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Consensus graciously provided me with access to the data in their “2021 Sales Engineering and Workload Report” – here are some interesting observations. (You can find the full report here: https://demo.goconsensus.com/2021-sales-engineer-salary-compensation-workload-report-registration )
Do larger average deals yield higher compensation?
Yes for Practitioners; No for Leaders.
Deals < $1M
Practitioners Base: $112K
Leaders Base: $154K
Deals >= $1M
Practitioners Base: $132K
Leaders Base: $142K
Deals < $1M
Practitioners OTE (On Target Earnings): $152K
Leaders OTE: $213K
Deals >= $1M
Practitioners OTE: $185K
Leaders OTE: $207K
Moral? It is a sellers’ market for experienced presales practitioners!
Do larger deals require more demos?
Yes, but not conclusively…!
Deals < $1M
3 demos per deal median
Deals >= $1M
4 demos per deal median
Moral? Not sure – perhaps vendors in doing more Discovery and preparation for the larger opportunities (resulting in fewer demos per dollar).
Do larger deals require longer demos?
Yes, indeed…!
Deals < $1M
2.5 hours per demo (prep, delivery, follow-up) per deal median
Deals >= $1M
5 hours per demo (prep, delivery, follow-up) per deal median
Moral? Again, not sure, but I hope vendors are doing more pre-demo prep, in particular, as opposed to simply delivering longer demos…!
Fewer demos per week for larger deals?
Yes…!
Deals < $1M
4.4 demos per week average
Deals >= $1M
2.3 demos per week average
Moral? Not surprising…!
Interestingly, the total time doing demos is about the same – about 25% of workload
Deals <$ 1M
11 hours per week average
Deals >= $1M
11.5 hours per week average
How about unqualified demos?
Nope – no apparent difference.
Deals < $1M
30% average
Deals >= $1M
28% average
Moral? Many SDRs, BDRs, and salespeople still suffer from “happy ears…”! (The use of Great Demo! Discovery methods and Situation Slides could dramatically improve these numbers.)
It was really interesting to see that Discovery (far and away) is the area people want to invest more time doing for all deal sizes, but it was especially high for large opportunities.
Deals < $1M
432 vs. 361 (the next activity item on the list)
Deals >= $1M
33 vs. 21 (the next activity item on the list)
Moral? Vendor teams know that doing Discovery is important, but likely (1) struggle to understand what information needs to be collected and (2) how to go about collecting it. (Great Demo! Discovery methodology training could be a high-value cure for this…)
Questions I’d Love to Ask:
What percent of (presales) time is customer-facing?
What percent of time is consumed by Discovery?
What percent of time is consumed by demos?
What percent of customer-facing time is Discovery?
What percent of customer-facing time are demos?
What investments are being made to support these?
And overall, how are all of the metrics changing year-over-year?