What is it like being an AE at Salesforce? Are they making a signficant amount of cold calls? Also be curious to understand what the deal cycle is like there.

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Accepted Answer

Depends on your market segment. If SMB (SB or GRB) then yes, you'll spend a significant amount of time cold calling. Deal cycles definitely depend. You get some folks that are previous SF users and know exactly what they want. Others want to run a traditional evaluation. Typically Disco->Demo->Partner Intro->Partner Scoping->Pricing->Partner Pricing ->Go/No-Go

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It depends. There are 2 types of AEs at Salesforce: Install and New Logo (greenfield). Only in SMB are you both as an AE. With New Logo AEs, its much more cold calling. Much more prospecting but the deal cycles are simpler. As an install AE you are working with current customers and trying to upsell and cross-sell. That requires less cold calling and more warm-calling. The deal cycle is what can be complex. You have 1) Discovery 2) Deeper Discovery with your SE 3) An implementation partner coming in so they can do their SOW 4) Pricing/Negotiations all before putting pen to paper with the Docusign. This is just a 30,000 foot synopsis but has been my experience over the course of 4 years here.

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I concur with most of these answers, it depends on your territory and the existing customers you're assigned.  An AE who works with an Enterprise rep (ECS) and a BDR can partner on cold calling efforts to "divide and conquer" but the responsibilities lie with everyone on the team.

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Depends on segment. As you move upmarket the role has significantly less cold calling. Enterprise AEs make zero cold calls and only some cold email outreach. Deal cycle will also vary widely based on market and product.

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As most others have said, it varies by market segment and your role.  I will agree with the anonymous sales pro that inbound leads are few and far between.  In my 5 years at SFDC I think I got (1) inbound lead.  I spent my time 'cold calling' into business units and departments that weren't using our solutions.

The good thing about cold calling from Salesforce is there is no "who are you?" and "what do you do?" when you do reach out.

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It is very very very varying. Depending on the segment, I'd say in general that there is a lot of cold calling involved. The market is quite penetrated, so it's a constant search for new contact persons in already touched accounts. Also in the larger customer accounts, you're supposed to search for new contact persons constantly. 
In my experience, they won't push you endlessly to do it - BUT hitting target (or coming remotely close to it) is difficult, as most people have a very small patch without a lot of business rolling in.
Deal cycle for SMB can be weeks, but in the team that I am working, I think the average is 1.5 year.

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Deal cycle can vary massively. Anything from a couple of weeks to over a year for larger stuff. I was an AE for 7+ years and did not spend any time cold calling. I had some accounts that gave me revenue, some inbound leads and found the rest working with a bdr or with other outbound activity.

Answer

It depends on the segment but I’d say in general it’s almost all cold calling. I’ve worked at Salesforce for 8 years and have received less than 10 total inbound leads during this time (not each year).

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Anonymous Q&A

What is it like being an AE at Salesforce? Are they making a signficant amount of cold calls? Also be curious to understand what the deal cycle is like there.