Matthew D.

My overall point is that broadly speaking the long game to 300k+ is more interesting than minor optimizations in the 60-150k range, subject to cash flow luxury to play a long game

Assuming same company, agree; but SDRs are kinda pinned at one company until AE promo and then enough sales cycles to get hired elsewhere, else a switch resets their promo clock - SDR to rolling the dice on an AE role that may or may not pay more to AE at another company with an actually good AE role is a common pattern. Esp since companies usually underpay recent SDR promos since they are so happy for the swap, so switching companies once AE skills fungible often worth $xxK

The real game is getting to AE and making a ton more money. I would suggest that, unless you have a short-term cash flow issue, any negotiation focuses on clear milestones for when you move into a closing role (in terms of either timeline or skills you would need to manifest, as well as how you would demonstrate those skills). Getting to closing a month or two faster and the resultant pay bump and effect on your career will be much higher than getting a couple thousand more dollars per year at the SDR level

Haven't had much success referral sharing w/o financial incentives so that cuts right to it

I'm always looking for more connects to SWE/PM/data teams at MM / ENT companies - generally I'll scrape your network, ghostrwite intros, pay ~$2k if it closes (or in some cases a smaller amount for meeting set, depends on client)

It seems we might be headed in a direction where at some point sufficiently skilled pipeline generators will be able to capture enough of the value they're generating across a team to exceed a well-performing enterprise/strat AE (without starting a consultancy)

One related phenomenon that I'm excited to see if it happens is sufficiently valuing people who can build systematic prospecting systems to the point they're paid more than an account executive. I've felt for my entire sales career that I spiritually belong in a more systematic/builder role—but the financially rational thing to do if you can build good systems is to take an AE role, build those systems, and operate them yourself to maximize commission

could see this working very differently for, say, martech vs devtools

what are you selling?

Also to the extent that the company wants to bet on itself as expanding its scope in the future and doesn’t have a short-term cash flow problem, multi year deals suboptimize the amount of revenue collected since they will likely not allow price hikes as harsh as a future one year deal when there’s a lot of vendor lock in that didn’t exist yet during the new business contract