I'll try to objectively share what I wish someone told me before accepting the offer, although I don't think it would've changed my decision. You really are a number here. They pay a little above market for starting salary, but you soon realize that the many different hats you wear in this role is not worth your salary. I believe the trouble (potentially) begins after training when you go live on the sales floor.
There is a large chasm between the training program and your duties as an account executive. This is important to consider- no matter how much you try and set yourself apart in training, your Gartner career is left up to a few people in leadership that place you on a sales team/region without your input. They say they try to align your personality and goals with an appropriate team that shares your goals, but this can never be known because they keep the aligning process a secret and it's constantly changing. They do not give you the chance to interview for your desired team or region, you are placed against your will. Therefore, it is 100% up to chance regarding the sales team, region, and ultimately book of business you get. This system ends up taking trainees that show great potential and give them garbage clients that cause them to inevitably fail and then in turn exit the company early simply because it is in their best interest to find a new job. Alternatively, it's not unusual to see lazy trainees get aligned to a cushiony book of business by chance and be praised as top performers. Of course, these are extremes and every book of business has it's challenges, and there are amazing top performers who completely turn around their garbage books- but I'd like to think them exceptions to the rule, a rare breed.
Simply put, no matter how much they say that things are 90% in your control and they throw Jocko's "Extreme Ownership" at you, a large portion of this role is out of your control. You can operate and practice extreme ownership, but at the end of the day you're asking CEOs/CFOs to spend $50k-$150k of their businesses hard earned money on an intangible product that some organizations see as a "nice-to-have." No matter how much of a rockstar salesperson you are, it's up to the client at the end of the day and it could take them years to say no.
Another aspect to consider is the fact that you wear at least 3 different hats: account manager (ensuring you're driving value to your clients and execute daily tasks needed to achieve this), business development, or BD (combing through your list of 8-12 prospects, trying to set meetings to sell new business to non-clients and getting 1-2 meetings per week), and inquiry scheduler (this is when research engagement services inevitably gives you trouble with scheduling inquiries or fails to respond to your requests, and you have to intervene.) Between these tasks, there simply aren't enough hours in the day to complete all these with 100% success week over week (and if you somehow do, you've either got an easy-going book of business or you're at risk for hardcore burn out). These are unreal expectations that managers demand of their AEs, and stress them out to the max. One week you may be lauded for client engagement, and a few days later be slapped on the wrist for not adding an opportunity, and the vicious cycle goes on non-stop for 12 months.
Before excepting this offer, you must know about end of quarters and end of year events. You can never take PTO at end of month unless you have a good relationship with your manager or all of your clients have renewed. Depending on your sales manager/region, when you finally take time off for yourself, there's a sense of passive-aggression towards you and you may hear a lot of "Oh that person? She's not here, decided to take PTO again..." This type of culture is not sustainable, and often scares top talent away.
This is often seen as a positive at other companies, but here it is a sad reality: Results are the only thing that matter. How much $$ you've sold and where you end up at year end. One of these metrics is Winner's Circle. They praise everyone that achieves WC, but as described above, someone with a cushiony book can achieve this quite effortlessly. When they try to highlight these individuals in front of region meetings, they're often coached to say what management wants them to say- even if that means lying about how a certain deal was closed. Bending the narrative to fit into a clean story that aligns to Gartner's "best practices" is something I've witnessed first-hand. This breeds a culture of lies, and fear of management for those not able to speak honestly about deals that they closed that may have come in easier than imagined. Gartner wants to make every sales win a battle of odds and paint the picture that "this AE fought for her client's business tooth and nail, and they finally caved once she showed them value through one of our services" when in reality, it could've just been the executive simply asking for more Gartner spend.
If you're someone who wants to be promoted, you're rolling the dice here. They have fast-tracks to management for driven individuals, but there is one looming requirement: Winner's Circle. As stated above, numbers determine your succession at the end of the day. If you're an excellent AE but had a client cancel their services unfairly, this is not taken into account when it comes time for promotions. I've seen amazing AEs struggle for years and been passed up for promotions because of cancels out of their control.
You also need to know how you'll be measured. You're ultimately measured on retention and growth of your existing accounts. Even though a client may decrease their spend due to COVID related issues or budget cuts, the AE is 100% responsible for a client's contract coming down. For example, you're managing a book of business that is $500k of Gartner spend spread across 5 different client organizations. One client can't pay their bill due to COVID budget cuts (currently spending $100k with Gartner), therefore you go $100k in the negative. If you want to hit your quota or WC, you have to sell $100k of new business before contributing to positive numbers again. This happens more than Gartner likes to let on, even before the pandemic.
How you're paid is important as well. Commission calculations are very confusing, and many people don't truly know how to calculate them. Once you do, you realize how underpaid you really are. Typical sales cycles last anywhere from 2-4 months, however it's not unusual to have sales cycles that last the better part of a year. Depending on how much $$ you transact depends on how much you get paid. For a typical $40k-$50k deal, you can expect to get paid roughly $1,000-$1,500 (again an estimate that varies depending on lots of confusing factors.) In my humble opinion, It's really not worth it to work your butt off for several months for an extra $1,000. You only really start making money when you've renewed all of your clients and you get into accelerated dollars, which alters the % of the sale you take home. This is great if you get the chance to be in accelorators, but not everyone is so lucky.
Ever since Gartner went remote in March 2020 due to the pandemic, the remote culture has been a weak point for the company. If you wanted to go remote before the pandemic, you often had to prove your work ethic for 2 years by hitting WC and proving a track record of success. After this, then you could have a conversation with your leadership. If they agreed to let you go remote, then you'd have to report to them more frequently in the day and be privy to random checks to ensure you were doing your work. Knowing that they got away with this without suffering from any workplace discrimination lawsuits blows my mind, and I'm afraid that parts of this mentality have bled into the Gartner of today. Despite everyone being remote still due to the pandemic, the "If I can't see you, you must not be working" culture is still alive week-to-week. Sales managers often monitor AEs via Microsoft Teams status, and will often get anxious if they see one of their team members on "away" status. Even though when pre-pandemic when AEs would socialize all the time in person and lose productivity right in front of their manager, this was still acceptable in the office. Gartner has miles to go when it comes to remote culture.
Expect to have 4-6 internal meeting per week. Most of these are redundant and a waste of time, but you have to put up with it. A lot of corporate "rah rah" talk, passive aggressive reminders of how the team is constantly underperforming, and sometimes useful items that will help you in your job.
One more thought on how much of this job is up to chance...there are hard-working individuals deserving of success that find their way to great teams under great sales managers, so don't read this review and be steered away from giving it a shot. Don't let one person convince you one way or the other to take the job- everyone's experience is different. People with negative mindsets or people that have had poor and stressful experiences will tell you to run for the hills, and people that trip on success as well as people that work hard for their success will tell you how rewarding the job is. I suppose I fall somewhere in the middle, I've seen the highs and lows this job can provide, but others have had it much better and much worse than me. Overall I'm thankful that I found this opportunity, it's taught me more than I could possibly imagine. One of these lessons, however, is that this is ultimately a starting point for most people- a solid starting point.
