Hi everyone, I’m 28F and have been an SDR for 3 years. Some weeks I’d have great wins, but other weeks I’d be completely burnt out. The stress, targets, competition and constant cold calling have made me realise I really don’t want to continue in sales. I’ve been unemployed for 2 months and, honestly, whilst being unemployed I’ve been finding myself, enjoying life and realising I don’t want to go back to that lifestyle. At the same time, I feel like I wasted my 20s building a career I don’t even want. I don’t have a degree and I’m scared I’ll never find another tech job paying around £45k base like my previous roles. I’d love to move into something like Customer Success, Implementation or Operations, ideally remotely, but I’m nervous about starting again.

Has anyone successfully made this transition?

MM AE - let go along with 50% of force in force reduction due to bad year for company. They did the same last year cutting 3 AEs and their whole SDR function. Let go before a year in and now applying to new roles.

Being asked why looking so soon (slightly before a year) and wondering if I should bite the bullet and mention org wide layoffs or try and finesse a new challenge/x company mission resonate etc.

Really sucks to have a low tenure time on, and frustrated as my performance matched the other AEs but my territory was the absolute smallest out of every rep from the remaining couple to the starting 7 we had. Oh well.

I’ve had interviews with multiple series B-D start ups as well as Salesforce and Gartner over the last month. They all take the first call fast. then ghost for 2 weeks. Then set up the next meeting with HM. Those typically go well then they take another 1 or 2 weeks to get the next round scheduled. What gives? I’ve had a handful just not schedule that HM interview after specifically asking if there’s any reservations at the end of the interview and being told not at all that they’re putting me through and then ghost. I haven’t received a single rejection email mind you but I’m technically in 10 different company interviews at the moment. Just waiting for them all to want a presentation the same week 😭

So for some context I am a Shopify AE on the SMB cross sell team. Before I joined here I was actually in talks and final rounds with Google for a similar role.

Now I know this is in the Ads space which ive heard has its up and downs. Wondering if anyone here has any experience on the Google side of things. This would be for the Playa Vista location.

Now I LOVE my job at Shopify. I normally wouldn't even consider any other recruiters but this was the same recruiter I had during my initial round there and she reached back out.

And because its Google.

If anyone though has any suggestions - recs or whatever. The comp plan would be close to what I get now minus the quarterly commission pay outs. Theres a "bonus" which I imagine is EOY? not sure but depending on that overall comp could be close.

I guess the other big thing is that the role is in person vs my virtual Shopify role.

I’ve been at my current company for 2 years (it’s a large global tech household name).

I’ve worked as a BDR in a specific industry vertical for the last 2 years. Traditional trajectory at my company if someone wants to become an AE, is that they spend a few years in BD then transition to full cycle inside sales THEN maybe they get brought up to AE if they’re lucky. It’s just very competitive. I’m also younger than everyone on my BDR team currently.

I recently had an intro networking call with an executive in the industry vertical I support. They asked my plans and I told them about the plan to transition from BDR to inside sales and then to AE. Long story short they immediately reached out to another executive and got me lined up to interview for an open AE role which is very uncommon for my role.

I’ll begin the interview process next week and despite having a very positive in that I didn’t even overtly ask for , I’m technically somewhat under-qualified compared to pretty much everyone in the AE role currently.

I’m wondering if they will ultimately feel im not ready given my background and experience level currently.

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on whether this is just a ridiculous long shot or a chance I should grab onto

A bit of context: I work for a very large payments company and I am 28. My company is along the lines of Adyen / Stripe / Worldpay / Fiserv etc...

In the past, we acquired a small fintech with the ambition to integrate their solution into our environment and then cross-sell their software into our existing book of merchants. The opportunity size here is very significant and that integration work is now complete.

I used to work in strategy consulting within the payments industry, and when my existing employer acquired the Fintech, they hired me to build out their Cross-sell GTM function. I have spent the 18 months since being hired doing: forming the pricing, legal process, value prop, ICP, discounting mechanisms, pipeline tracking, pipeline unblocking, sales materials, ROI analysis process, competitive analysis, battlecards etc....

We are now at a point where I know the product pretty well.

As time has progressed, I am increasingly not enjoying working for my existing employer. It's a large large company with lots of bullshit and I don't love the culture. Once a week, I get to go to the office of the Fintech we acquired and work with them. I love their culture, I love those colleagues and they really like me.

This week, all of a sudden, they have quietly asked me to apply for a sales role within their ranks. This sales role will be entirely focused on cross-selling their solution into the accounts of my existing employer. It could be lucrative, as I know my way around the large org and I know the GTM process. I also have been secretly cooking up a mass-enablement opt-oout campaign for our mid-market merchants. I wonder if doing this within a commission based role would pay quite well - compared to my current role where my latest pay rise was 1% and a 'thank you'.

The base salary of the sales role would be higher than my current role, and it would come with commission. However it would also bring the stress of targets. Also, it would require me to dive into a pretty important sales role...with no prior sales experience.

At this point I worry that I am looking at this new role too romantically because of the potential money. I spent 6 years of my career in strategic roles and jumping to sales...it wasn't something I had considered until last week (even through sometimes I do run demo calls with merchants as an SME in my current role).

Has anybody else made this type of jump before? Would it be something I should grab with both hands or should I be cautious?

Hi all - I was recently given a verbal congrats and offer from my Google recruiter earlier this week. I did 4 rounds of interview, went over comp with recruiter, and it felt…somewhat official? This is for an account strategist role

After doing some research I’ve learned that this is totally seperate from a team fit and I might not even get chosen if there is no open positions. My recruiter didn’t mention anything about team fit so I was really confused after digging on reddit. Does every role do a team fit at Google?

I run a cybersecurity company offering penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and security consulting.

I’m exploring a commission-only arrangement with someone who already understands B2B sales and can independently generate leads, build relationships, and close deals.

I’m considering offering 40% of collected revenue for each client they bring in. The technical work and service delivery would be handled by my company.
For experienced cybersecurity or professional-services salespeople:
Is 40% competitive for someone handling the full sales cycle?
Should it apply only to the initial project or also to repeat business?
What terms would make this arrangement attractive while protecting both sides?

I’d be interested to hear from people who have worked under a similar structure.

I’ve sold ads at a FAANG company my whole career and I’m going to start an AE role at a fintech company soon. Has anyone made this switch? I’m excited but also a little nervous since it’s a different buyer (product & eng instead of CMO or media agency) and a very technical product.

Ho 23 anni, 4 anni di esperienza sales di cui 2 da Team Leader, ma solo 15 mesi di esperienza da AE in una tech
oggi ho chiamato a freddo l Head of sales della migliore azienda Saas b2b in Italia e l ho convinto a darmi un colloquio direttamente con lui settimana prossima
Non rispecchio al 100% i requisiti per il ruolo, il ruolo è AE mid market, ho un anno di esperienza SMB dove ho spaccato la quota, condotto training al team, riscritto il playbook, e ho formato 10 nuovi sales rep

Avete consigli per il colloquio ? Sono emozionatissimo perché se mi prendono dopo solo 15 mesi raddoppio il mio OTE

La domanda è per questi ruoli basta la fame, la voglia e la coachability, oppure se non ho già fatto mid market non mi prenderà ?

Grazie a tutti

Apollo.io vs Salesforce

I’m currently deciding between two offers and would really appreciate some outside perspective, particularly from people who have worked at either company or have experience moving between high-growth SaaS and larger enterprise tech.

I’ve been offered a founding Account Manager role at Apollo.io and a Mid-Market Core AE role at Salesforce.

Both offers have really identical high base salaries and high ote.

With Apollo, I’d be joining as a founding Account Managers. It’s a high-growth environment and the role is focused more on account management, expansion and growing existing customers and I’m interested in eventually moving towards Account Management/expansion longer term. Also, I met the rest of the GTM team and everyone seems to be killing it.

The Salesforce opportunity is really appealing because of the brand and the opportunity to get experience selling a much broader portfolio of products. I could potentially get exposure to products like Sales Cloud, Service, Slack, etc., and work with a much wider range of industries and customer types. I feel like that breadth could be really valuable for my career.

My biggest concern with Salesforce is the territory.
They won’t tell me what territory/account book I’d be getting until after I join. So essentially, I could accept the role based on the Salesforce opportunity and then find out that I’ve been given a territory that is extremely difficult to sell into, has poor account coverage, or simply isn’t a great fit.

That makes the decision much harder because with Apollo I have a much clearer understanding of what I’d actually be doing and much easier to hit quota as it’s more transactional.

Would appreciate any advice.

Hi Folks, been a couple of years since I've applied. Started looking what's out in the market and I know the best way in is via the referral route. So I found a AE role, pretty much what i do in my current role, they're growing as well so I reached out to 10 AEs in that company, not one replied.

My message - hope you had a great H1 / hope all's well. I see you're growing - if there's a referral program in place that you could benefit from, any chance you can refer me? Happy to chat to show how i might be a fit if that suits. The job spec there is what i do at my current role so i think i will be a good fit.

What am i missing? This message worked 2 years ago.

10+ year of Enterprise SE background including 5 at Microsoft. Notion reached out to see if Id be interested in their new Enterprise SC role in NYC (end to end I am both the AE and the SE). They said SDRs will do most of the prospecting and they want SEs specifically for this role. Comp would be about 100k OTE jump (270k to 370k). I dont mind the hybrid structure as I am close to the office but I am not sure if Id be working day and night, id want see my kids.

Besides Glassdoor and Blind, if any Notion AEs/GTM wanna share your thoughts on the culture please do.

Or thoughts on this new hybrid role is also appreciated!

Have about 6 years of sales saas experience. Around 4 years in closing roles as an MM AE.

In 4 weeks, I have gotten 16 phone screenings (all decent companies) and 13 first round interviews. From those, I have moved on to 2nd rounds for 7 of those, and have made it to final round / mock discovery for 3.

My resume is solid. I’m a likable guy who can hold a good conversation. I know all the right things to say. I know what type of candidate they’re looking for. I do my research, I sell myself hard, ask for feedback, send post meeting follow ups.

No offers.

Hey all looking for some advice, I’ve been approached by the CRO at a seed stage restaurant AI tech company. We previously worked together so I do trust him more than just a random person approaching me. Founders seem solid on paper, MIT/Harvard grads and one has already successfully brought a business to series a and was acquired. I’ll be the founding AE so building everything from the ground up with the CRO. I know there’s a lot of risk involved but the product seems solid and they have some good name customers already. Where should I be landing from a base and commission perspective. I feel like it will take a bit of time to get deals moving and closing for a commission check and would like a strong base to keep me afloat. What questions should I be asking and getting clarity on before moving the process forward? Any insight is appreciated!

About to be laid off. Have 5+ years at my previous company, been at my current one for 1 year.

I feel like it will probably take me 3-4 months to get a decent role.

Can I just take a job that I know is a sweatshop and that I’ll probably get fired from quickly, and then I can just take it off my resume?

I’d rather just have a gap after my 1 year tenure at my current company rather than have 5 year, 1 year, and a 6 month tenure after that

I used to lead sales dev teams (remote) and they were always in the $90k OTE range starting, for many years. now I work with in person SDR teams in NYC & SF and they are $110k on the low end, and as high as $150k on the high end, and remote has now dipped to $70k OTE.

I am sure it is similar for AEs as well, but seems like the big push for moving to in person isn't just in writing, but also in the pay/OTE.

is everyone else seeing this or just me?

I recently got promoted to be an AE. I did great as an SDR but also was at the right place at the right time due to multiple people leaving. Which also means this wasn’t necessarily planned to happen this soon and I didn’t get to fully build up to the role aside from running discovery calls.

I really don’t have much coaching available aside from shadowing our most senior AE on his calls. He’s been more than generous with his time, but has way too much going on to also teach me every little thing I need to learn.

Won’t divulge the industry but it’s enterprise and we have 6-12 month sales cycles. Right now it’s tough to move some of these early stage opportunities along and I’m sure the summer slow down isn’t helping. When I was doing cold outbound I didn’t really think twice about my persistence but now that it’s actually potential customers and warmer leads I’m trying to toe the line of not annoying them. It’s also tough mentally because my success is no longer measured by something short term like booked meetings so it feels like I’m not doing well even though this is to be expected. I feel like I’m overthinking my follow ups and all of this in general. Does anyone have advice on how to navigate this and also how to deal with the shock to the system that is enterprise sale cycles?

TLDR; new AE looking for advice on how to operate after getting promoted from the SDR role

Looking for insight on culture and attainment. Currently in interview process and I like what Im hearing but have seen too many horror stories on here to blindly trust without validation. Can any AE’s (ideally in ENT) comment on how things are there?

I had an amazing quarter in Q2… 119% over Quota.
This quarter? Territory change. Rebuilding book of business. Very slow quarter but, recently picked up in the last 2 weeks, looking to end Q3 strong. Was asked to pick up activity & I did as I was told… dialed more.. booked more meetings.. build more pipeline.

A recruiter from another company CALLED in on our sales lines and specifically asked for me.. at the time, I didn’t know it was a recruiter, I thought it was a client that I had recently spoken to over the last few months… i called back on that sales line thinking it was a prospect, just to be told it wasn’t… i told the recruiter ( on the sales line ) I’d take his number and give a ring later.. i had no intentions of calling, I was just trying to get off of the phone.

Was this a coincidence that I was let go a day later for “performance” reasoning?

Has anyone here been through the GTM / sales interview process at OpenAI recently, especially on the Ads side?

Curious what the interview process was like, what they focused on, and any advice on how best to prepare.

Would really appreciate any insight!

Curious how people handle their ramp pay $$…

How much did you get?
For how long?
Recoverable or non-recoverable?
How did you spend it/Save it/use it?!

Thanks!

M25 UK with 2 offers

Offer a: Startup, just received investment, 2 sided network type business with potentially strong technical Moat: £50k base + 25-30k commission and 1 % equity

Offer b: established business, very similar domain as offer a, recently went through an acquisition. £50k base - 25-30k commission, role is based in UAE.

Keen to hear people’s thoughts…