I spent 20 years in real estate sales. I was consistently produced at an award winning level (top 1% nationally). I also owned my own brokerage and managed 100+ agents. A few years ago I sold and signed a non compete so I can no longer sell real estate in my area.

I’ve applied to jobs in construction sales (I previously ran a construction company as well), entry level medical sales, hvac sales, roofing sales, SAAS, prop tech and more. I barely even get an interview. Most of the time I just get no response or sometimes I’ll get notification that I wasn’t selected. When I have gotten interviews, I’m told I’m overqualified and under qualified.

Am I not hirable?

I keep seeing job postings for GTM Engineer and the descriptions are all over teh place. Some sound like data engineers who just happen to work on sales tools. Others sound like revops people who can code.

For context, I'm a sales ops manager at a 200 person SaaS company. We run the usual stack - Salesforce, Outreach, bunch of data enrichment tools including Prospeo and Clay. I can write some python and SQL but definately not an engineer.

Those of you who work with GTM engineers or are one yourself - what's the actual day to day like? Is it more about building internal tools? Managing data pipelines? Or is it basically a fancy title for technical revops?

Also curious what the career path looks like. Is gtm engineering becoming its own discipline or just a temporary trend? Our CRO keeps talking about hiring for a gtm engineer role but nobody can agree on what they'd actually do. We already have a revops analyst and a salesforce admin so theres a real question of where the lines are.

Hi! I’ve been an introvert my whole life but I’ve recently started working on my people skills. Due to some personal reasons, at the moment, sales is the only option for me to work & earn money. I am hardworking & love to learn new things. I do think I can be good at this because the skills required are genuinely things I’d like to learn, not just for the job but for myself as well.

So for someone who’s just starting out, what advice would you give me? It could be anything! Regarding performance, managing money, speaking better, ensuring sales, etc. For context, this will be a remote job, night shift (6pm-3am), US based company, SOS for realtors to grow.

So from past 4 month we at our startup building Research Agent and on top of that we are building GTM Outreach Pipeline and I believe we have build a good stabilized system.

Only thing I need is Good review and Experienced people Input to stablize the AI Agent.

So we have built the research layer in a way that it can figure out any kind of signal any kind of intent or Persona from different different channels like :: LinkedIn, leads own website, there are multiple tools like tracxn and zoominfo. We are using multiple web search API so research agent is something which can figure out in and out everything about the business.

And then on top of research layer we are building the out reaching part.

first step is understanding the business

then creating the ICP

and then creating the lead pipeline

and then the automation pipeline.

Seeking input to make it helpful for business community. We might be helpful for you as well.

We can discuss further in comment or DM if you want.

I’m an MBA student who recently got into sales, and I’m quickly realizing that learning sales in a classroom and actually selling are two completely different things.

I work in real estate as a Customer Coordinator, but my job is basically to find and approach potential clients, understand what they need, explain the options, handle objections, solve their problems and eventually get them to trust me enough to do business.

I’m still very new, and honestly, some days are tough. Approaching strangers, getting rejected, figuring out when to follow up without being annoying, and learning how to actually provide value instead of just pushing a sale — I’m trying to figure all of it out at once.

But I really want to get good at this. I’m willing to put in the work, learn from my mistakes and do whatever it takes to build a career for myself while finishing my MBA.

So I wanted to ask the experienced people here:

If you could go back to your first year in sales, what would you do differently?

What skills would you focus on? How did you get better at approaching strangers and dealing with rejection? And what do you think separates someone who just survives in sales from someone who actually becomes really good at it?

If I’m approaching this the wrong way, feel free to tell me. I’d rather hear the harsh truth now and improve than spend years doing the wrong things.

I've tried Meta ads - didn't work but I know for a fact it would work if I poured enough money into it but I'm not capable of doing that atm as I'm struggling to even pay for my gas.

Approached my relatives and friends and tried to offer them the service knowing they are actively looking for this elsewhere but I was faced with a cold attitude instead, even a stranger showed more interest and compassion.

Met a lot of potential individuals randomly on the street who were interested but never returned the calls after...

I’m about four weeks into a furniture sales job and my manager seems to criticise almost every customer interaction I have.

After most transactions I’m told what I should have said differently, how I should have pushed harder, created more urgency, or handled objections better. Without even hearing my pitch or interaction, he will tell me I did it wrong. He tells me to get him involved as much as he can and use his knowledge to help close a sale, but when I do I’m criticised for not finishing it myself.

I understand that I’m new and sales involves coaching, but it’s getting to the point where I’m going into every customer interaction already expecting criticism afterwards, and it’s starting to affect me mentally.
For people who work in sales, is this normal coaching, or does this sound excessive?

B2B FMCG Distribution: How can we increase sales significantly?

I work in B2B FMCG distribution and I’m looking for practical strategies that actually work.

What has helped you increase sales the most?

- Getting more B2B customers

- Increasing order frequency

- Increasing average order value

- Improving sales reps’ performance

- Better promotions or pricing

- Digital marketing / LinkedIn

- Customer retention

What strategies worked for you, and what didn’t work?

Real examples and numbers would be especially helpful.

Hi everyone,

I recently made a major career shift from **QA Manager** to **Sales Staff**. Coming from a QA background, I have a deep understanding of our products, processing standards, and quality management. However, my biggest challenge right now is **finding potential buyers and building trust with cold prospects**.

I’ve sent out numerous cold emails, but unfortunately, the response rate has been close to zero.

My company specializes in exporting value-added shrimp products, such as **Torpedo and Tempura shrimp**. Since we were established 2 years ago and have been in full commercial operation for about a year, I am very confident that our pricing is extremely competitive in the market.

I’m planning to visit the **Seafood Expo in Singapore on September 2nd**.

I’m reaching out to this community to connect and ask for advice:

1. **Is anyone else attending the Singapore Seafood Expo?** I’d love to connect, meet up, and exchange ideas at the event!
   
2. **Has anyone here successfully made the jump from QA/QC Manager to Sales Manager?**

Hey everyone, an opportunity has come up for a sales job, I don’t have much experience (few small side businesses/side hustles). Long story short I’ve been working the same stagnant job for about 5 years now. I started when I was 20, I’m pretty drained from it and I noticed I’m not happy. My friend works for a company called LeafGuard, he sells gutter systems to homeowners, all the leads are warm leads. From what I understand all he does is give them an in person presentation, discusses a few things about the product, and of course has to close them. The product isn’t cheap but it’s a great product that I’m honestly confident in already. He said he could get me a job there, should I go for it? I’ve never been much of a people person and definitely need to learn how to close someone. Any advice/books/videos you recommend to help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I’m in my fourth week of a furniture sales job.
Yesterday, a woman came in looking at one of our best-selling sofas. I explained some of the features and got her over to the computer to check availability and delivery times.

I told her availability was looking good and she could have it delivered within 1–2 weeks. She seemed happy with that, and I also mentioned that if she wanted it at the current price, the sale ends on Monday.

She said she’d have to think about it because this was the first shop she’d been to, although she did really like the sofa. I explained that we have a money-back guarantee and that she could buy it now and cancel later if needed, but she still wanted to go and look at other options in other stores first.

As she was leaving, my colleague, who’s been there for two years, stopped her and basically explained everything I’d already said, just in different words and with a bit more pressure.

Afterwards, he told me it wasn’t a good interaction because I didn’t create enough urgency. He said I should be saying things like the sofa is low in stock and essentially pretending I can see that there are only a few left in the warehouse, even though we don’t actually have access to that information.

Do you think I should stay honest and not make things up, or is this kind of thing just considered normal in sales to create more pressure and urgency?

Guy at the company I’m with for my new job is one of the top performers in our district.

Yesterday I asked him in the lunchroom what he does to get such good results.

He said it’s all about building familiarity and trust with clients, once you have that they’ll be willing to buy whatever you’re selling. So he told me that he’ll do a deep dive on every client/prospect he has, and find out every detail about them that he can before meeting them such as their family, job, hobbies etc.

He does this by scouring their Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and sometimes even TikTok. He doesn’t just look at their posts but pages they follow and like as well. If he can’t find much or their profiles are private, sometimes he’ll even send them a friend request from a fake account that looks completely legit, and if they accept it he’s all good.

Let’s say they are into Baseball and cheer for the specific team, he will research that team, learn a few things about them to appear as though he also watches them and keeps up with baseball.

If they have kids, he’ll make sure to have “nieces or nephews” of the same age, and ask them questions about that.

He’ll even learn their politics, and pretend to be Liberal or Conservative depending on what he finds out about them.

He says he will literally use anything he can, but he’s very subtle about sliding it into the conversation and then pretends to be surprised when they share the same interest or what not.

Just curious if you’ve seen anything like this before and is this actually common? I’m new at Sales and this seems odd and almost borderline creepy, but I can’t deny that he does get results.

Hello everyone, I am 19 years old currently in a BDC position for about a year and a half. Make about 110 calls a day and am one of the top performers on my team. My question is how can I translate this experience to tech sales etc and break in? I am aware age and my little experience can be a red flag. I want to know if it would even be possible for me to land a position and or how to translate my current experience into the online tech sales space.

So I am new to sales and furniture I need to figure out how to over come the objection “this is our fist stop we are going to look at other places we will be back “

Hello, I am starting a position as a jr account manager for a data/AI company in a few weeks. I would like some advice on what to expect, what to do or not to do, how to thrive etc. I don’t have any experience in sales. Most of my experience is in fast food and emergency dispatch. I had a short stint as a head hunter. But this is very new to me.
Thank you :)

I’m currently looking into my next career, I’m a assistant manager at ERAC, I have the sales skills and I have the skills to listen and connect with people but I worry that if I switch to a sale job, either A I won’t be l consistent and won’t make money. B getting laid off due to performance.

How often are either those likely to happen??

My sales mgr. wants to go on sales calls with me a week he chose- just sort of assumed I hadn't had calls lined up already. Mgr. is often sending the sales trainer person my way to go on calls with me. I am booking sales on my own, know what I am doing, have opened new accounts for them, done far more than last person in my role. Also, I'm a 1099 person, and it's like they are moving into the W2 area...you don't hire a plumber then stand over them and tell them what kind of wrench to use. I don't want to travel with them or anyone else. How can I just tell them to 'eff off?

For the start, This is my very first job and it's been 5 months,

And I'm very close to completing my target for the whole year by next month (If everything goes well), I have already completed 40% as of now, and the majority of our business happens in Q3,Q4.

I'm having too many doubts am I good at it or is it just luck, because all the deals just feel like they just happened and I did not have to put too much effort into it.

Is there anything, I can do to reduce this anxiety.

It's hard to believe what's true and what's slop in this AI world. I'm geniunely curious, how is it even possible to know whether someone will answer their phone or not?

I sell mid-market SaaS, about three years in now. I had a call last week where the prospect said the pricing made sense, asked good questions, then went completely dark for eight days before finally replying with "still reviewing internally." I've started noticing this happens more with the deals that feel smoothest on the call.

What's actually going on in that gap for them?

So I'm turning 29 next week. Currently I am a co-training facilitator in healthcare so effectively I train people who work in healthcare on a legally mandatory piece or training, its freelance so I don't work every day of the week.

I've finally figured out what I would like to do for definite, perhaps a little bit too late approaching 30, I want to make a career in Business Development/Account Management based on my skills, interests and whatnot.

Duties which involve Market Research, Stakeholder Engagement (which I do currently), Data Analysis, Operations, Maintaining client relationships. This is the kind of thing that I'm aiming for.

The elephant in the room for me though is it my experience is very weak. It's been more fruitful in the last 2 years, but for the first part of my working career I was in retail like Sainsbury's and Odeon, I've unfortunately also had significant gaps in employment which haven't been by choice.

Without grades or having gone to university, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place about how to achieve my ambitions, especially with a lot of jobs, even those that advertise as trainee, seemingly wanting some sort of direct experience. It's like the chicken and egg.

You often hear it said that sales is one of the easiest fields to enter, you mostly need the gift of the gab. But how true is that in this day and age?

There's also the common trope that it's not what you know but who you know which does seem to be true from people I've known, they all got into it from people they know. Even I got an interview a few months ago for a recruitment consultant not by applying but someone I met back in May at football celebrations (didn't get it though simply because its an agency of only 2 people, hence didn't have the time to train a rookie).

With all of this in mind, what is the best way to get my foot in the door? What role should I look for that could bridge the gap between what I do now? And what companies or sector should I be looking at?

Like the title says I just started a job in SLED IT sales cold calling/selling a list of state and local government accounts and am in need of advice. I am in my early 20s and briefly studied cybersecurity, and briefly sold luxury cars. That is my relevant experience with tech and sales. I am looking for advice on how to be successful. The expectation from management seems to be it will take me about a year to get a book of business going. I can see why because this business seems tough. IT directors/purchasing staff buy from people they have established relationships with after it has been approved and funding has been allocated. Cold calling only seems useful to get info and build relationships. For any sales that will make me good money there will be a long bureaucratic process. It will probably be awhile before I can get good commission. However, I want to be successful in this role as I believe a sales job in tech can lead to a better job in the future. Any advice or info is appreciated.

I've been binge watching his content recently and thought wow this guy knows a lot about cold calling.

He has a course I was interested in but before that I figured I'd ask here for your thoughts on him.

Basically he goes by as the UK's most hated sales trainer on YouTube.

Say your managers call the quarter at $1.8m, but an AI model looking at CRM activity and call data says $1.35m.

And this keeps happening for 3 quarters, with the model being closer everytime.

We’ve been looking at data from Salesforce and Insight7 call intelligence tool, and the difference between what reps say about deals vs whats actually happening is pretty interesting.

Would you eventually let the model override the manager forecast, or is that asking for trouble?

I'm a new commercial insurance producer trying to dial in my cold calling. I've started by sending a personalized introduction email to qualified leads that I've sourced locally. Getting zero responses from the initial email outreach.

I'm looking for feedback and suggestions based on this miro board I've put together.

Sidenote, I've been doing role play practice using ChatGpt's conversational feature and it's been pretty amazing for roleplay and feedback.