Pluspunten
Upon first starting I thought the job was very stimulating. You're selling to technology companies all across the US. Learning about different companies and their vision for their company. Meeting with high level execs; CEOs, CMOs, VP of Sales, etc... the pros would be that, the travel and a pretty liberal expense account while on the road. The events themselves although long days are a lot of fun in my opinion. However, the buck stops there.
Minpunten
Where do I start. Fear based sales environment. Weekly pipeline reviews to go over a non transactional sale. (If I had nothing closing last week for the month its highly unlikely I found $100k in revenue this week). Constantly being threatened with write ups and being put on plan. Total time I've been in this position is about 8 months and I've seen about 15 people quit or being fired, including 2 directors fired and 1 quit. There's only 5 directors in total and about 40 reps in total... Unrealistic quotas. You inherit a territory that has non renewals, that lost revenue you're responsible for while also growing that territory as well. So let's make these numbers easy. Let's say someone had a territory in 2016, $100 worth of business only $25 resigned and $75 walked. 2017 you get this territory then your quota is $150. So now you're chasing that $75 in lost revenue plus $50 in new business. Because the team had such a bad 2016, 2017 is causing for a lot of chasing lost revenue and everyone seems under plan. What they've done to replace this lost revenue is increased the pricing astronomically every year and it's basically out priced many of the clients. "The process", management has come up with this 3 call sales cycle that they refer to as the process. This is their way to say they are managing. Any time you are not closing business it's because you're not following the process. If you are following the process and not closing it's because you're not meeting people enough face to face. This is very circumstantial as far as the territory you get. Because the territories are based on the letters of companies... If that doesn't make you run I don't know what else will. There's absolutely no way to establish realistic and comparable territories based on the starting letter of a companies name. The morale, no one is happy. And I don't mean that as one or two disgruntled sales reps. I mean the entire floor is miserable. They're constantly hiring. This place is a sinking ship, there was a hay day when reps were making multiple 6 figure commission checks in a year, but those days are long gone. But they will tell you that the average rep is making 180k. 2016, 2 reps making winners circle and the rookie of the year was under plan. 2015 almost half the department made winners circle. Do yourself a favor and contact reps before taking this position and pick their brain. Last but not least, Gartner is an amazing company. People in every other division seem happy. If you're interviewing for an AE role in research ignore this comment completely, but the best advice I can give anyone is stay away from the events team. I will also admit, this is my first review I have ever written, yelp, IMDB, Glassdoor, I am not one to write a review... That's how bad I felt it was. Good luck!