Interested in a career at DISCO? Apply here to join the DISCO Account Executive team.
I was introduced to DISCO my junior year at a Texas A&M career fair where I learned about an exciting company combining law and engineering. I kept DISCO on my radar as I began to look for full-time career opportunities and ended up interviewing for the sales development representative (SDR) role right before graduation.
When I started at DISCO, I was new to the world of legal tech and SaaS sales. Luckily, DISCO has a great onboarding program that aligns you with the proper resources to help you ramp up. I learned everything from parts of a trial, to legal roles and their responsibilities, to platform differentiators and AI – all before I ever began reaching out to prospective clients. Building a solid foundation of knowledge gave me the confidence to be successful from the very start.
As an SDR, I worked on the lead generation team. My responsibilities included researching prospects to create sales-qualified leads and opportunities through outreach to senior leaders of legal practices across the country. I supported two field representatives’ pipelines by providing them with qualified prospects that they could then build deeper relationships with and demonstrate how DISCO products could transform their legal practice. Working lockstep with each field representative towards a collective goal of targeted outreach into top accounts led me to grow my sales acumen while getting hands-on experience supporting a sales pipeline.
After working as an SDR for about a year, I was promoted to an account executive (AE). I knew that I eventually wanted to move into the inside sales account executive role, and worked with my leadership to identify what skills I needed to develop to ensure I had the chance to get there. Working backward from what the desired attributes in an applicant were, we formulated a focused plan to build my skills in key areas based on a goal timeline I set for myself. By the time a new seat opened up for the role, I knew I was ready to advance into it because I’d already done the work needed to feel confident in taking the next step.
Many of the same qualities that made me successful as an SDR apply to an AE role: being a self-starter, highly organized, and an effective communicator with high sales acumen. As an account executive at DISCO, I drive each stage of the sales motion for my customers. Each AE’s mission is to educate prospective clients on DISCO’s ability to deliver better legal outcomes with the end goal of creating long-term partnership as a DISCO client. AEs also manage the accounts of active customers by identifying and driving further opportunities where DISCO products can transform their processes. The role centers around getting to know prospective clients, executing outreach campaigns, performing product demonstrations, negotiating contracts, converting clients, and maintaining relationships.
On a typical day I wake up and take my eight-year-old bloodhound-mix, Cooper, for a walk. (He’s been a great work-from-home assistant for the past couple of years). I open my laptop around 8:00 a.m. and check emails. I respond to any client inquiries that may have come in overnight, then start planning out the day. I usually have one client meeting at the top of the morning, then have a check-in with my team around 10:00 a.m. Post check-in, I review my current pipeline and work on top priority outreach for the rest of the morning. For lunch I take a break to get outside with my dog and close the laptop for a bit. After lunch, I get back online and transition from working on current projects to connecting with potential customers via prospecting and outreach. At some point in the afternoon, I usually have another client meeting as well. I conclude each day by preparing for the following day’s meetings and cleaning up my Salesforce data.
One of the benefits of being an AE is having the opportunity to work with different people across the company. We spend a lot of time collaborating with other AEs to work towards hitting certain KPIs. The team is constantly tapping each other for resources, ideas, and overall suggestions on how to effectively communicate DISCO’s advantages to each unique customer. Since the typical day-to-day work of an AE can be predominantly solo, it’s refreshing to work in an environment that encourages you to lean on your peers for input and guidance. Additionally, AEs work with the broader DISCO organization to support the sales pipeline for new and current clients — this is an integral part of our day-to-day success. This can range from client success and solutions architects to our finance and billing departments.
My favorite part of the AE role at DISCO is watching folks go from a skeptic to a true believer of how DISCO products can deliver better legal outcomes. The most rewarding conversations are those where I show people new ways to think about their business and the products they use. To watch future customers start to view you and DISCO as a trusted partner is extremely rewarding. The greatest challenge to being an AE is the level of self-accountability and time management required to be successful. There are several buckets of required duties that go along with managing a pipeline, but it’s your sole responsibility to divide your time accordingly to ensure each bucket is being taken care of.
I have learned that there are other skills that go a long way in a sales role: self-motivation, confidence in challenging lines of thinking, diligence, accountability, genuine curiosity, and a thirst for knowledge. Persistence and grit are crucial when tasked with building and supporting a new pipeline. I think complacency is the antithesis of a good AE, and you need to constantly be willing to adapt and incorporate new ideas and strategies into your workflow to keep pace with an ever-changing landscape and sales force.
From my first interview to cultivating invaluable skills along the way, my journey at DISCO has been one of a kind. DISCO’s collaborative culture can be seen everywhere you look within the organization. People are always willing to lend a hand regardless of what department they fall into because we’re all working towards the same goals overall. It’s rare to find a sales floor that so willingly and openly shares the best practices of top performers with anyone that will listen without hesitation, yet that’s exactly what you see here at DISCO. The culture of open communication and building each other up continues to motivate me to do my part and help those around me at every opportunity.
If you are a prospective candidate, I strongly encourage you to apply. You won’t regret it!