How challe...

Question

How challenging is it to meet sales targets as a new AE at Gartner?

Current Employee · Accepted Answer

In my opinion, Gartner has set incredibly realistic expectations for quotas. Of course not everyone will hit the number, but we’re set up for success. As other answers have mentioned, there are various factors that play into this, but based on my 20+ years in sales, Gartner is reasonable with quota.

Former Employee · Answer

Where is the role?  This might vary between SMB and Field.   But my experience in HT(high tech) field sales--very reasonable.  I eventually became a VP and I think in our WORST year--2020--still over 50% of my region hit their quota.  In our best year--2021--we had 95% hit their quota and something like 60% make the sales trip.  One wild card--especially if its a field role--ask about the territory--it could be some previous AE quit because 80% of their book of business was a single account and they knew it was going to cancel or shrink substantially.

Current Employee · Answer

In my 5 years in Gartner I would say the quotas are very attainable! They are focusing on having a maximum number of AEs qualifying for winners circle (at least in Large Enterprise End User). 
However, I have worked with 2 different managers. With the first manager, I was no way near quota, and the coaching was poor to say the least. With the second one, Winners Circle is the absolute minimum requirement, and the processes, coaching and quality really reflects it. So my advice would be to challenge your hiring manager, to see how process-oriented they are, how many of the AEs in the team are qualifying for winners, and really get them to talk about how they view Gartner best practices. 
That should probably give you the answer of how attainable your quota is :)

Former Employee · Answer

It depends a lot on your territory and country. I was working in a smaller country where the majority of reps, both AE and BD in GTS, struggled to reach quota on a permanent basis so you definitely want to make sure you work in one of the major hubs (which experience more growth), not the minor satellite offices, then you should be set up for success.

Current Employee · Answer

The role and industry being covered does have influence on hitting quota. The hard part to assess when interviewing with Gartner is the management of the region. I am on my 3rd manager and people in the region have been put on performance improvement plans, and fired, within 10 months of their joining the region. I don't know if this is common across other territories but in GBS Large Enterprise supply chain the goal for growth is taken very seriously. At this time in December only 15% of the region has qualified for Winner's Circle. I do suspect there will be more who qualify by the end of the month but not more than 25% will qualify. I would like to think 60% of the region will hit quota but on my team it is closer to 35%.

Current Employee · Answer

I'm a Large Enterprise AE on the GTS side, selling to CIOs and their teams.  I'd say about 60% of my peers will hit their quota, maybe a little less than half of those that hit quota will hit our version of President's Club (Winner's Circle).

A lot of it in my world depends upon territory. If you have a lot of expiring business, you can count on retaining maybe 80%-90% of it but likeliest outcome is you don't retain all of it. Our company-wide retantion rates are around 85%-90%, so using that rate against how much expiring business is in the territory will give you an idea of how easy/hard it will be to hit quota.

Current Employee · Answer

First year completed
I hit plan in November in GBS. 
I also had the highest quota on my team, but still managed to figure it out. 
That being said - 0 of my colleagues are on Plan, maybe 1 or 2 MIGHT hit
I think target is achievable at gartner but also depends on your target versus your peers.

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Anonymous Q&A

How challenging is it to meet sales targets as a new AE at Gartner?