HT Account Manager - Rolling the Dice - Account Manager Gartner Employee Review

Everything I discuss here revolves around managing SMB accounts that are technology start-ups. I can not speak for the core business units (End User) or other revenue bands above my channel. Also, even knowing the things below, I would still recommend taking this job for the name on the resume alone. How long you’ll want to stay will depend on a few factors. So much of your success at Gartner depends on things outside of your control, namely the book of business you inherit, the analysts, and your manager. And I know what you may be thinking, “that’s sales” but this goes beyond that. I talked with people who had been in sales for 5+ years that said that this wasn’t a typical situation where you just work harder to build pipeline to make up for it. You have to hope that your boss actually has some leadership skills instead of just sales numbers. Mine certainly didn’t. You have to hope that your clients don’t go out of business, get acquired, or weren’t missold (mine were). You also have to hope the previous person managing your book didn’t just try to milk their accounts for all their worth before they left since any takedown wouldn’t count against them in their new job. In HT, the one thing all the clients want is the one thing you can’t deliver, research mentions. Account Managers on their way out frequently start promising that Gartner will write about the client if only they pay more money. Guess what happens when Gartner doesn’t write about the client? They don’t renew and as an Account Manager you are heavily measured on retention. Do not be confused. This is no longer a sales job. This is a true account management job with some minor upselling. Most people have 1-2 deals a year. Those are enterprise length sales cycles for entry level pay. I do not know why they recruit so heavily from sales programs across the country. You may be told that Gartner has had double digit growth for the past x amount of quarters which I’m sure is true for the company as a whole. That is NOT true for the channel I was in. The best performing region grew by 1%. Let that sink in when they say limitless opportunity to you over and over like you don’t have common sense. At the most, I had 6 accounts to retain and grow (with one having been oversold, something my boss even admitted to me but hey that’s a growth opportunity /s). The territory I could prospect into was not in a prime market and was organized by the name of the company. My team had 15 letters in 2 different states to split 8 ways. In the end, you’re looking at a list of about 80 names that have been called, emailed, and LinkedIn’ed for no less than 4 years. You won’t know any details when they tell you they’ve been in sales cycles before because there is no CRM. Bask in the irony that a company that recommends CRMs to other companies doesn’t use one in any meaningful way. The sad part is that they’ve segmented this channel even further and that beat up list looks closer to 40 names today, if you’re lucky. They’ve drastically reduced quota because they realized that bad sales may have led to a 68% retention rate. What happens when your 3 clients aren’t biting on your suggested upsells? Limitless opportunity. So what happens when 2 accounts don’t renew and the bad fit companies on your list aren’t buying? You make 20% of your target income. Luckily, the cost of living is low in Southwest Florida so make sure to always budget to your base. Especially if you get hired now. Last year they rolled out a training where new hires got to shadow calls and get paid their target for at least 6 months. It was awesome to watch as I struggled to hit unrealistic metrics. So hey you too can be paid for watching other people work. But when you hit the floor and start getting paid base for the rest of the year as you don’t sell anything, reality may sting a bit. Limitless opportunity. Plus, what you’re selling is access to analysts who cover the IT industry in one area or another. What happens if that person is rude? Doesn’t know as much as the client? What if they stop covering their space? I had a situation where a group of analysts that my client talked to the most left within a month of each other. Analysts would frequently reject requests for calls and pass it off to someone else because they are more focused on EU customers. My clients were paying $60,000 and up annually (some more than 200k) for this to happen. I couldn’t point to business value in almost any instance as they repeatedly just told me that they had “interesting conversations.” Wonder why they looked at Gartner as a nice to have. All of the clients who remained were mentioned in research. Limitless opportunity. In this position, you will not have a very high paying plan unless you overachieve. Maybe 30-40% people do that and so many of them just inherit a deal when they hit the floor in Q4. That was also fun to watch while my boss rubbed all of my team’s clients the wrong way and ruined our deals with his micromanagement and selfish motives. If you like having a lot of free time, or doing a lot of busy work that has nothing to do with sales, you might be able to drink the Gartnerade forever. I moved on for all of the above reasons and more. Read the other Glassdoor review titled “Gartner: A Case Study in Brand Destruction and Hierarchical Management Paranoia” for a perspective from an analyst. If you can tough it out, you’ll be able to make a significant step up into an actual tech sales career. Best of luck in keeping your sanity for the 12ish months that most reps stay.