Salesforce reviews

poor culture, treated like a line on a spreadsheet

I have been with Salesforce over 9 years and the org in its current state is the most mismanaged and frivolous in the company. I am writing from the perspective of a sales leader aligned to this org who has had the privilege of mentoring many individuals on the Business Development teams. My advice: steer clear of the BDR and pursue a career here when you have experience to be an AE. There is a reason roles are always open and it is not because of how often they are promoting to AE (the lie they sell you). In fact, the SMB AE teams tend to prefer hiring externally because BDR leadership is not known to produce top selling talent (no fault of the BDRs but they are not trained with an AE cap). They very often do not promote until a BDR has been in seat for 24 months (I have gained understanding that recruiters and hiring managers will tell BDRs 15-18 months max time in seat). This is something you can check by looking at LinkedIn profiles for ex-BDRs. They are always hiring because of how often they terminate BD Reps. Performance culture is a standard across the business and among my AEs but the BDR approach and mismanagement of the process is costing the company by way of time, resourcing, and talent. Managers have been trigger happy with performance plans. Every individual contributor is forced to play in a pond that will never get them to their desired goals: progressing to SMB Account Executive. The promotion expectations and criteria are based on metrics that do not match with the reality of our territory, leading BDRs having to set low quality meetings or work in a culture of trepidation. This impacts our ability to staff AE teams with the talent we seek. Their metrics are based on a weighted system which takes into account different KPIs that support growth targets. I am aware from my business development “Director” the metrics that each BDR must hit in order to succeed each month. Will not include here in case confidential. These metrics are misinformed to an extravagant degree. The most well intentioned sales leaders and AE often can’t do anything to ensure BDRs hit their goals because the Directors and VPs have an egregious lack of familiarity of our territories. Time and time and time again, my AEs have lost their most admired BDR counterparts. The best BDR PMs and people managers move on because they can’t inspire change. After mentoring many individuals in this org, I cannot with honest intentions recommend that you start your career here. You will not be set up for success and in two years will have to look elsewhere for work and it will be difficult to secure an AE position. With the release of Agentforce, the BDR org will be obsolete over time and I believe it is for the best. This should be the easiest role for a sales leader to mentor within but these individuals will never be set up for success because of their failed leadership. Leaving one star because a critically important topic to surface.