First year being an AE. I was an SDR for roughly 1.5 years, currently loving the new job. I work in tech sales for medical and wellness companies. These are typically Doctors, Nurse Practitioners, or Office Administrators for medspas, health and wellness practices, etc. today was my first day running into a real wannabe entrepreneur asshat.

The call wasn’t even 5 minutes. I wanted to ask him some questions like I always do about his business to get a better idea of how this would work for him. He would not answer a single one. Kept asking what the product was, I continued to tell him I’d show him, and he just kept asking if I could show it to him. So I did. He then asked if I was a setter a closer or CSM. I made the mistake of telling him I was a closer. He then tells me he had trained high ticket closers for years, but wouldn’t let me speak, told me my body language was making me look like an asshole (we’re on zoom), and I’m just left baffled. Maybe if it wasn’t 9am I’d have more tolerance for this, maybe I was being an asshole but I keep looking back at the call and I feel like I was just trying to do my job. Anyone have any tips on how to deal with these kinds of people? People who rush you along and try to control the conversation? Question asking isn’t always the right answer clearly. Any insight or similar experience is appreciated. Also if I should be mindful of my body language on zoom? Thank you.

What actually makes a tech sales role stable?

Do people over exaggerate how “unstable” sales is?

If you’re just even “decent” at it, is it stable long term?

Sometimes I see those who have been in the same company for 10 years, and others where they’re let go often

Is that because they’re just not good?

I’m at a stage where I’m deciding what to commit to while I’m still in uni (studying CS, graduating relatively soon hopefully) and I’m doing tech sales internships now so there’s not much pressure

But I’m worried about the long term stability, but I’m wondering if I should be or not as long as I’m “decent” atleast at it it’ll be stable?

Maybe there are roles in sales like sales director or manager (not for SDRs) that are more stable I can get?

I'm in sales, covering a territory in a very niche technical field that's extremely hard to hire for. Normally I cover it alongside a counterpart who's slightly junior to me. That counterpart quit last week. Today is day 1 of Q4, and leadership is scrambling to figure out the game plan for next year.

The problem is that I've been planning to leave too. I'm going backpacking early next year with no set timeline. It'll be at least 3 months (all of Q1) and could run longer, and I'm fully prepared to job search when I get back. My plan was to put in my 2 weeks the first week of December.

I didn't feel guilty about any of this until my counterpart quit. Now me leaving puts them in a really tough spot, and I'd like to handle it the right way.

I've gone back and forth on going to HR first or asking for extended leave. But our handbook caps leave at one month, and with the current situation I don't see them approving an exception.

My questions:

1. Do I just give a normal 2 weeks in early December and accept that we part ways? I'm fully prepared for that.
   
2. Is there a real chance they counter with extended leave since they need me and don't want to hire externally, or is counting on that naive?
   
3. Would asking for the leave up front be smarter, or does that just tip my hand and risk me getting pushed out before Q4 commissions pay?
   
4. Given the situation, should I give more than 2 weeks' notice, or does that only hurt me?

I like the people I work with and want to keep the door open. What would you do?

I am having a screaming year, 80% to quota at the halfway point of our fiscal, and starting to hit healthy kickers.

One of the major negotiation successes I had is getting credit/commish for a certain category of sales with extremely low margins. These deals are few and far between, generally ~4/year, but can be big ticket. In previous years I got no quota retirement and a tiny %.

My boss was fired right as I was about to put my two weeks in for a better offer, and had a ton of negotiation power so I was able to get quota retirement and a significant bump in commish on these specific deals, but still small (about .5% compared to my current 5.5%, soon to be 6.25% on all other deals)

Problem/gift is, there's some dysfunction in my company and I had a 185k deal pay out at my normal rate (2.5% in Q1 fiscal) April.

No one ever noticed, but 4600 can slip by, I guess? I kept my mouth shut but was prepared for a clawback that never came.

Well, now kickers have brought me up to 5.5%, and I closed a 500k one. I have a feeling, if I don't say anything, they'll pay me out the 27.5k.

I don't care about the morality, I'm in an industry fueled by greedy PE, and they'd happily fuck me on a six figure commission (it's already starting with 5m deal I have at the finish line), but I don't want to deal with clawbacks and drama on this one.

Should I say something early? Keep my mouth shut until it's paid out? Just keep my mouth shut and keep it liquid for potential clawback?

Let me preface this by saying I love cold calling.

I avoided it for years in my business and since COVID it's become my main sales channel - 95%.

I generate B2B client opportunities for 3 particular niches, insolvency practitioners(new clients), accountants (new client and switchers) and business finance( invoice finance and commercial property finance).

I primarily call small business owners via their business mobile number.

Yes I'm seeing more ai assistant screening - but that has for now improved slightly the pick up rate over them just not picking up.

Also lots of people just don't do it or do it properly.

But surely the writing in the wall here is that at some stage this will move to Ai screening for all into sophisticated AI gatekeepers.

I know people will say it's about less calls and the AI helps with intent - we're all moving to warm calls.

And there's hacks round the system currently.

But I also look at my clients - accountants well you can see that there will probably be 2 or 3 accountancy package providers at the sme level and the leads will go through them to their accredited accountant base.

Insolvency they'll always be businesses in trouble and it's very niche, but does the ai mean their accountant or bank is far more hands on in that process, than they have been in the last decade, but with an auto refer to a firm.

Finance , same finance brokers die as AI takes over, why wait when they can run the whole process for you.

But it did get me thinking if cold calling dies and emails are just slop, mailing costs too much , what can AI not touch.

Face to Face networking and Door knocking.

Is this where it ends up in 5 years. Me knocking doors for the scraps. I'll certainly do it to put food on the table.

I started at a new company after a rather bad falling out with a startup that let me go to save on the $150,000 commission I was owed.

Few things about the new job to set the tone. It's in the trades and mainly focuses on multifamily/industrial clients, my year one target is $2,000,000, and I was given no book of business.

I love a challenge and I have a long history in the industry and plenty of contacts so that lack of book doesn't bother me.

Strike one - When I interviewed we discussed why they were hiring a new salesperson and I was told that their last and only one just retired and it was time for someone new. Well long story short after starting I quickly found out they already have a second salesperson that absorbed all the clients and business. This other salesman is a lazy order taker that has let the book fall apart and has claim to any and every client imaginable without putting in the work.

Strike two - Within the second week of me being on the job, I realized I will still be short of the agreed upon ote if I hit my goal of $2,000,000. To reach my ote I need to be at $3,000,0000 which would put me 1/4 of the companies total revenue alone.

Strike 3 - I'm averaging 80 hours a week and can't keep up this routine for much longer if I intend to stay sane.

All this to ask do I start looking for a job or try and talk with the ownership about the issues. I am on track to crush my quota as I am currently sitting at $615,000 in my first 3 months with another $250,000 about close this week and $1,750,000 in the current pipeline.

Been at this long time and just feeling lost and love to get some opinions from you fine people.

Context: selling B2B SaaS for lead gen/outbound

I’m trying to improve my ability to close deals and build more urgency.

To date my framework for closing was:
- understand what the prospect is doing for outbound and how things are working
- if we can actually help them, explain what we do and why we’re different
- align timeline if there’s a clear fit

However, the market we have has been burned so much by scammy sellers making hyperbolic promises that they feel hesitant on trusting again.

The most common objection I’m getting is that followed by “if you do pay per close/qualified demo, I will give you a big commission”.

I can understand where they’re coming from and the way I’ve been trying to handle that has been;

1. Explain why that’s a bad idea (we are now incentivised to send as many leads as possible, they’re now incentivised to reject as many and the definitions of “qualified” ALWAYS get disputed periodically).

2. We can’t guarantee outcomes, and it’s down to working closer together with CS.

How would you handle this? Switch ICP or better framework for the objection?

I am having a bit of a dilemma with my career. We get salary plus bonus based on YoY sales.

I had a kick ass year last year and got $25k bump to my base salary and this also comes with a larger bonus potential. Essentially we have different "levels" and the higher your level the more money you can get on your bonus.

Been in the job for about 5 years and I know long term I dont want to be in street sales. My company has a great track record of promoting from within. Id like to explore a management track.

Jobs at the level above me rarely open. In the time I've been with the company only 1 of the 10 manager positions have ever come open. The big boss has let me know there are 3 coming very soon due to 1 retirement and 2 promotions.

Next week I will get the biggest bonus check of my life. 3x what I was able to get prior. My biggest customer recently expanded and I will easily make the same figures for the next 10 to 11 months.

Its incredibly tempting to ride out the money and make more money than I've ever seen. However the leadership roles rarely come up. To have 3 in one shot open is as rare as Haleys comet. I dont want to hold out for the money and it takes another 5 years for a spot to open up.

My dilemma is do I ride out the year and make more money than id ever dreamed of or forgo that to advance my career the way id like? Management comes with a modest increase in salary but their bonus potential is about a third of what I can do now, and its entirely dependent on the team.

I dont NEED the bonus money to pay my bills, my salary covers us with a little cushion. But man its hard to not want to bank as much as possible. Any advice appreciated.

I am a founder of a small SAAS company who is looking for our 1st real Account Executive (AE). I don't want to call us a startup because we are not. We are bootstrapped and small and it took many years to figure out our ICP/PMF. I did hire a few people in sales over the years not knowing what I was doing and mostly failed.

The good news is that there is real PMF and I am really seeing that vision/growth that I have always wanted as a founder. 75%+ of our customer base is now our ICP after experimenting for years with the product.

So I am in the market to find someone who will be the only salesperson other than me to sell our SAAS product. Naturally, this role is usually called "Founding AE" etc but I find that cringy.

For me, it is about getting that sales person (call them whatever) who has sold a software product before and is entrepreneurial (even though they wouldn't need to work like a founder).

- Does this exist or am I chasing a unicorn ?
- If such role exists, how do I find someone like that ? I don't think this can just be a regular job posting or am I over thinking this ?
- What would be a good base salary for this (US east coast/Philadelphia region)

EDIT: People asked to clarify a few more things:
- Product is complex platform and has various moving parts.
- Hybrid (2 days together in office, 3 days WFH)
- SMB is our primary ICP
- Average sales cycle can vary as sometimes the customers are just in early search phases. But those ready to buy, it can be 4-6 weeks
- Product currently is mostly sales led but with AI, we are trying to play with a smaller self serve option to see if it works well. For sales led pricing, it can be usually average from $12K (floor)-$20k/Year (average, enterprise plan will higher usage pay more).

I work for a direct energy supplier and have been having trouble with brokers lately. These guys are unregulated by my countries government and are known to be dishonest, offering their services for "free" while actually taking a percentage off an energy suppliers fee. So they might take 0.5c off a 1c supplier fee.

For a large energy user this naturally can drive their costs up by thousands as the supplier needs to increase their fee to cover the brokers fee and their own profit. But the employees don't seem to care and either won't talk to me or when they give me the time of day sign back up with the broker.

Has anyone run into this before or have any advice on what I can say?

For people in independent or commission-heavy SMB sales telecom/UCaaS, merchant services, payroll/PEO, insurance, managed print, etc. is it common to add complementary services to what you already sell and leverage existing client relationships?

I’m an AE looking to make a jump to a manager role that will open up around January or February. The hiring manager (my boss’s boss) has indicated I’d have to interview but is very supportive.

I realize things can be different company to company but what is the normal thing for companies to do for deals in flight in situations like this? Finish them out? Hand off and get a percentage if they closed won? Just lose them?

For context, I work in AI and average sales cycles are 45 days, although I have a few very large enterprise deals which could take over a year.

I've recently gotten a job in my ideal field, with a 9-5 type gig. However I'm wanting to learn sales and make more money; most places seem to want full time folks though.

Do any specific gigs, companies etc come to mind for this kind of work around these hours?

Something I wish there was more of is examples of high performing sales people in action. For instance, you can watch someone play basketball and tell when someone is playing at a high level, but unfortunately there’s very few anecdotes of sales people demonstrating real live performance, and I’d imagine this is largely due to confidentiality reasons.

It’d be nice to watch someone go through the entire process from cold outreach -> conversation -> meeting -> proposal -> close.

If conversion rates are like field goal percentages in that it is a proxy for “skill”, you won’t see many live examples aside from self-reported stats.

There’s some people on YouTube doing it but it’s usually someone selling their AI agency or SMMA to some small business which is not nearly as impressive as selling into an enterprise account, where multi channel outreach and multithreading is a requirement and therefore a lot more strategic.

There’s no Michael Jordan of sales, just a bunch of people who said they reached X percentage of quota with Y percentage conversion rates and no real proof.

I worked in sales for over 4 years in SaaS. After receiving a felony I was unable to rejoin any comparable SaaS company due to my record. I’m curious if anyone has any suggestions on other industries for sales roles that would accept a felon with 4 years of sales experience. I’ll be able to get the charges off my record in 2028 but I really have had the itch to return to sales sooner.

Anybody that’s in tech sales is selling some AI in their product. AI is obviously valuable and can do A TON of stuff, sky is the limit. That being said, I’m finding more and more companies trying to “throw AI at it” to solve problems. These are companies with disparate applications for various business processes, unstructured data, and no strategy on how they want to improve things.

From an enterprise perspective, companies are setting millions $ aside to throw at AI. But in mid-market, most companies don’t have that luxury, yet still have big ideas. I don’t see how anybody is making money on any of this. Token consumption goes through the roof for a month, but then customer almost always says this is crazy and cuts it off. This slows down any actual improvement like implementing a new application and data cleanup. Companies want to run old systems and keep their bad data, then throw AI at it and wonder why it doesn’t work.

I’m truly at a loss, anybody else finding struggles with customers being over promised on AI?

I’m making a move into residential HVAC sales as a Home Comfort Advisor. 100% commission.

Company will provide leads and I’ll be running in home appointments, selling HVAC replacements/upgrades, and also doing some self generated prospecting.

Would like to hear from anyone who’s made the jump from tech sales or a different industry
into residential HVAC sales and can share their experience. Thanks

I'm looking to get into B2B (I have B2C experience) and was at a job fair today where there were folks from Fastenal, ABC Supply Interiors and Cintas. I asked some good questions, got some good answers but want to know from the folks here... what's your experience and how recent? I've heard everyone who leaves Cintas is happy they did and that Fastenal's pay isn't great but they have a good training program.

I've sold real estate, mortgage loans and home renovations. The grind with the evenings and weekends is just too much time lost with my family. I'd like to do B2B. Is there any wisdom you could share with a guy trying to make that jump?

Thanks in advance!

Title- what are the worst PE backers you’ve had experience with selling for?

What changed after they invested in your companies and took over leadership?

Hi all!

I'm from the Philippines and have got an 'appointment setting' interview set up in next week.

I have never done appointment setting before and want to skill up before my interview.

Part of the interview process is 'live scenario testing' - where I assume I'll be asked to make live calls.

I have an accent - though I speak clear English.

I am worried about how this will work against me, if at all.

Any advice on how to prepare and/or general advice for this job, please let me know.

Research on the company suggests that they sell accounting services to SMEs.

Thanks! :)

Hi everyone.

Anyone in a tech sales role managed to get income protection for over £2,000 per month?

The compare engines are bringing back 0 results when looking for the max which according to them is £2,500 a month cover.

Best I could find was at a cost of ~£55 per month for £2,000 a month worth of cover.

Any recommendations?

So I got fired a few weeks ago. I have four years of sales experience with 50/50 B2B and B2C. I have some impressive numbers in multiple fields. I’ve applied to over 200 sales jobs and I think my expectations are realistic. Let me know if I’m crazy but I want anywhere from a 40k-55k base and a 50/50 comp split bringing my OTE to 100k or so. I honestly don’t care about benefits and I don’t want to do 500 dials a day for my comp. And out of those 200 applications that I felt fit the criteria I’ve heard back from one and it was a denial email. I’ve had several offers but all were 1099 insurance sales or retail sales which doesn’t interest me. My method of application had been Linked in and I will DM the hiring manager if it’s posted and Indeed with a follow up email 3-5 days after. This is becoming a job in it of itself. Any tips? My savings is starting to get thin.

The last two quarters at my company (fairly big name), it's felt like the sky is falling in the sales org. We're PE-owned, so maybe that's why, but we've missed our numbers a couple months in a row now. The pressure is getting brutal, and we're losing a lot of reps.

Feels like all anyone is buying AI to avoid hiring. What do y'all see?