁

SportsSalesGuy

Tycoon

1

Enterprise Account Executive

@CPTAmerica Which one are you referring to?

coletrain

Politicker

1

Account Executive

How to win friends and influence people

Sunbunny31

Politicker

3

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Aggravating. Love the approach given by Filth, but also do not hesitate to engage your manager for support. I've had to cc other people's managers to get things done in the past, and while I hate to resort to that, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

That said, being up front about expectations and alerting those people to the impact your request has for the company is key. If it's a priority because it's a Q2 deal worth a fair amount of revenue, and it's forecast, and has management visibility, you should state that. And give a due date to set expectations.

It's not necessarily your age, though you may be feeling it acutely. It's that you're asking them to do work when they possibly have a lot of other things requested, and they're narky about it. Framing it so they can prioritize and so that expectations are clear will be helpful.

Since you're remote and going to lunch with them sounds challenging, just being your open amiable self in Teams/Slack and engaging with them there can help. I've managed to navigate some prickly personalities with an up front charm assault in casual communications back channel. I know who has which pets and what sports their kids play - and I ask about them.

Good luck!

Maximas

Tycoon

2

Senior Sales Executive

Calling them out to mgmt is definitely not a snitch,since you'll be honest enough about your struggle with em.
Especially that the story you have to tell is definitely for a good and a valid cause which is simply not to put the blame on yourself by mgmt for these poor numbers initially,and to avoid being included at the next layoff circle cuz of em at the worst scenarios eventually .

Sggsnoopy

Member

2

Wealth Management Consultant

When I was promoted to my first management role my dad told me that I needed to decide right then did I want to be liked or be the boss. My father only had two bosses in his 91 years of life on this earth, his father and the President of the United States (he was in the navy in WWII). Needless to say, at that time I wanted to be the boss, so I set aside whether people were going to be happy with me and my directives.

With the above in mind, skip A, B and C of Filth’s recommendations, for now, and go directly to D. Once they have complied go back to A, B, and C until their compliance is routine.

1

Regional Vice President

If you’ve been there 5 years perhaps it’s time to look around? You would think during that time you’d have already demonstrated you close your deals and thus it’s worth their time.

What you are describing is a culture that doesn’t care about what you care about (presumably closing deals). While resistance in the non-quota carriers is normal, you have to decide how much you want to deal with.

SportsSalesGuy

Tycoon

1

Enterprise Account Executive

I should have mentioned as well we went through a merger so we acquired a company and a good portion of these folks causing me issues are from the acquired place and not the parent company I have been w/for 5 years. And yes we have a culture problem here big time since the merger and its been made quite clear on town halls how people feel about it.

TheHypnotist

Executive

1

Sales Manager

Managing a team with members much older than you is no different than selling to a customer who is much older than you.
You MUST mentally give them the same business stature as yourself. They are neither better nor worse than you, simply in a different job function.

When asking them to do something, ask THEM to put a deadline on it or at least to agree that your deadline is reasonable.
Then ask THEM:
* How many times they consider it reasonable to be requested to do the same thing?
* What would THEY do if they were in your shoes after requesting the task be completed "X" times (where X has been mutually agreed) and it STILL hasn't been done?

People will argue with your suggestions, figures, policies etc all day long if they feel like it. But they generally see that it would be hypocritical to disagree with their own ideas.

Milez

1

Sales Consultant

I literally had the same problem. The older people grouped up and tried bad mouthing me to my leaders. I just told the leaders what I have to offer and asked if they believe it would serve the business in the long run to be bullied into a decision to replace me with someone who will need me to teach them the most basic things.

I was supposed to be 2IC for 3 months and it has now been 7 months.

However, I have also told them I am willing to step down in order to restore the work relationships. Sometimes leading from the back is more effective when dealing with proud people. Hope that helps. 😉

goose

Politicker

1

Sales Executive

Sales and Leadership have a lot in common. If you can’t lead people (especially through change) then you will fail at both. You may want to blame others for their lack of productivity but it really is on you to figure it out. Would you blame your prospect for not buying from you?

Gain commitment on a common objective, set standards (that they co-author), and refuse compromise.

Good luck.

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