Senior Account Executive

Overview

You sell procurement software to Director and VP-level buyers at mid-market and enterprise companies. You own the full sales cycle—prospecting, discovery, demos, negotiation, and closing. Your buyers have budget but move slowly, and you'll spend a lot of time navigating multi-stakeholder decision processes.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Scale-up (likely Series B/C based on "fast-growing" positioning)

Size: Unknown, but hiring aggressively

Growth: Expanding sales team, looking for "hunters" suggests new market expansion

Market Position: Challenger in an increasingly crowded ProcureTech space competing against established players and newer AI-focused entrants

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 70%+ Outbound - Cold outreach to procurement leaders, finance execs, and operations VPs. You're building your own lists and running sequences.
• 20% Inbound - Some marketing leads from content/events, but quality is inconsistent. Most aren't ready to buy.
• 10% Referrals - Existing customers occasionally refer peers, but this isn't a reliable channel yet.

SDR/AE Structure: Likely limited or no dedicated SDR support for a "Senior AE" role—you're expected to hunt your own deals.

SE Support: Probably shared SE pool for technical demos and POCs, but availability may be constrained.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Likely competing against Coupa, Ivalua, SAP Ariba, Zip, Precoro, and other procurement platforms depending on deal size.

How They Differentiate: Unknown specifics, but probably positioning on ease of use, faster implementation, better UX, or niche functionality vs legacy systems.

Common Objections: "We already have a system," "Can't we just use Excel/Google Sheets," "Price is too high," "Timing isn't right—talk next quarter," integration complexity with ERP systems.

Win Themes: ROI from spend visibility, compliance/audit benefits, time savings for procurement teams, vendor consolidation.

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting (30%) | Active Deals (45%) | Internal/Admin (25%)

Key Activities

• Cold Outreach: 2-3 hours daily on prospecting—LinkedIn messages, cold emails, researching target accounts. You're looking for procurement leaders with 50+ employees who have manual or outdated procurement processes.
• Discovery & Demos: Running 3-5 discovery calls per week and 2-3 product demos. You qualify budget, timeline, decision process, and technical requirements. Many discoveries go nowhere.
• Deal Management: Pushing 5-10 active opportunities forward. This means scheduling next meetings, sending follow-up materials, coordinating SE time for technical deep-dives, navigating legal/security reviews, and chasing stakeholders who go dark.
• Forecasting & Internal: Weekly forecast calls, CRM hygiene, deal reviews with leadership, coordinating with CS on handoffs. Probably 5-8 hours weekly on internal meetings and admin.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Long, unpredictable cycles: Deals that look like Q2 closes slip to Q3 or Q4 constantly. Procurement teams are slow to move despite having the pain and budget.
• Multi-threading exhaustion: You need 4-6 champions per deal (procurement lead, finance, IT, legal, end users). Keeping everyone aligned and engaged over 6+ months is draining.
• Self-sourcing pressure: As a "Senior AE" you're expected to fill your own pipeline. If outbound dries up or response rates drop, your pipeline suffers in 4-6 months.
• Discount pressure: Procurement buyers negotiate for a living—expect aggressive price pushback and requests for discounts, extended payment terms, and price protections.
• Integration complexity: If they use SAP, Oracle, or NetSuite, integrations can become deal blockers. You'll spend time in technical limbo waiting on IT resources.

What Success Looks Like

• Closing 8-12 deals annually at $50K-250K each
• Keeping 3-4 deals in active negotiation/contracting at all times
• Maintaining 3-4x pipeline coverage (meaning $3M+ pipeline against $1M quota)
• Winning competitive evaluations against 2-3 other vendors

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Director/VP of Procurement (economic buyer, primary champion)
• CFO or VP Finance (budget holder, ROI focused)
• CIO or IT leader (technical validation, integration concerns)
• Legal/Compliance (contract terms, data security)

What They Care About:

• Spend visibility: "Can I see where money is going across departments?"
• Compliance & audit: "Will this keep us SOC 2/ISO compliant and audit-ready?"
• Time savings: "How much time will this save my procurement team weekly?"
• Vendor management: "Can we consolidate vendors and enforce contracts?"
• Integration ease: "How painful is the ERP integration?"
• Adoption risk: "Will our employees actually use this?"

Requirements

• 4-6+ years enterprise B2B SaaS sales experience, preferably in fintech, ERP, spend management, or procurement tech
• Proven ability to self-source and close complex deals with multiple stakeholders
• Experience navigating procurement, legal, and security review processes
• Comfortable selling to finance and operations executives
• Track record of hitting/exceeding $800K-1M+ annual quota
• Ability to run technical discovery and coordinate with SEs on demos/POCs
• Proficiency with Salesforce, Outreach/Salesloft, LinkedIn Sales Navigator