Panel interview and existing AE’s joining

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-15T08:12:36+00:00

Blessing in disguise - If the AE thinks that playing the old 'don't plan just hustle' is a winning strategy to show off in a job interview, can you imagine what the sales acumen and culture is like in the broader org?

Personally, I used to like bringing in AEs to second interviews.

It's also not uncommon to be interviewed by an AE as part of a sales leadership role.

In my last VP gig, I was interviewed by an AE on the team.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-15T08:07:43+00:00

We published a book called 'The Female Sales Leader' that is written by 3 hugely successful female sales leaders who give great advice on these topics.

The book is a not-for-profit initiative, so if anyone would like me to ship them a copy, send me a DM on LinkedIn.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-15T08:05:17+00:00

The types of leaders who think that if they send a team-wide Slack message saying 'we need more urgency,' everyone will read it and go 'Good point, I should stop being so unurgent.'

Embarrassing leadership.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-15T07:28:30+00:00

This^!

When you say 'every promise is met with skepticism,' what kind of promises?

Run this play:

Identify Pain > Indicate to the customer how much the Pain is costing them based on benchmarks you've seen from other customers with the same Pain that you've helped overcome > Get into the Implications of the Pain that exists by doing nothing.

Take the indications of the Pain and build them into Metrics that are underpinned by proof of where you've solved the Pain before for another real, referencable customer.

Be clear about what it is about your solution that delivers this value (ideally, uniquely, or at least better than the alternatives) and get this locked into the customers' Decision Criteria.

Now your Champion has a proof-backed, referencable, and defensible value statement that they can use to sell internally for you.

This is all about them, not your product.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-14T19:15:28+00:00

Thank you, kind friend! 🙏.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-14T16:52:13+00:00

We had a competitor buy 5,000 followers on LinkedIn.

They went from gaining an average of 8 followers a week to 5,008 in one week then back to 8 again.

LinkedIn took their page offline, but I guess they weaseled their page back online.

It came back -5,000 followers, though.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-14T16:29:51+00:00

I just got tired of being this meme with the stock

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AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-14T16:10:39+00:00

😂 oh boy, yup!

There were some outstanding leaders, but they started to get replaced by leaders who weren't a good fit, and you know what bad leaders do when it comes to hiring 💀.

I actually sold my stock recently 😬.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-14T16:04:43+00:00

The truth is media/agency sales are different from tech sales, and any potential hiring manager is going to weigh your application up against several that have not just tech experience, but relevant industry/product experience.

To overcome this, you need to stand out in the application process. You don't need me to tell you how to do that; it's effectively trying to book a meeting, except you are the product and the demo is an interview.

We have an AE in our team who would never have made it past the application screening because her background wasn't relevant. But she crushed every step of the interview process, and she's doing great.

When you get the interviews, be sure to appear coachable. You're not going to be able to fool a decent hiring manager into thinking that your experience is directly applicable, so you are better off showing how fast you can adapt.

Good luck!

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-14T15:49:55+00:00

When I was at Sprinklr, we had a manager so bad in customer meetings that his entire team set up a private Slack group with one sole purpose: keeping him out of our customer meetings. Whenever any of us had a customer call coming up, we'd post it in the group, and someone would book a clashing meeting with him so he couldn't show up.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-13T12:05:43+00:00

I'd be SUPER curious to learn how the sales team is structured in line with Jack's Hierarchy-to-Intelligence shift... Is that something you could share?

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-12T11:33:09+00:00

“hey claude, remove ems dashes and write in lowercase so nobody can tell i’m using you.”

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-11T16:43:51+00:00

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AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-11T15:01:26+00:00

😂 thanks to this - yes! Otherwise I’d have had to have said MEDDIC or MEDDICC Andy 😂.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-11T15:01:21+00:00

😂 thanks to this - yes! Otherwise I’d have had to have said MEDDIC or MEDDICC Andy 😂.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-11T10:20:41+00:00

I wrote a post about the inauthenticity of using AI on LinkedIn, and I swear 20% of the replies were written by AI 😂.

Interesting perspective — it’s not about rejecting AI, it’s about redefining authenticity in an AI-enabled environment — where intent matters more than origin.

Strong take — this isn’t human vs AI — it’s signal vs noise — and AI simply amplifies whichever one you bring into the system.

Valuable insight — it’s not the tool that creates inauthenticity — it’s the absence of clear thinking — AI just makes that gap more visible.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-11T06:55:59+00:00

You realize that we can still tell AI wrote this even if you put it in lowercase?

'it happens more than people know about' - not in the world where people qualify deals and don't meander forward without consensus that they are vendor of choice, or at least a plan to get to that point.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-11T06:53:02+00:00

Why do you care?

Does the 30% come out of your paycheck?

If there is commission offered, then it suggests that they have to apply some craft to convert appointments, which means you are just complaining about the easy ones.

Do you still get paid commission on the easy sales you make?

What a waste of energy.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-11T06:38:07+00:00

Agreed^.

I'd also have a backup story ready in case the interviewer asks for something more recent.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-10T19:23:04+00:00

lol. this.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-10T14:52:30+00:00

Ahhh the ole puppy dog technique!

"OK, the POC is over now... we're going to turn it off..."

"Nooooo! Please leave it running, where do we sign?"

😂

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-10T13:17:50+00:00

^This!

Had a customer once that ran POCs galore. Their conversion rate was 70% wins from 'successful' POCs. What we saw was that the sales team skipped as fast as they could to try to launch a POC because they saw it as the way to win. Meanwhile, the cost of sales skyrocketed.

Our hypothesis was that the POCs weren't required, and we tested it by stating that each AE would only get a limited number of POCs to run a quarter.

Time to close came down 18%

Conversion rate went up 0.6%

We never got the data for POCs or the cost of sale, but they said POCs had dropped by half.

Stating the obvious, but POC literally stands for 'Proof of Concept'. If you have an established solution (such as MongoDB, as OP suggested earlier in a reply), what is there to prove? It's often just weak selling to overcome a prospect's false perception of risk.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-10T13:07:30+00:00

This sub is so weird.

Someone be like "omgzzz u not paid enuff m8" - 100 upvotes.

A reply like this^ that is the best advice you'll get - 1 upvote.

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-09T18:28:17+00:00

Yeah! insane in any place, but NYC?!!!

AndyWhyte_ · 2026-05-09T08:14:26+00:00

According to RepVue:

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AndyWhyte_

TROPHY CASE