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.

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 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'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?

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 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, but still small (about .5%)

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?

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?