Sooo, is the Client Executive model helping anyone close deals? Client Executives are getting pulled into every deal nowadays. I see them handling questions that sales should covered. maybe this works somewhere. maybe. yet i'm struggling to see the benefit if it adds another step, layers work, slows things down. i doubt that a CE can help win or grow a deal
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This is all Todd. And based on his avg tenure he is he would be leaving soon (or may be asked to on the next bad quarter).
Easy to mock up a new vision and get some cute cartoon drawings commissioned to sell the board, but an entirely different thing to execute on it… and history shows he doesn’t stick around for that part. Can’t fathom any reason this wasn’t obvious to TJ.
Hopefully it all works out but my guess is they won’t have the patience for it and go back to a BU selling model next year.
What a dumpster fire.
I have met a lot of the CEs and I like them all. The challenge I have come across is dealing with some of the the SSEs or CSEs under the CE who don't like having to take the lead from the CE and the politics here is unbelievable. I only skim the suraces but the challenges are real, even moreso with those CEs who have been given account's that are perceived to be poor. I imagine there will be a lot of flip flopping on some CEs to see if someone else can find that bit of gold. Some will fail miserably in regards to quota attainment that is clear (not all their fault), personally I wouldnt consider the role in a million years and can already see the finger pointing starting, but what is the OT position? You cannot swap out CEs and expect to see growth.
@cy Yeah this is the new name for Account Executives. Ayman said 'be client focused instead of customer' and some depts did a name change. In my case we did a title change but a lot of our templates still say customer. Lowkey half assed fervor but I digress.
For you and OP: the system in theory should work - an AE/CE should know their product. If you (AE/CE) cannot answer basic questions about what you're selling, you tend to be at risk to lose sales. Technical ones, you have Professional Services or the Product Manager to lean on.
The issue was Opentext's massive f*cking layoff sprees. We've let tenured Sales/PS folk be booted, and expect completely green ones to do the same work at a higher quota. Why is our main system tied to a resource we seem to want to cut? In which of the 9 realms of he-l does that work? Because it tends to be my team that those people with zero learning resources go to as compensation, adding to our stuff. So we're shooting ourself in several limbs.
I have generational beef with some of the Sales folks and their Directors due to that - but I can generally tell when it's a new hire or an old nepo one. If they're new, maybe cut them some slack. Inherited a bad system like a lot of us have. If they aren't, then that's what we youngins call a skill issue. I am sometimes a bit too candid on telling them that lol.
@a1 You can say that, but that would require OT departments to actually talk.
We really don't; this was a CEO request.
The CE role is someone that has been given an account that now doesn’t hunt they micro manage sales staff underneath. Client executives have been in a mad panic getting non existant business plans to present which means nothing. This would have to be the worst model
CEs are sales!! if you haven't picked that up yet I would leave the commentary aside.