Enterprise Account Executive

Overview

You sell Seismic's sales enablement platform to enterprise companies—think Fortune 500 and large growth-stage orgs with 500+ employees. You're talking to VPs of Sales Enablement, CROs, and RevOps leaders who need to centralize content, train reps, and track what's working. This is a full-cycle enterprise role: you source some of your own pipeline, run discovery and demos, navigate multi-stakeholder buying committees, and close deals in the $200K-$500K+ ACV range.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Series G (raised $440M+ total, $170M in 2021 led by Permira)

Size: ~1,300 employees

Growth: Just announced record ARR growth (fiscal year ending Jan 2025), actively hiring across sales org, releasing major AI features quarterly

Market Position: Category leader in sales enablement competing with Highspot, Showpad, Mindtickle. Seismic has been around longer and has the largest customer base, but it's a competitive market with strong alternatives.

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 40% Inbound - marketing-generated demos, free trial requests from enterprise orgs evaluating enablement platforms, expansion from existing accounts
• 40% Outbound - targeted prospecting into accounts with 500+ employees, ABM plays, LinkedIn outreach to enablement/RevOps leaders
• 20% Partnerships/Referrals - Salesforce ecosystem partners, referrals from existing champions

SDR/AE Structure: Enterprise team has dedicated SDRs for account mapping and initial outreach, but you're expected to self-source 30-40% of your pipeline through executive relationships and strategic prospecting.

SE Support: You have shared Sales Engineers for demos and technical deep-dives. For strategic accounts you'll get dedicated SE support, but you need to run most discovery and early demos yourself.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Highspot (fast-growing, strong product), Showpad (Europe-strong), Mindtickle (learning/coaching focused), internal Confluence/SharePoint setups customers are trying to replace

How They Differentiate: Seismic emphasizes the breadth of their platform (content, learning, buyer engagement all in one), AI features (Aura Copilot), and their enterprise scale/security. They have the longest track record and deepest integrations.

Common Objections: "Too expensive for what we need," "Highspot seems more modern," "We're already invested in [competitor]," "Can't we just use our CMS?" Procurement often drags—enablement budgets get scrutinized.

Win Themes: Enterprise readiness (security, compliance, integrations), proven at scale with Fortune 500 references, unified platform vs point solutions, strong customer success reputation.

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Active Deals (40%) | Prospecting/Sourcing (30%) | Internal (30%)

Key Activities

• Account Research & Outreach: You spend 5-7 hours/week researching target accounts (who owns enablement, what tools they use, recent hires/changes), building target lists, and doing warm outreach via LinkedIn or through referrals. Cold calling is minimal at this level—it's more strategic relationship-building.
• Discovery & Multi-Threading: You run 8-12 discovery calls per month with different stakeholders—enablement leaders, sales ops, IT/security, sometimes CROs. You're mapping out the buying committee, understanding their current pain (reps can't find content, inconsistent messaging, no way to track what works), and figuring out budget/timeline.
• Demos & Presentations: You deliver 6-10 demos per month. Early demos you handle solo (platform overview, content management walkthrough). Technical/custom demos you bring in an SE. You also present to executive stakeholders—often async or in large group settings.
• Deal Management & Procurement Navigation: You spend a lot of time chasing next steps—scheduling follow-ups, sending ROI analyses, answering security questionnaires, coordinating with legal/procurement, pushing deals through approval cycles. Most of your deals slip at least once. You're managing 15-20 active opportunities at various stages.
• Forecasting & Internal Meetings: Weekly forecast calls with your manager, pipeline reviews, deal strategy sessions. You update Salesforce constantly. There are regular team syncs, product training sessions, and company all-hands.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Long, Unpredictable Cycles: Deals that look like they'll close in Q2 slip to Q3 or Q4. Budget freezes happen. Champions leave. Procurement adds three months. You need patience and persistence.
• Competitive Displacement: Many prospects are already using a competitor or have built something internal. You're often selling a replacement, which means proving ROI and managing change management concerns.
• Economic Scrutiny: Enablement budgets get cut when times are tight. You'll lose deals to "let's revisit next year." Even won deals often get downsized in scope.
• Complex Stakeholder Alignment: You need buy-in from enablement, sales leadership, IT, sometimes marketing. Getting everyone aligned on requirements and timeline is like herding cats.

What Success Looks Like

• Hit 85-100% of quota ($1M-1.2M+ closed annually)
• Build a healthy pipeline (3-4x coverage) through a mix of inbound qualification and strategic outbound
• Close 2-3 deals per quarter in the $200K-500K range, with 1-2 larger strategic accounts
• Maintain strong relationships that lead to expansions and referrals in future quarters

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• VP/Director of Sales Enablement (your champion, owns the problem)
• CRO/VP of Sales (approves budget, cares about rep productivity and revenue impact)
• Head of Revenue Operations (technical buyer, integration/data concerns)
• IT/Security (approvals for enterprise deployment)

What They Care About:

• Enablement Leads: Making content easy to find, tracking what reps actually use, proving enablement ROI to leadership, not rebuilding everything when switching tools
• CROs: Faster ramp time for new reps, consistent messaging across the team, better win rates, visibility into what's working
• RevOps: Clean integrations with Salesforce/HubSpot, good data/analytics, low admin overhead, doesn't break their existing workflows
• IT/Security: SOC2 compliance, SSO, data residency, security review process (this can kill deals if not handled early)

Requirements

• 5+ years enterprise B2B sales experience, ideally selling SaaS to revenue organizations (sales, enablement, marketing, ops)
• Track record of consistently hitting quota in $200K+ ACV deals with 4-6 month sales cycles
• Experience navigating complex buying committees and multi-stakeholder enterprise sales
• Comfortable self-sourcing pipeline through strategic outreach and relationship-building
• Familiarity with sales enablement, learning platforms, or RevOps tooling (understanding the buyer's world)
• Strong discovery skills—you need to uncover business pain, not just demo features
• Boston/New England/Tri-state location preferred but will consider strong remote candidates