Account Executive - US Market

Overview

You're selling SurveySparrow's Voice of Customer platform to mid-market and enterprise companies in the US. This is full-cycle sales - you find prospects, run demos, navigate evaluations, and close deals. You're competing against well-known tools like SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Qualtrics, and dedicated CX platforms.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Growth stage (446 employees, expanding to US/EU markets)

Size: 446 employees

Growth: Actively hiring AEs for geographic expansion, suggests growth funding or profitability

Market Position: Challenger in a crowded space - competing against legacy players (SurveyMonkey), modern alternatives (Typeform), and enterprise CX platforms (Qualtrics, Medallia)

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 30-40% Inbound - Free trial users, content downloads, demo requests from website. Quality varies - mix of tire-kickers and legitimate buyers comparing options
• 50-60% Outbound - Cold outbound to CX leaders, customer success teams, HR (for employee experience use cases). Lots of prospecting into accounts already using basic survey tools
• 10% Partners/Referrals - Some agency partnerships, customer referrals

SDR/AE Structure: Likely some SDR support for lead qualification, but expect to do significant self-sourcing, especially for target accounts

SE Support: Shared solutions engineering for complex demos and enterprise POCs - you'll run most standard demos yourself

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors:

• SurveyMonkey/Momentive (market leader, brand recognition)
• Typeform (modern UI, popular with marketing teams)
• Qualtrics (enterprise heavyweight)
• Newer CX platforms with survey capabilities

How They Differentiate: AI-powered insights (CogniVue feature), multi-channel feedback collection (email, SMS, chat, offline), conversational survey UI for better response rates, unified platform vs point solutions

Common Objections:

• "We already use SurveyMonkey/Google Forms" (incumbent inertia)
• "How is this different from [current tool]?"
• "We need enterprise features like HIPAA compliance" (feature gaps)
• Price - you're selling against free/cheap alternatives

Win Themes: Better response rates from conversational UI, AI-driven insights save manual analysis time, all-in-one platform reduces tool sprawl, white-label capabilities for customer-facing use cases

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting (30%) | Active Deals (40%) | Demos & Follow-up (20%) | Internal (10%)

Key Activities

• Outbound Prospecting: Build lists of companies that fit ICP (CX teams, HR departments, market research firms), cold email/LinkedIn outreach, calls to get past gatekeepers. Target CX Directors, Customer Success VPs, Employee Experience leads. Plan on 20-30 touches to get responses.
• Running Demos: Standard 30-minute platform walkthrough showing survey builder, distribution channels, and reporting dashboard. You'll customize examples to their use case (customer NPS, employee engagement, market research). Most demos are solo; pull in SE for technical deep-dives or custom integrations.
• Managing Evaluations: Prospects want to compare you against 2-3 alternatives. Set up trials, check in on usage, address feature questions, build business case around response rates and time savings. Chase stakeholders who go dark during evaluation period.
• Navigating Procurement: Mid-market deals need 2-3 approvers; enterprise needs security reviews, legal redlines, vendor forms. Deals slip because of procurement queues and budget cycles. You'll spend time project managing internal champions through their buying process.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Commodity Market Perception: Lots of prospects think "surveys are surveys" and default to cheap/free tools. You're constantly justifying premium pricing and proving ROI on features they haven't experienced.
• Long Evaluation Cycles: Even mid-market deals drag because prospects want to test, compare alternatives, get multiple teams to buy in. Expect deals to push 30-60 days past initial forecasts.
• Feature Gaps: You'll lose deals to enterprise platforms that have features you don't (advanced integrations, certain compliance certifications). Have to know when to walk away vs fight uphill.
• Inbound Lead Quality: Free trial sign-ups include a lot of students, one-person teams, and tire-kickers. Takes work to filter for real opportunities.

What Success Looks Like

• Close 8-12 deals per quarter in the $8K-40K ACV range
• Maintain 25-30% demo-to-close conversion rate
• Build pipeline 3-4x your quarterly quota
• Upsell existing customers into higher tiers or additional modules

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Director/VP of Customer Experience (evaluating for NPS, CSAT, customer feedback programs)
• Head of Customer Success (need systematic feedback loops)
• Chief People Officer / VP Employee Experience (employee engagement surveys)
• Market Research Managers (external research projects)

What They Care About:

• Response rates (current surveys get 10-20%, need improvement)
• Time saved on analysis (manual survey analysis is tedious)
• Integration with CRM/support tools (Salesforce, Zendesk, Intercom)
• Multi-channel distribution (email, SMS, in-app, kiosk)
• Data security and compliance (especially for HR use cases)
• White-labeling for customer-facing surveys

Requirements

• 2-4 years full-cycle B2B SaaS sales experience
• Track record selling $10K-50K ACV deals with 2-4 month cycles
• Experience selling to CX, CS, or HR buyers preferred
• Comfortable with high outbound volume - prospecting is ongoing, not just early-quarter
• Ability to run product demos without heavy SE support (they'll train you on the platform)
• US timezone coverage for prospect meetings
• Self-starter mindset - this is geographic expansion, so less established playbook than mature markets