Hello and welcome to The Modern GTM Executive by Lunar Executive Search - read by (now 2,460) leading Sales, Marketing, and Executive Leaders within Growth-Stage Technology businesses. We’re here to help people redefine their perspective on modern revenue acquisition models, understand what talent & skills are necessary to do so, and how to find the top 10% of GTM Leaders to execute.
| Sales Hiring Market – Current LinkedIn Job Postings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Within Software Industry – Posted Last 7 Days | ||
| VP of Sales Jobs | 387 | +38% |
| Enterprise AE Jobs | 450 | -3% |
| BDR Jobs | 265 | -5% |
To help readers stay grounded in the reality of today’s GTM hiring landscape, I’ll be sharing a weekly snapshot of active sales roles on LinkedIn. These metrics offer a simple but powerful pulse check: where demand is rising, where it’s cooling, and how the broader software market is shifting beneath the surface.
Quick Hits
(Our updated news & trends sections to highlight all relevant stories you need to know going into this week.)
Scary AI: Anthropic has rolled out Claude Mythos Preview through a controlled initiative called "Project Glasswing", granting access to tech majors
Design Away: Anthropic launches Claude Design, a new product for creating quick visuals
Security tailwind: Surveillance and analytics company Palantir recently posted what it called a “brief” 22-point summary of CEO Alex Karp’s book “The Technological Republic.”
Dumb Take: AI chatbots could be making you stupider
Your Job Is to Get Your Customer Promoted
Sat down with Abigail Maines for our episode of The GTM Kickback podcast that came out last week, and there are some insights that she shared that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
"We exist to get our customers promoted"
It's the ultimate form of empathy & perspective that you can have as a salesperson for your customers. sounds simple and obvious, but for nearly two decades of recruiting senior sales talent into some of the most competitive cyber and SaaS companies in the world, I can tell you with pretty strong confidence: the people who actually operate this way are genuinely rare. And they are the ones whose careers I watch accelerate faster than almost anyone else
What It Actually Means to Exist to Get Your Customer Promoted
At its core, this principle is about a fundamental shift in “unit of value”. Most salespeople measure success by their quota attainment. Elite sellers measure success by their customer's career advancement. Those are genuinely different optimization functions, and they produce different behaviors at every stage of the sale.
Here's how it breaks down functionally:
Understand Their World Before You Understand Their Problem
Translate ROI Into Their Language, Not Yours
Be the Resource They Can Count On, Not Just the Vendor They Bought
Make the Win Visible (for them)
The logical through-line is this: when you make a customer's career advancement your priority, everything (Your honesty, your preparation, your follow-through, your resource allocation) gets reorganized around a much more durable and human outcome than a “closed-won opportunity”. And that's what elite sellers are actually doing, even if they've never framed it that way.
Your challenge for this week? Flip the script on your mindset and have an exceptionally higher level of customer empathy in your interactions. Just for one week, and I guarantee you'll see the difference.
If you want our full breakdown of our thoughts on GTM compensation in 2026, and all appropriate salary bands across Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and more, the data is in this report.
We've got a number of active opportunities across our portfolio of software clients at Lunar Executive Search currently.
A few select openings:
(NEW) Director of Marketing - VC Backed - Vertical SaaS (Remote)
Enterprise Account Executive - VC Backed - Enterprise SaaS (Remote - Central Territory)
(NEW) Enterprise Account Executive - PE Backed - HealthTech SaaS (Remote)
Strategic Account Executive - VC Backed - Enterprise AI (Remote)
(NEW) Enterprise Account Executive - Public - Data & Analytics Systems Integrator (Remote)
(NEW) Senior Sales Engineer - Public - Data & Analytics Systems Integrator (Remote)
(NEW) Account Executive - VC Backed - Proptech (Remote)
Enterprise Account Executive - VC Backed - Media Tech (NYC OR LA Remote)
I'm also always looking to speak to great candidates for future & confidential roles:
Chief Revenue Officer - Venture/PE-Backed - SaaS/Cyber/AI
Chief Marketing Officer - Venture/PE-Backed - SaaS/Cyber/AI
VP of Product Marketing - Venture/PE-Backed - SaaS/Cyber/AI
VP of Partnerships - Venture/PE-Backed - SaaS/Cyber/AI
Highlights from The GTM Kickback! Podcast
Check out our latest episode of The GTM Kickback!, Why Average is Too Expensive for Your Sales Org in 2026 | The GTM Kickback #86 w/ Abigail Maines
Want to be a guest? Ping me on LinkedIn! 😎
We're looking for: High-performance GTM Operators, VC/PE Investors in SaaS, and Leading GTM Consultants for early stage technology businesses
New to "The GTM Kickback!"? Subscribe to the podcast!
This newsletter is powered by Lunar Executive Search - Finding Premier GTM Talent for Growth Stage Tech Businesses.
We help disruptive technology companies grow. For venture-funded start-ups and PE-backed enterprise software firms, we have a track record in finding the Top 10% of Sales and Marketing Leadership Talent, and doing so swiftly.
Reach out here: [email protected]
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Till next time,
Joey
