Overview
You're selling Spoki's WhatsApp Business API platform to B2C companies across Southern Europe. You handle the full sales cycle: finding prospects, running demos of the AI-powered platform, building business cases around customer engagement ROI, and closing deals. You're mostly self-sourcing through outbound, with some support from BDRs.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Full-cycle AE (outbound-focused) |
| Sales Motion | Outbound-heavy (self-sourcing + some BDR support) |
| Deal Complexity | Consultative |
| Sales Cycle | 1-3 months (estimate based on mid-market B2C) |
| Deal Size | €10-50K ACV (estimate for mid-market WhatsApp API deals) |
| Quota (est.) | €300-500K/year |
Company Context
Stage: Likely Series A/B (founded 2021, 60+ employees, rapid growth)
Size: 60+ employees, offices in Italy and Barcelona
Growth: Aggressive hiring, expanding across Southern Europe markets
Market Position: Competing in crowded WhatsApp BSP space against Twilio, MessageBird. Differentiating on AI-native features and B2C specialization.
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 60% Self-sourced outbound - you're prospecting, calling, emailing your own target accounts
- 30% BDR-sourced meetings - qualified prospects handed over from BDR team
- 10% Inbound/referrals - minimal based on "no warm leads" emphasis
SDR/AE Structure: BDRs book some meetings, but AEs expected to prospect heavily themselves
SE Support: Likely minimal - product demos appear to be AE-led given the mid-market focus
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: Twilio (WhatsApp Business API), MessageBird, 360dialog, Infobip, other WhatsApp Business Solution Providers
How They Differentiate: AI natively built into platform (automated responses, chatbots, workflow automation), European data residency/focus, B2C-specific use cases and integrations
Common Objections: "We're using the free WhatsApp Business app", "Twilio is the safe choice", "We don't have bandwidth to implement this", "Prove the ROI vs email/SMS"
Win Themes: Documented ROI for B2C engagement, thousands of integrations with e-commerce platforms, AI automation reducing manual work, European data compliance
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Prospecting (30%) | Active Deals (40%) | Demos/Calls (20%) | Internal (10%)
Key Activities
- Prospecting: You're not waiting for leads. You're building lists of e-commerce companies, retail chains, service businesses. Calling marketing directors, emailing ops leaders, messaging on LinkedIn. 20-30 outbound touches per day when not in active deal cycles.
- Product Demos: Screen-sharing demos of the Spoki platform. Showing automated WhatsApp workflows, AI chatbot setup, integration with Shopify/WooCommerce, campaign analytics. Customizing examples to their business (abandoned cart recovery, order updates, customer support automation). 5-8 demos per week.
- Multi-Threading: B2C deals involve marketing (wants campaign ROI), customer service (wants efficiency), IT (wants integration clarity), and finance (wants pricing justification). You're scheduling calls with 3-4 stakeholders per deal, aligning them on business case.
- Proposal/Pricing: Building custom proposals showing ROI projections based on their customer volume. Negotiating on seats, message volume tiers, implementation support. Most deals have 2-3 rounds of pricing discussion.
- Pipeline Management: Updating CRM, forecasting deals, internal sync meetings. Chasing prospects who go dark after demos. Following up on procurement approvals and contract reviews.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- You're selling to a crowded market. Twilio is the 800-lb gorilla. You're constantly justifying why not just go with the incumbent.
- WhatsApp Business API requires technical setup and ongoing management. Prospects worry about implementation complexity and ongoing resources needed.
- B2C buyers are ROI-focused and price-sensitive. You need to prove concrete return on investment, not just feature value.
- Multi-stakeholder deals mean long cycles with lots of internal alignment needed on the buyer side. Deals slip quarters when priorities shift.
- You're operating across Italy and Spain - language and cultural differences matter. If you're not fluent in both Italian and Spanish, you're limited.
- The job posting's "find me yourself" approach signals a sink-or-swim culture. Expect minimal ramp support.
What Success Looks Like
- Closing €80-120K in new business per quarter
- 25-30% demo-to-close rate
- Building a pipeline of 3x quota (€250-400K pipeline to hit €80-120K/quarter)
- Average deal size of €20-40K ACV
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- CMOs/Marketing Directors at mid-market e-commerce companies (€5-50M revenue)
- Customer Service Directors at high-volume B2C businesses
- COOs/Operations VPs at growing retail/service companies
What They Care About:
- Conversion rate improvement and marketing ROI
- Customer support efficiency (response time, ticket volume reduction)
- Integration with existing stack (Shopify, WooCommerce, HubSpot, Salesforce)
- GDPR compliance and data security for European operations
- Proven results from similar companies in their industry
Requirements
- 2-4 years B2B SaaS sales experience with outbound motion
- Fluency in Italian and Spanish (selling across Southern Europe)
- Proven track record of self-sourcing pipeline and closing deals
- Comfortable with consultative, multi-stakeholder sales process
- Technical enough to demo integrations and explain API concepts
- Experience selling to marketing/ops buyers in e-commerce or retail preferred
- High resilience - rejection and deal slippage don't derail you