How much the top 20 companies in tech are paying their sales reps

Published: Wed, 01/26/22

January 26, 2022

Welcome back. The price of cryptocurrency keeps dropping, so it’s only a matter of time before all those young reps who quit to become full-time crypto traders start rejoining the workforce. We at The Quota diversify our investments (we’re bullish on memes), so you don’t have to worry about us running off to Estonia with your email address. In this week’s issue, we’ll take a closer look at tech pay, find out which company has the biggest BDR team in the world, and help a heartbroken AE get back on track. Let’s go.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

The percentage of salespeople who say the leads they receive from marketing are very high quality.

Source: HubSpot

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week

In an article that definitely deserves a shout-out from the sales community, Ad Age recently ran an op-ed from an advertising agency executive titled It’s time to treat media salespeople with respect. The article, written by Jared Belsky, CEO of Acadia, makes the case that media buyers are not showing the proper respect to advertising salespeople: showing up late, expecting freebies, and demanding unrealistic turnaround on proposals. You can read the article, which we love to see, here.
Business Insider reports that enterprise-tech giant Cisco has once again changed the way its salespeople get paid (what else is new), and that the changes, which include strict caps for annual compensation, are causing some sales reps to quit. The report details the comp changes, which include a decrease in base pay, an increase in quota (which reps say has become unrealistic), and a complicated “pooling” scheme, which forces technical specialists to team up with other salespeople and go after deals together. You can read the article here (may require subscription).
Would you trade a career in the NBA for a sales job? Well, Joe Bryant, father of the late basketball legend Kobe Bryant, was asked to do just that, as reported by digital sports magazine Essentially Sports. The story goes like this: in 1982, Joe, who had already been traded a handful of times after a series of disappointing seasons, was asked by the owner of the Houston Rockets whether he might consider a job as a car salesman at one of the owner’s franchises. Bryant declined, though his basketball career never really took off the same way his son’s did. You can read the rest of the story here.

FEATURE

"LE WEB PARIS 2013 - CONFERENCES - PLENARY 1 - SATYA NADELLA" by LeWeb14 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Software sales pay is at an all time high. Here’s how much the top companies in tech are paying their reps.

Transparency in sales compensation is a good thing. Sales reps should be assured that they’re being fairly compensated, and companies should welcome transparency in the job market (though this isn’t always the case). We wanted to take a closer look at how pay compares across the tech industry, so we reached out to our friends at RepVue, a leader in the space, with insight into thousands of sales organizations, to get some hard figures.

The original premise for this article was going to compare the top paying software companies with the top paying IT/services firms. But something interesting happened when we looked at the data. When we looked at the twenty highest-paying tech organizations, we found that only three of them were in IT, while sixteen were software companies (1 was a cyber security firm).

The reason for this probably has to do with the massive amount of money being poured into software companies through investment funding rounds. The heavy funding drives up the demand for top sales talent, which in turn drives the compensation up to levels we’ve never seen before. For sales reps (or at least the ones lucky enough to land these roles), this is a great thing. For companies looking for great sales reps at cut-rate costs, not so much.

In any case, rather than compare the pay between software and IT, we’ve decided to list the top paying sales organizations in tech, including their base pay, OTE (on-target earnings) and average deal size. The following data covers Sales/Account Executive roles. For more detailed info, including the percentage of reps hitting quota, check out RepVue.com.

1. Allvue Systems. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $220,000. Base: $150,000. OTE: $326,250.

2. Slack. Industry: Software. Segment: Key Accounts. Avg. Deal Size: $160,000. Base: $181,250. OTE: $326,250.

3. CyberGrants. Industry: Information Technology. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $85,000. Base: $133,750. OTE: $308,750.

4. Cloudera. Industry: Software. Segment: SLED. Avg. Deal Size: $266,875. Base: $153,750. OTE: $307,500.

5. VMware Tamzu. Industry: Information Technology. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $310,625. Base: $152,500. OTE: $306,250.

6. BigPanda. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $309,250. Base: $152,000. OTE: $305,500.

7. SiteCore. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $153,214. Base: $144,285. OTE: $304,285.

8. Thousandeyes. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $177,500. Base: $145,000. OTE: $301,250.

9. Google Cloud. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $464,531. Base: $142,352. OTE: $301,176.

10. Imperva. Industry: Internet. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $177,500. Base: $147,500. OTE: $300,000.

11. Clari. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $211,857. Base: $143,333. OTE: $298,888.

12. MindTickle. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $106,388. Base: $140,000. OTE: $297,222.

13. Microsoft. Industry: Software. Segment: Key Accounts. Avg. Deal Size: $516,875. Base: $120,000. OTE: $295,000.

14. Confluent. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $129,250. Base: $147,000. OTE: $294,000.

15. Celonics. Industry: Software. Segment: Key Accounts. Avg. Deal Size: $237,500. Base: $146,250. OTE: $292,500.

16. HashiCorp. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $106,562. Base: $146,250. OTE: $291,250.

17. Rubrik. Industry: Software. Segment: SLED. Avg. Deal Size: $174,375. Base: $147,500. OTE: $291,250.

18. Paycom. Industry: Software. Segment: Key Accounts. Avg. Deal Size: $68,000. Base: $94,000. OTE: $289,000.

19. Oomnitza. Industry: Information Technology. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $84,000. Base: $144,000. OTE: $288,000.

20. BetterUp. Industry: Software. Segment: Enterprise. Avg. Deal Size: $316,176. Base: $144,117. OTE: $287,647.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

Which company has the largest SDR (Sales Development Rep) team in the world?

A. Dell
B. Amazon
C. Salesforce
D. Oracle

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

“I’ve been in sales since I got out of college, but my first job interview was kind of strange/hilarious. First, we have to go back to my college days. I was definitely a partier, and the guys I hung out with at school were pretty rowdy too. There were seven of us, and we all rented a house off campus that was known for its wild parties.

One night, we were having a pretty low-key jam, maybe a few dozen people at the most, but we were all pretty buzzed. This one guy kept hitting on a female friend of mine who used to hang out at our place. At some point, she started trying to get away from him, but he kept following her around and bugging her.

I’m a pretty big guy, and back then I was definitely eager to get into scraps, so I went up to the guy and got in his face. He started yelling back at me, and we started grabbing each other before a bunch of other people broke it up. We didn’t kick him out because he knew one of my roommates, but they basically kept us in separate rooms the rest of the night.

Fast forward about two years. I’m a recent graduate, looking to get into the world of sales. I finally get an interview at a financial firm – entry level investments sales. I put on my best shirt and tie, grab my resume (we did paper resumes in those days) and head into the glass tower in the next town over. I go up the elevator, open the door, and guess who is sitting in a desk literally facing the entryway right when you walk in? Yeah, you guessed it, the guy whose head I almost took off at my house a few years earlier.

He wasn’t the one interviewing me, but the waiting area was right next to his desk, so we basically kept looking at each other the whole time while I waited for the interview. Neither one of us said a word, but we both knew. Even the guy behind him was like, “Hey man, see if he wants some water or something,” and the guy straight up ignored him lol.

Interview went well, but I didn’t end up getting an offer. Gee, I wonder why…”

Anonymous, 39 Rhode Island

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- February 2021

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

I’m wondering if you can give me any advice at all. I’ve been an AE with my company for over two years, and in that time, I’ve done pretty well. I’m not a top performer, but I’m usually in the top twenty percent, and management always speaks highly of me.

About three weeks ago, my girlfriend, who I lived with and who I thought I was going to marry, broke up with me basically out of the blue. One day she came home and said we needed to talk, and said that this wasn’t the life she wanted and that she was leaving to live with her parents until she figured out her next steps. She just passed her exams to be a nurse practitioner, and we had been waiting until she was done with school to get married and start a family (or so I thought).

The way everything went down completely blindsided me, and I feel like I’ve been walking around in a trance since then. I can hardly sleep, can barely eat, and at work I am basically just checking social media to see if she’s posted anything new or if any of her friends posted anything that she might be tagged in. I’m not getting any work done at all, and except for closing a few deals that I’ve had in the pipeline, I haven’t prospected for anything new.

My sales manager knows what happened, and he’s been pretty sympathetic, but if I’m still like this a few weeks from now, it’s gonna be pretty hard for them to justify keeping me on, and then I’ll be single, and unemployed. I know you can’t help me get my girlfriend back, but do you have any tips on how I can at least get motivated to do my job again? Thanks in advance.

Heartbroken in Minnesota

Dear Heartbroken,

Sorry that you’re going through this. It’s a really awful experience and unfortunately, there probably won’t be any magic solution that will make you feel better.

That being said, there are a few things you can do to make sure you stay on track with your career and income goals.

First, get up and take shower every single day, even if you’re working from home. Brush your teeth, comb your hair, and, if you have a beard, shave. Then put on some clean clothes. Just doing these things can help you feel better about yourself, and put you in a more professional mindstate.

Next, set daily activity goals – they can be smaller and less ambitious than they would be if you weren’t dealing with this situation. It’s perfectly okay to adjust your expectations (for now). But make yourself do the work, every single day. And if you really don’t want to, do it anyway, then find a way to reward yourself for doing something really, really difficult.

Performing well at work can give you some control that you might not be feeling in your personal life, and having the reinforcement from bosses/colleagues can give you a boost and help you realize you're more than your dating life.

Find someone to talk to, whether it’s a friend, or a therapist. This will help tremendously. Get yourself moving. Take a walk. Join a gym. Don’t eat too much garbage.

And most importantly, give yourself permission to feel like shit. The feeling you have will eventually go away, even if right now, it feels like it never will. Just make sure you don’t make any big or impulsive decisions. Stick to the basics, and only do things if they’re obviously good for you.

Oh, and one last thing. Stop checking your ex's social media accounts. In fact, stay off social media altogether. And if you have a few minutes, watch this video clip. Given your predicament, it might make a lot of sense. We wish you the best.

Quiz Answer: C

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

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