The good old days of Gartner are in the past. This has become an organization who values shareholders over EVERYTHING ELSE.
This used to be an organization that had a world class training program. Do not let their recruiters fool you as they have gotten rid of the sales onboarding and training program and instead have moved to a Just-in-time training model. This inevitably puts the responsibility onto the sales manager which then trickles down to top-performing AEs and further perpetuates burnout. New Hires ultimately suffer because they weren't provided adequate training to a) actually sell but b) be knowledgeable on the products that we actually sell.
At the time of this entry, the sales region is close to 50% attrition since January. There is a freeze on internal transfers because there is no talent in the pipeline to backfill the open territories with people leaving so rapidly.
Gartner cancelled merit increases in 2020 and they were never re-instated. 2021 merit increases were less than 1% if you were "lucky" to get one. To have received a higher raise than that would have required a title promotion and even then you would have received only a 8-10% raise. Even with those raises, you are still not competitively paid and can make significantly more by leaving.
Those who achieve Winner's Circle prior to Covid are rewarded with a trip for two people for 3-4 days and is valued at $11k on your taxes and is generally a very good time. In 2020 and 2021, winners circle achievers were instead rewarded with $250 and a pre-recorded video.
Not only is attrition high in sales but in service delivery partners as well. Our people are ultimately our product so this makes it difficult to actually drive value and meet expectations. Executive partners who are supposed to supposed to be our premier service delivery partner are paired with 30+ clients- it is IMPOSSIBLE to give a customized level of service when you're supporting that many organizations. Interactions between EPs and Clients become more check the box conversations. Analysts constantly seem overworked and burnout as they do not have control over their own calendar.
Most regions within MSE on the end user side no longer have net new prospecting meaning that all of your growth will need to come from your current book of clients. With that, quotas have shrunk by about 50% in the last two years as well. Even carrying such a small quota, leadership wants to push the idea on you that you can regularly sell mega-sized deals to your clients. This is not the case. For 90% of our client base, Gartner is ultimately a nice to have and not a need to have regardless of the value that is serves as that was clearly evident with COVID when client retention was terrible. The majority of sales teams finished negative.
Leadership doesn't trust AEs to do their job. Expect to have multiple hours of internal meetings a week where there is very little buy-in that its a valuable use of time. You will have 3 performance reviews with your manager every single month in a role where things often don't change very much month to month. Gartner is constantly changing and rolling out new programs just to see what sticks- very few things stick. They are constantly changing what weekly/monthly metrics matter at the AE level so its constant confusion as to how you are being measured.
Success within the account management group is largely dictated by luck within your book of business and an AE's ability to see an opportunity and capitalize on it.
