High pressure and unrealistic expectations in sales role - Account Executive GrubMarket Employee Review

Sales environment was extremely high pressure. Management constantly pushed for new sales while many customers were simultaneously churning, so it often felt like filling a bucket with a hole at the bottom. Reps were expected to simultaneously manage accounts, collections, and customer retention on top of generating new business. Personally, it felt like there was always a misalignent on realistic goals and a lot of struggles between the CEO and CFO that was pushed onto the team as a whole. Trade show expectations regularly involved working until 2 a.m. and being back up a few hours later for multiple consecutive days. It was communicated that refusing would “reflect negatively” on your future with the company. We were also commonly expected to share hotel rooms during travel due to budget constraints. On top of everything, I was always expected to pay for all of my costs incurred and then would easily take 2-3 months to get paid back. When raising concerns about this, in my opinion, was always disregarded and framed as not an issue. I personally had a negative experience with commission payouts as well, as commission expectations and payout realities did not align with what was communicated during the hiring process or throughout my tenure there, in my experience. During my last couple quarters, there was also immense pressure placed on the sales team to push a newly released AI product that many clients quickly became dissatisfied with since answers were extremely inaccurate, leading to additional churn and even more pressure placed on the team. Being told now that commissions are only payable on customer payments received while a salesperson remains actively employed, which appears inconsistent with how commissions were communicated, tracked, and historically handled during my time there. This is all my personal experience but this experience taught me a lot, but overall the work-life balance, compensation structure, and internal expectations were not sustainable for me personally.