SMB Account Executive

Overview

You're selling marketplace expansion services to founder-led consumer brands that are doing well domestically but haven't cracked international marketplaces. You handle everything: prospecting brands on LinkedIn and ecommerce platforms, running audit-style discovery calls, building custom business cases, negotiating commercial terms, and closing partnership agreements. The product is a wholesale model where the company buys inventory and manages the brand's presence on Amazon, eBay, and other marketplaces across UK/EU/US.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Early growth (VC-backed, 65+ brands, multi-million EUR revenue)

Size: Small team, now scaling sales function

Growth: First dedicated AE hires—company has been founder-led sales until now

Market Position: Niche player in the crowded ecommerce aggregator/partnership space, competing with brands doing it themselves or working with other marketplace operators

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 95% Outbound—you're hunting for brands that fit the ICP (proven product-market fit, doing $1M+ revenue, not yet crushing international marketplaces)
• 5% Referrals—existing brand partners might refer other founders they know
• Zero inbound—this company doesn't have brand awareness yet

SDR/AE Structure: No SDRs. You do your own prospecting, qualification, and closing.

SE Support: No sales engineers. You run product demos and build business cases yourself.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Other marketplace aggregators, 3PL providers, brands choosing to build in-house marketplace teams, Amazon aggregators pivoting to partnership models

How They Differentiate: Data-led approach, wholesale model (they buy inventory vs. consignment), full ownership of marketplace execution so brands don't need to hire

Common Objections: "We want to control our brand," "Margins are too tight to wholesale," "We're already on Amazon," "What if you damage our brand reputation?"

Win Themes: Speed to international revenue, no upfront investment from brand, data insights they couldn't get alone, brand risk mitigation through the company's expertise

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting (40%) | Active Deals (35%) | Internal/Admin (25%)

Key Activities

• Brand hunting: Scrolling through ecommerce platforms, LinkedIn, and brand directories to find consumer brands with $1M-$10M revenue that aren't yet winning on international marketplaces. Building lists, finding founder contact info, and doing initial research on their current marketplace presence.
• Outbound outreach: Cold emails, LinkedIn messages, and occasional cold calls to brand founders or heads of ecommerce. Most don't respond. You're trying to book 10-15 intro calls per week.
• Audit-led discovery: On first calls, you walk through their current marketplace performance (revenue, ratings, listings), identify gaps in international markets, and educate them on the wholesale partnership model. You're qualifying whether they have enough margin to make wholesale economics work.
• Business case building: Creating custom projections showing potential revenue from UK/EU/US marketplace expansion, margin analysis, and investment comparison (hiring internal team vs. partnering with you). This takes 2-4 hours per serious opportunity.
• Commercial negotiation: Discussing wholesale pricing, margin splits, payment terms, minimum order quantities, and contract length. Founders will push back on giving up margin and control—you need to quantify the trade-off.
• Internal coordination: Syncing with operations team on feasibility, working with finance on deal structure, updating forecasts, and probably sitting in on weekly pipeline reviews with founders since this is a small team.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Most outbound attempts go nowhere—brand founders are swamped and skeptical of partnership pitches. Expect sub-5% response rates on cold outreach.
• Deals stall when brands get nervous about losing control or when they see the margin hit from wholesale pricing. You'll have deals that go dark for weeks.
• The sales cycle can stretch if brands want to "test" with one marketplace first or if they're in the middle of a fundraise and distracted.
• You're building the playbook as you go—no established sales process, battlecards, or objection handling scripts. It's on you to figure out what messaging works.
• Lean team means no support functions. You're doing your own CRM admin, building your own decks, and troubleshooting operational questions that should probably go to another team.
• Founder-led brands can be slow decision-makers. You're often waiting on them to talk to co-founders or run internal margin analysis.

What Success Looks Like

• Signing 3-5 new brand partnerships per quarter that hit the ICP (brands with strong unit economics that scale internationally)
• Building a pipeline of 20-30 qualified opportunities at various stages
• Accurately forecasting which deals close this month vs. next (critical in a small team where revenue predictability matters)
• Refining the sales process and documenting what works so the next AE hires can ramp faster

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Founder/CEO of consumer brands ($1M-$10M revenue)
• Head of Ecommerce or Head of Growth at slightly larger brands

What They Care About:

• Incremental revenue without hiring—can they unlock UK/EU/US marketplaces without building an internal team?
• Margin preservation—wholesale pricing needs to still be profitable for them
• Brand risk—will you tank their ratings or create MAP violations?
• Proof—case studies from similar brands that have scaled internationally through this model
• Control vs. speed trade-off—they want growth but hate giving up control of their brand experience

Requirements

• 18+ months closing new business as an AE (they want someone who's done this before, not a promoted SDR)
• Outbound-heavy experience—comfortable with high rejection, self-sourcing pipeline, and multi-channel outreach
• Full sales cycle ownership—you've managed deals from cold outreach to signed contract without handoffs
• Discovery and consultative selling—can run audit-style conversations, build business cases, and handle commercial negotiations
• Self-direction and comfort with ambiguity—no playbook, no manager hovering, you figure it out
• Pipeline hygiene and forecasting—can keep a CRM updated and accurately predict what's closing this quarter
• Resilience and coachability—you bounce back from losses and take feedback without getting defensive