Starting in 2022, the Americas sales org way over hired for reps. this is especially true in the Commercial Org. Reps started covering 20% of the patch of their predecessors with the same quota. So everyone was setup to fail, leading to 5% of the commercial org hitting their number last fiscal. Sales Leadership is complete garbage, especially in commercial - most managers don’t add any value, they micromanage to an extreme, they gaslight, etc. ZS commercial sales leadership will promise you the world, but unless you’re part of the “in-club,” which consists in having previously worked at App Dynamics or EMC and/or living in Boston, then you will have an uphill battle being successful. The nepotism is also extreme (eg. five brothers who all work at ZS currently in sales or sales leadership—how is that even legal?). I don’t know very many people who are happy working in sales at ZS, typically it just varies between extreme depression/anxiety to downright apathy. There are some good people at ZS, but most don’t work in leadership, and most don’t have any sway in making the culture better. From the top down, starting with Jay, the culture in sales is very much: you are a cog in a machine, your voice doesn’t matter, your knees will be cut off from under you and leadership will be mad that you can’t run a marathon.
