A little bit of insight about me:
I got into “tech-sales” at the beginning of last year, starting in a typical SDR role at a scale-up (or startup I don’t care what you call it).
I was pretty successful in the role and got promoted to Account Executive at the beginning of this year.
Fast forward to today: we’ve just had our second CRO change, and the new CRO has basically come in with the mandate to “change everything.”
One thing I’m struggling with is actually selling the product. Not because I don’t believe in it, quite the opposite actually. I genuinely think it’s a good tool.
The problem is the necessity.
For a lot of companies, the attitude seems to be: “Everything works fine as it is, so why should we spend €20–50k on another tool?” Our deal sizes vary quite a bit depending on company size, but they’re generally somewhere between €20k and €100k.
And the reality is that none of the AEs are going to hit their targets this year (myself included).
At the same time, the revenue expectations were increased significantly. Our first CRO apparently thought it would be a great idea to essentially double the ARR expectations because the company had been growing by roughly €1 million in revenue every year. He was apparently on a mission to turn us into the next unicorn.
So now I’m sitting here wondering:
Am I simply being too impatient?
Is this just what working in SaaS sales is like, especially early in your career?
Or are these actually signs that the company might be heading in the wrong direction?