Salesforce is such a massive company, I feel like I've missed out. Is there is still a lot of room for growth and a lot of opportunities to sell?

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Accepted Answer

I hear this all the time. Great question. As an Account Executive at Salesforce,  I will say yes 100%. Salesforce is divided into "business units" i.e. Retail/Consumer Goods, Oil & Gas, General Business, Nonprofit/Foundation, Financial Services, etc. Some are overall more successful than others as those customers havent all gone through "digital transformation" yet ( nonprofit and fin serv are the highest growth right now). But at Salesforce, we sell to both current customers and greenfield as an AE. So you have lots of upsell potential ( i.e. license add-ons, they have CRM but not marketing cloud, etc). Lots of room for growth and truly couldn't be happier to work here!

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I don't think so in established accounts. In "strat," which is the large established accounts, the quotas are not in line with reality and most of your job is managing around shelfware. Salesforce's sales motion is to bring in renewals early and bring in additional demand with a dramatic discount. This leads to people inheriting territories with customers with a lot of shelfware and great expectations. I'd avoid having one large account. The other problem with that is that you only get paid on growth, not renewals. However, you get penalized with "attrition" if a customer doesn't renew. Inside large accounts with multiple "orgs" (instances) of Salesforce there is always some attrition going on and you have to sell your giant quota over and above the draw-downs you're getting from attrition... They need to be more realistic with the quotas they set for core AEs in enterprise. "Co-primes" happen to have lower quotas. Don't really do any of the work and can make 6X as much as a core seller on a deal. So maybe choose to be a co-prime who benefits from the work a core AE does because the core AE will do all the work and get paid the least.

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Salesforce has a ton of products to sell, so broadly speaking, yes there's still a fair bit of upside. But from a practical perspective, it really depends on your territory. This is especially true in the enterprise segment, where most territories are 1-3 accounts and the quotas keep going up year over year. You'll need to ask good, hard-hitting questions about the account/s you expect to take on and get multiple perspectives on the culture & opportunity within those accounts. You can make great money at Salesforce but you can just as easily get stuck pushing a rock uphill for 2+ years. Great place to work, but your income and reputation ride on your ability to hit your number, so do your due diligence!

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I'll offer a differing opinion for balance.... Every year, the territories get smaller and smaller, but the # products in the bag of an AE grows (due to R&D, acquisition, new features that they're charging for). In terms of new logo deals, most companies that were going to buy Salesforce have already bought Salesforce by now..... so lots of add-on/up-sell, new logo is usually into dinosaur/laggards.

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Short answer - yes.  Salesforce has evolved beyond just CRM to a platform story; most companies (i.e. 95% of them) only have 1-2 solution lines, the ability to cross-sell using the value of a common data model still holds true.  Salesforce is innovative; between this + its acquisitions there is plenty of room of growth.

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There will always be opportunities to sell. But if you haven't worked in a prime/co-prime world, this is something very different. You will do more internal selling if you are a co-prime with your Account Directors than you will with clients. If you're looking to make a million dollars, you aren't likely to. If you're ok making 2-250k, going through the motions and being in a big safe co, this is a great place to be.

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Salesforce is constantly evolving with the overall goal of providing a business with a complete 360 degree view of its customers.  There are always opportunities to consolidate a company's tech stack with Salesforce products, no matter what vertical or segment you find yourself working in.  Every IC role comes with its ebbs and flows, but at Salesforce you'll never feel like you're on the chopping block after a down month or quarter.  Quota is certainly a factor when being vetted for promotions, but there are so many other factors as well and as long as you work hard management will support you with endless resources to get you to the next level.

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Not a ton. Current accounts are pretty saturated and you have to navigate over a ton of shelfware. Also, in the big companies "strat," the quotas are ridiculous. They seem to put these enormous quotas on core reps. I think there is an opportunity if you are to be a "co-prime" (specialist) because those folks have smaller quotas, don't really have to do much of the selling and get paid 6X what the core seller does on the work that he or she ends up doing. After the layoffs, they ended up keeping the most redundant organization "service primes" still in place. You should be a "service prime" because you get to just roll up the core AEs numbers, take credit for it and get paid and make it appear like you're selling something.

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I don't think you have missed out on much. Getting promoted is a lot of politics and it is primarily a performance based business, if you have a bad patch you will fail and that can absolutely tank your tenure there.

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Salesforce is such a massive company, I feel like I've missed out. Is there is still a lot of room for growth and a lot of opportunities to sell?