Strategic Account Executive - West

Overview

You hunt net-new enterprise logos in your West Coast territory, selling a MarTech/SalesTech/RevTech product to companies with 500-5,000 employees. Deals average $100K-$200K and take 3-6 months to close. You own the full sales cycle from prospecting to close, spending most of your time building pipeline through outbound, qualifying opportunities, running multi-stakeholder sales processes, and closing business. You also work some expansion opportunities in existing accounts, but the primary focus is new logo acquisition.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Likely Series C/D+ (hiring 10+ AEs signals strong funding and growth)

Size: Unknown, but scaling aggressively

Growth: High hiring velocity with 6 Strategic AE openings on West Coast alone ("high priority" hiring)

Market Position: Described as "market-leading" and "category-leading" in their space (MarTech/SalesTech/RevTech)

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 70-80% Outbound - This is explicitly a "hunter-led" role with "heavy emphasis on pipeline creation." You're prospecting daily: cold calling, building account lists, LinkedIn outreach, email sequences, and territory planning. Expect limited inbound support.
• 15-20% Expansion - Some upsell and cross-sell opportunities in existing customer accounts within your territory
• 5-10% Inbound/Referrals - Occasional marketing-generated leads or customer referrals, but don't count on these to hit quota

SDR/AE Structure: Likely minimal SDR support. You're expected to self-source the majority of your pipeline. This is a true "own your territory" role.

SE Support: Probably shared SE pool for demos and technical deep-dives, but you'll handle discovery and qualification alone.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Depends on specific product category (MarTech has players like HubSpot, Marketo, 6sense; SalesTech has Outreach, SalesLoft, Gong; RevTech has Clari, Boomi)

How They Differentiate: Positioned as "category-leading" which suggests either first-mover advantage or clear feature superiority in their niche

Common Objections: "We already have a solution," pricing concerns on $100K+ deals, "not a priority right now," integration and implementation concerns, competitive pressure from cheaper alternatives

Win Themes: Likely ROI-focused, platform vs point solution positioning, customer success stories showing measurable impact, strong integrations with existing tech stack

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting/Hunting (45%) | Active Deal Management (35%) | Internal/Admin (20%)

Key Activities

• Territory Planning & Research: You spend significant time identifying target accounts in your territory, building account lists, researching companies and key stakeholders, mapping org charts, and prioritizing accounts based on fit and timing signals. You're constantly refining your target list.
• Outbound Prospecting: You make 30-50 cold calls per day, send 20-30 personalized emails, and engage prospects on LinkedIn. You're trying to book 10-15 discovery calls per week to keep your pipeline full. Most calls go to voicemail. Most emails get ignored. You follow up persistently.
• Discovery & Demos: You run 10-15 discovery calls per week, qualifying hard on budget, timeline, decision process, and pain points. You run 6-10 product demos per week with SE support, tailoring the demo to the specific buyer's use case. You send follow-up emails with next steps after every call.
• Deal Progression & Closing: You multi-thread into accounts, getting meetings with economic buyers and influencers, building champions, creating business cases and ROI analyses, negotiating terms, coordinating legal and procurement, and pushing deals across the finish line. You're constantly chasing stakeholders for the next meeting.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• The hunter grind is relentless: With 70-80% of pipeline coming from outbound, you're prospecting daily. Cold calling is rejection-heavy. Most people don't respond. You need thick skin and discipline to keep dialing when you're getting shut down. If you don't prospect consistently, your pipeline dies in 60-90 days.
• Deals die constantly: You'll build relationships with champions who get laid off or leave. Budget freezes happen. Priorities shift. Competitors undercut you. Procurement drags things out. You'll have deals that felt like locks suddenly go dark. Expect 50-60% of your pipeline to push or die every quarter.
• You're alone in your territory: You own everything—prospecting, qualifying, demoing, closing, expansion. There's no SDR booking meetings for you. No AM handling renewals. If you don't hunt, you don't eat. The autonomy is great if you're self-motivated, but there's no safety net.

What Success Looks Like

• Hitting 90-100% of quota ($810K-$1M in closed business annually), with at least 60-70% from net-new logos
• Building and maintaining 3-4x pipeline coverage ($2.7M-$4M in qualified pipeline)
• Closing 5-10 deals per year consistently across all four quarters
• Getting promoted to Enterprise AE 2 or Strategic AE 2 role within 12-18 months based on performance

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• VP/Director of Marketing, Sales, or Revenue Operations (depending on product) - economic buyer with budget authority
• Director/Manager of Marketing Ops, Sales Ops, or RevOps - technical buyer who evaluates the product and owns implementation
• CFO or VP Finance on deals $150K+ - final approval authority, scrutinizing ROI and budget allocation

What They Care About:

• Measurable ROI and payback period - they need to justify $100K-$200K to finance and leadership
• Integration complexity and time-to-value - they've been burned by tools that took 6+ months to implement and never got adopted
• Vendor stability and roadmap - they're betting on you for 3+ years and want to know you'll be around
• Change management risk - they need proof that their teams will actually use the tool

Requirements

• 5+ years of full-cycle enterprise sales experience, preferably in MarTech, SalesTech, or RevTech
• Proven ability to consistently hit/exceed $800K+ quotas through net-new logo acquisition
• Strong outbound prospecting skills - comfortable cold calling, emailing, and building your own pipeline
• Experience selling $100K+ ACV deals with 3-6 month sales cycles
• Ability to navigate complex, multi-stakeholder sales processes (4-8 decision-makers per deal)
• Located on West Coast (PST preferred, MST/CST considered) with willingness to travel to key accounts
• MEDDIC, MEDDPICC, or similar enterprise sales methodology strongly preferred
• Track record of success in "hunter" roles, not just farming existing accounts