Account Executive

Overview

You sell Rillet's AI-native ERP to finance teams at mid-market and enterprise companies. Your buyers are CFOs, Controllers, and VPs of Finance who currently use legacy ERPs, QuickBooks, NetSuite, or a patchwork of accounting tools. You run full-cycle deals from initial outreach through contract signature, navigating technical evaluations, data migration concerns, and procurement processes.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Growth stage (140 employees, scaling GTM team aggressively)

Size: 140 employees total, GTM team grew from 6 to 30 in 6 months

Growth: High momentum - landing public companies and marquee AI startups (Hebbia, Mercor, Scribe). Multiple customers going live simultaneously.

Market Position: Category challenger - positioning as "AI-native" alternative to traditional ERPs and legacy accounting platforms

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 40% Inbound - finance leaders searching for NetSuite/Sage alternatives, referrals from existing customers, some inbound demo requests from website
• 50% Outbound - you build lists of growing companies (Series B+, $20M+ revenue), cold email and LinkedIn to CFOs/Controllers, follow up on conference connections
• 10% Partners/Referrals - accounting firms, fractional CFO networks

SDR/AE Structure: Likely shared SDR pool given rapid team scaling, but expect to do significant self-sourcing for your best opportunities

SE Support: Shared Sales Consultant (SC) pool - you'll have technical support for demos and technical deep-dives, but you need to run initial discovery and qualification yourself

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Enterprise, traditional ERPs like SAP/Oracle for larger deals

How They Differentiate: "AI-native" positioning - automated GL, AP/AR, bank reconciliation, faster close processes. Built for modern finance teams vs legacy systems built pre-cloud.

Common Objections: "We just implemented NetSuite 2 years ago", migration concerns (data, integrations, audit trail), "Our team knows QuickBooks", feature gaps vs mature ERPs, AI skepticism from conservative finance buyers

Win Themes: Speed of implementation vs NetSuite, automation reducing manual close work, modern UX that finance teams actually want to use, better reporting for investor/board updates

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting (30%) | Active Deals (45%) | Internal/Admin (25%)

Key Activities

• Outbound prospecting: Build lists of growing companies, research their current accounting stack (check job posts, tech stack databases), send personalized emails to CFOs/Controllers. You're trying to book 5-8 qualified discovery calls per week.
• Discovery and demo: Run 60-minute calls where you learn their current accounting process, pain points with existing tools, close timeline, then walk through Rillet's platform. Most demos cover GL automation, AP/AR workflows, and reporting. You'll need to understand accounting workflows well enough to speak their language.
• Multi-threading deals: After initial demo, you coordinate technical evaluations with SCs, get procurement involved, navigate security reviews, handle data migration questions. Deals stall when champions leave, budget freezes happen, or they decide to stick with current system "one more year."
• Internal coordination: Weekly forecast calls, pipeline reviews, Slack updates on deal status, CRM hygiene. You'll spend time aligning with SCs on demo prep, working with customer success on handoffs, giving product feedback based on lost deals.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Finance teams are risk-averse and move slowly. Even when they hate their current ERP, switching accounting systems is scary (audit concerns, tax reporting, integrations). Expect deals to push quarters.
• You're selling against "do nothing" as much as competitors. A CFO might agree the product is better but decide the migration effort isn't worth it right now.
• The market is still being educated on "AI-native ERP" - you'll spend time explaining what that means and defending against "AI is just a buzzword" objections from skeptical finance leaders.
• You're in a rapidly scaling team (6 to 30 in 6 months) - processes are still being built, territories may shift, comp plans may evolve as the company figures out the right model.

What Success Looks Like

• Closing 8-12 deals per year in the $30K-150K range
• Building a pipeline that's 3-4x your quarterly quota (lots will slip or stall)
• Getting past procurement and security reviews without losing deals to friction
• Landing a few marquee logos that become reference customers for similar companies

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• CFOs at Series B-D companies ($20M-200M revenue)
• Controllers and VPs of Finance at mid-market companies ($50M-500M revenue)
• Sometimes VP FP&A or Head of Accounting for initial conversations

What They Care About:

• Reducing month-end close time (currently taking 10-15 days, want to get to 3-5)
• Eliminating manual work (reconciliations, journal entries, invoice processing)
• Better real-time reporting for board meetings and investor updates
• Data integrity and audit trail (must maintain GAAP compliance)
• Integration with existing tools (Salesforce, Stripe, banking, payroll)
• Migration risk - how long to implement, what could go wrong, references from similar companies

Requirements

• 3-5+ years selling B2B SaaS, preferably to finance buyers or in fintech/accounting software
• Experience with consultative, multi-stakeholder deals ($30K+ ACV)
• Ability to learn accounting concepts quickly (GL, AP/AR, reconciliation, close process) - you don't need to be an accountant but need to speak intelligently about finance workflows
• Comfort with ambiguity and building processes in a fast-scaling environment
• Track record of hitting quota in a full-cycle AE role