I was with Salesforce for a year. When I started I was made a lot of promises regarding the territories being fair within the team. However, once I got my territory and saw how it was compared to other territories across the team, I realized that 80% of the territories in any given team are bad. Only 20% of the accounts/territories are good and in which the sales people make money.
And Management knows this. So if you are an Account Executive aligned well with Management, you are set. However, if you are like the 80% of the account executives, your fate is NOT in your hands as you will get bad accounts.
They know this. The management's objective at least in the Toronto office is to only have 20% of the people make their #. They dont want anyone to be 200% of their #. They expect 80% of the reps to miss their #.
The territories are extremely disparate. There's a lot of partiality in who gets what accounts. Be very careful when you join as an AE. For other roles like Marketing, Ops etc I've heard its a good place to work.
However, for Sales its just like any other company. Dont fall for their lies when they tell you that the territories are fair. To give you a specific example, in the Toronto office there is one person who has 10 president's clubs. He makes a lot of money and his manager and his manager's manager are as expected totally aligned. He is a good rep. However, so are others on the team. However since he has always had the best territory the makes club every single year. Its ridiculous.
If you've been in sales for a while, and comes across an environment where ONE person has made club 10 times and every one else has made club 1-2 times in the last 10 years, what would you conclude.
The territories are uneven. The management is inept. For example this is the first company that I've come across where the Sales Manager's quota is not aligned with the team. For example in a team of 10 sales reps which a quota of $1M each, the manager doesnt have a $10M quota. His/her quota is way less than that. So even if the team misses their #, the manager makes his/her #. I had never seen that in my sales career.
So to get promoted to a manager's role, you need to be connected to the right people.
Be very careful in joining this company. For Sales its not as advertised. For other roles it might be different.