Your AE Job Is Becoming a Product Manager Role and Nobody Told You
B2B buyers want to self-serve 52% of their purchase journey, which means half your pipeline will never take your call.
Here's what nobody is saying about the B2B digital commerce shift: traditional AE skills are becoming obsolete faster than your CRM can track it.
When organisations expect 52% of revenue through digital channels within two years, that's not a marketing stat. That's your commission at risk.
The Reality Check
Your buyer already configured the solution, priced it out, and shared it with procurement before you knew the opportunity existed. That discovery call you're so proud of? They did it themselves on your website at 11pm on a Tuesday.
Half your pipeline is gone. Not to competitors. To self-service.
What This Actually Means
The AE role is splitting in two:
- Product-led sales: You're a guided checkout experience for complex deals. Your job is removing friction, not creating urgency.
- Strategic sales: True enterprise, multi-stakeholder, custom terms. Fewer deals, higher ACV, longer cycles.
If you're an AE averaging $80k ACV deals with 4-week cycles, you're in the danger zone. That's exactly what digital commerce is designed to replace.
The ANZ Problem
We're behind on this shift, which means we'll overcorrect hard. US SaaS companies have been iterating on product-led growth for five years. ANZ orgs will try to catch up in 18 months, and your quota won't change while they figure it out.
Also: if your company is struggling with "internet speed and time zones" (per the ANZ B2B e-commerce report), that's code for "our digital commerce strategy is cooked." Update your LinkedIn.
What To Do
Stop selling like it's 2019. Learn how buyers actually use your digital channels. Understand your product's self-serve capabilities better than your PM does. Get comfortable being a consultant, not a closer.
Or find a role where deals are too complex to configure online.
Because if a buyer can purchase your product at midnight without talking to you, your OTE is a variable expense waiting to be optimised.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Half your pipeline going digital doesn't mean you work half as hard. It means the deals you do work are twice as complex, or you're managing twice the volume at half the ACV.
Either way, your comp plan hasn't caught up to this reality yet.