If you have noticed a sudden wave of high-performing Sales Executives re-entering the job market, you are not imagining it. Across the United States and Canada, from Toronto to San Francisco and from Montreal to Dallas, many of the top salespeople in tech, SaaS, logistics, and media are quietly looking for new opportunities in 2025.
At Quota Crushers Agency, we speak with hundreds of these candidates every month. They are not desperate. They are not underperforming. In most cases, they are exceeding quota. But they are ready to leave. Understanding why is the first step in either keeping your talent or recruiting someone else’s.
The Real Reasons Top Salespeople Are Walking Away
1. Leadership Instability
One of the top triggers for job change is unstable or inexperienced leadership. Sales Executives do not need daily check-ins, but they want clear strategy and trust in leadership. When companies go through repeated leadership changes or bring in VPs with no sales background, it creates confusion and loss of confidence.
2. Unrealistic Quotas
We hear this complaint in every major city, especially in markets like New York, Vancouver, and Austin. Companies trying to grow too fast often set quotas that ignore historical data or market conditions. Top performers can hit targets, but if those targets are disconnected from reality, even closers will burn out and leave.
3. Broken Comp Plans
A Sales Executive’s motivation is directly tied to compensation. When companies quietly adjust commission structures, delay payouts, or cap earnings under the radar, it destroys trust. This is one of the fastest ways to push out your best people. And once a strong rep feels shortchanged, they rarely stay.
4. No Career Progression
Top sellers want to grow. If they have been closing deals for three years with no path to Sales Manager, Strategic Accounts, or Enterprise tier roles, they will look elsewhere. Especially in cities like Calgary and Los Angeles, where tech firms are scaling fast, those new roles are available and attractive.
5. Product or Operational Failures
A great seller cannot overcome a broken product or bad customer experience. If implementations are failing or support is slow, the rep’s reputation takes a hit. Many of the candidates we place left companies not because of the product itself but because the post-sale experience damaged their ability to retain and upsell clients.
A Story From the Field
We recently placed a Senior Account Executive from a SaaS company in Ottawa who had hit 140 percent of quota for three consecutive years. He was not actively looking but responded to our outreach because his leadership team had been restructured three times in eighteen months. The latest change shifted his territory, increased his quota by 50 percent, and changed his commission band. He was not angry. He was tired. We placed him at a high-growth tech firm in Chicago with stable leadership and clear advancement. He hit 120 percent of quota in his first full quarter.
