Account Executive

Overview

You sell AI-powered robotic welding cells to manufacturers. You prospect into defense contractors, infrastructure companies, and heavy industry plants. You run the full sales cycle—cold outreach, discovery, technical demos with SEs, ROI modeling, and closing. You're measured on bookings and pipeline generation.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Series B/C stage (185 employees, building out GTM)

Size: 185 employees

Growth: Running SKOs, adding GTM headcount, investing in process and enablement

Market Position: Category creator—selling into a traditional market that's skeptical of automation

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 60% Self-sourced outbound - You cold call plant managers and VPs of Operations, send LinkedIn messages, and work manufacturing industry lists
• 25% Inbound - Word-of-mouth referrals, some conference leads, occasional website form fills
• 15% Partnerships - Referrals from manufacturing consultants or system integrators

SDR/AE Structure: Mostly self-sourcing, possibly some SDR support for top-of-funnel prospecting

SE Support: Dedicated Sales Engineers join technical demos, run ROI models, and help with POC planning

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Manual welding shops (status quo), traditional robotic welding cells (FANUC, ABB, Universal Robots), other autonomous welding startups

How They Differentiate: AI model adapts in real-time to part variations (vs. robots that break when parts don't match specs), RaaS model (no capex vs. $150K+ upfront)

Common Objections: "Our welders won't accept robots," "What if your robot breaks and we can't produce?" "Parts vary too much for automation," "We don't have space on the shop floor"

Win Themes: Labor shortage (can't find welders), 4x productivity, consistent quality, no capex, 24/7 operation

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting (30%) | Active Deals (40%) | Internal (20%) | Customer Success Handoff (10%)

Key Activities

• Prospecting: You call 20-30 plant managers or VPs of Operations per day. You're targeting manufacturers in defense, infrastructure, energy, and heavy industry. Most don't pick up. You leave voicemails and send follow-up emails with case studies.
• Discovery Calls: You qualify if they have welding bottlenecks, labor shortages, or quality issues. You ask about current production volumes, weld types, part variation, and shop floor layout. You're figuring out if they're a technical fit before bringing in an SE.
• Technical Demos and ROI Modeling: You bring in a Sales Engineer to demo the Intelligent Welding Cell (often remotely, sometimes on-site). You build a custom ROI model showing labor savings, productivity gains, and payback period. Most buyers push back on your assumptions.
• Multi-Stakeholder Selling: You navigate ops leaders, engineering teams, procurement, finance, and sometimes HR (labor concerns). You run separate meetings with each group. Getting them all aligned takes months.
• Proposals and Negotiations: You write detailed proposals covering technical specs, deployment timeline, training plan, and RaaS contract terms. Legal review takes 4-8 weeks. Procurement tries to negotiate price, terms, and SLAs.
• Implementation Handoff: After close, you hand off to customer success and operations for installation. You stay involved for the first 30-60 days to address buyer concerns and ensure smooth deployment.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Manufacturing buyers are conservative and slow. They've never bought "AI robots" before and don't have budget allocated. You're creating demand from scratch.
• Deals slip constantly. Buyers ghost for weeks because they're busy on the shop floor. Budget approvals get delayed. Legal reviews drag. Most of your pipeline pushes to next quarter.
• You're selling against the status quo (manual welding). Even if they have labor shortages, buyers worry about implementation risk, downtime, and whether the robot will actually work.
• The sales cycle is long and emotional. You spend months building relationships with plant managers and engineers, only to have the deal killed by a CFO who won't approve capex (even though it's RaaS).
• Travel is significant. You visit plants to understand their operation, walk the shop floor, and build credibility. You're on-site for demos and POC kickoffs. Expect 30-40% travel.

What Success Looks Like

• You close 6-10 deals per year ($1.5-2M in bookings)
• You build a pipeline of 3-4x your quota (knowing 60-70% will slip or stall)
• You become fluent in manufacturing language—understanding weld types, production schedules, labor costs, and shop floor operations
• Customers reference you during implementation because you set accurate expectations
• You expand into existing accounts (customers add more welding cells after the first one proves out)

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• VP of Operations or Plant Managers at manufacturers ($50M-$1B+ revenue)
• Head of Manufacturing Engineering or Engineering Directors
• CFOs or procurement leaders (for contract and budget approvals)

What They Care About:

• Labor availability: Can't find skilled welders, losing welders to retirement
• Production bottlenecks: Welding is slowing down entire production lines
• Quality consistency: Manual welds vary by operator, shift, and fatigue level
• Cost predictability: Fixed monthly cost vs. labor + benefits + turnover
• Risk mitigation: Will this disrupt production? What if the robot breaks? Can you support us 24/7?

Requirements

• 3-5 years in full-cycle B2B sales, ideally selling hardware, capital equipment, or industrial automation
• Experience with 6+ month sales cycles and multi-stakeholder buying committees
• Comfortable with technical products—you don't need to be an engineer, but you need to explain AI/robotics to skeptical buyers
• Self-starter who can prospect and generate your own pipeline (not just work inbound leads)
• Manufacturing industry experience strongly preferred—you need to understand shop floor culture and operations
• Willingness to travel 30-40% to customer sites and tradeshows
• Experience with subscription or RaaS business models is a plus