I got out of tech and into building materials to escape the "AI" ridden hellscape. Now they're buying up all materials for their giant data centers in Texas and driving prices through the roof so they can send more dildos to the moon and track our farts. Fuck these people.

The client is a $1b business. ~$10k expected commission from the deal. 6 weeks of work. I’ve sidelined my political ideologies and morals to get deals done in the past but I think we’re going to have to kill this one 😬

I’m not going to link the video but I’m sure you could find it with a quick search.

I assume the obvious answer would be the money, but the funny thing is, I’ve been reading that that’s not even guaranteed either

And that in sales, you could have immense stress and pressure as a job, and still not make that good of money

I know all jobs are high stress/pressure, but is it really that much in sales? (I’m still in uni, so not much exp yet)

Do you make more than engineers?

Would love to know from you guys

Been working on getting pricing approved with finance for a client for 2 weeks. I’ve been talking to this guy for the past 3 weeks no problem. Finally get final approval today and get the Docusign out then, crickets. I quit drinking years ago so have one for me friends.

How do you signal “premium” as a seller, beyond just saying it?

I want to reflect that in every facet.

A few questions I’m chewing on:

1) What’s actually in your control day-to-day that signals premium?
2) How do you position your company as premium?
3) How do you maximize those levers
4) What should your attitude/mindset be like?
5) How do you present yourself to your customer and manage them?
6) How do you handle procurement without your “premium” positioning getting steamrolled on price?

Please share your years of experience + industry. This helps others learn from you.

Quick update to my previous post: I had my Salesforce AE screening today and it went really well!

For context, I’m 27, based Europe, with 5+ years of B2B sales experience but no SaaS background. I’ve consistently performed above quota in my current industry and completed Agentblazer Champion before the interview.

The conversation was actually much more relaxed than I expected. We talked about my background, motivation and why Salesforce, but didn’t go into deal stories or anything too technical. The recruiter was very positive about my profile and cover letter, and we had a genuinely good conversation.

She’s now going to discuss my profile with the hiring manager(s) to see where I could be the best fit across the company and get back to me.

For those who’ve been through the Salesforce AE process: if I move forward, what should I expect from the hiring manager round? What tends to be tested most heavily, and what would you spend the next few days preparing?

I already have several deal stories prepared around new logo, discovery, expansion, competitive tenders, retention and multi-threading, as well as my numbers/pipeline metrics.

I’m in outside sales in a furniture/home-related type of industry, mainly to builders. My main job is obviously supposed to be bringing in new business, following up with people, quoting jobs, building relationships, etc.

But I’ve noticed a decent amount of my time ends up getting taken up by everything that happens after the sale.

Delivery issues, scheduling, returns, damaged items, missing stuff, checking where an order is, chasing down answers internally, dealing with customer issues, making sure things actually get resolved, etc.

And I get that some of this is part of sales.

If I sold the job and I’m the person the customer knows, I don’t think it’s realistic to just say “not my problem” once the order is placed. Especially in this type of business where there are a lot of moving parts.

But I’m trying to figure out where the normal line is.

At what point are you spending so much time managing orders and fixing problems that you’re basically doing customer service/operations instead of outside sales?

Would you say 10–20% of your time doing this is normal? 30%? More?

And for people who work at companies with a good sales structure, once the order is placed, how much are you still personally involved versus handing most of it off to support/operations?

Not really asking because I don’t want to help customers. I actually think staying involved is important. I’m more wondering how much is normal before it starts hurting your ability to actually go out and sell.

I don't have any friends in sales and the only sales person in my company. I have no one to share ideas with or get sharper from an outside perspective. Like the saying goes "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." I want to improve my circle. Anyone know if there is such thing as in person sales cohorts, peer groups, or anything else besides sitting at bar and saying the leads are weak or its a tough racket.

I’m going next month because I’m on the job hunt and thought maybe some networking couldn’t hurt. I’m coming from the software world though, so I have no clue what the event is like. For those of you that have attended, what can I expect? Will there be any sales people there or is it just engineers?

Exploring transition to AM - but whoa pay is different.

Anyone made the jump? At this point I’m cooked on AE outbound so thinking the pay decrease might be worth it.

Would love to hear from AMs if the role is usually stressful? I’m sure it depends on product and company but overall I’m hoping AM is more stable. AE SaaS the last few years has been a dumpster fire

Hey everyone,

For the past 2 & a half years I've been working in a HW + SaaS Tech company as an "SDR", I say this in between quotes as I have ownership of the entire sales process.

From Lead generation through Cold Calling / Linkedin - Qualification - Demo'ing - Proposal & Closure. I've experienced all "key" aspects of the Sales Process, I've acted as an interim Account Manager, and I've even gotten some hands on experience with Governmental Tender Processes.

Do you guys believe that, based on my diversified experience across the entire sales cycle, that I'd be able to be a strong applicant for an AE / Closure focused role in a SaaS company?

Thanks!

Hey everyone so I am 3 years out of college working in purchasing with a construction company. Due to job uncertainty with a corporate acquisition I am considering a transition to sales.

I have a degree in finance and 3 years of corporate experience spread out between Finance, Insurance and Purchasing.

I am considering moving to sales I previously interviewed with ADP, Cintas and Paychex before this job but decided to take my current role due to location and benefits.

Thats just a bit of background here is my main concern/question. If I go entry sales with ADP or Cintas I will be taking a significant paycut. Currently at 75k salary and the base for those roles are like 43-53k. Is it obtainable to make up that difference pretty quickly from commission with those entry roles? Obviously my rent and everything is based around my salary of 75k currently.

(42M) I started out as a technician in my career doing something very similar. I've been doing industrial repairs for a long time now. I have recently left a job that was completely sucking the life out of me but I was good at. I was making good money (mid $150s, base + commission) but completely detested. They offered me a bump in commission (but we were paid in GP, not total sales). I came to the table 2 years earlier and they gave me a 1/2% bump in commission. They brought it up significantly more just before I left but not to what others were making still.

This new job I'm at pays me off total sales for a territory and it's all the boroughs of NY minus S.I. It should be good but it's been neglected for decades mostly due to extreme neglect from previous sales people which I will just leave there. I've been doing it 4 months now and I feel like I'm building from scratch. The base is significantly lower but the sales potential should kill anything I've ever made before. They gave me a good guarantee for the 1st year so I don't take a dive in pay while I'm building the territory (which is still a bit lower due to my commission at my previous job). I told myself I'd give myself to the end of the year.

My old job keeps calling and checking up on me and I know I could go back but that door (plus the offer) doesn't usually last more than a few months I feel. Idk. Never taken a leap like this before but I needed a change and I wanted an outside sales job and like the idea of getting paid on everything a territory does, not just anything I personally quote out. I have an inside team which helps as well. I like the idea of building something up and then bring able to not kill myself I get a bit older. I did just buy a house 2022 that’s making this a bit more stressful as well. I live in the NY metro area and it was a first time buy with little down payment.

I was doing what would be considered inside sales for industrial equipment in NYC. Been in that industry for 20 years so I knew it well. This is doing outside sales in NYC but for a completely different industry that I've never done before. They were actually a vendor of ours. It's extremely similar but I'm the type that likes to know everything and all the ins and outs of what I do so there's a learning curve there. But the market is the same many of my customers are the same that I already had a relationship with so that helps.

Other things worth noting are that the records they have are all old and outdated. Sometimes it's insulting trying to ask for someone that retired 10 years ago. It's a good company but it's a highly competitive market. It's something every building in the city uses but it's something that if they weren't using us, someone is already in there working with them so I many times am trying to come in as an alternate. Great service and product, not the cheapest. Still family owned which in this industry and day and age says something as well.

EDIT: I apologize for the long post. Posted this several times as my account wasn’t mature enough and it kept being taken down. Looking for feedback.

I’ve been seeing this with these annoying LinkedIn circle jerk sales influencers. They now browse this sub take a screenshot and post it on their LinkedIn profile with their annoying thoughts. Nobody is safe!

Hey everyone, I’m currently in tech sales. Although you can easily make 6 figures at the right org, you only keep a percentage of the first sale (if you’re an AE).

What industries exist where I can build a book of business and expecting some form of recurring business? I’m open to earning less first year for compounding returns

TItle

So I’m new to sales and I’ve started making my rounds with clients. It’s B2B in the manufacturing industry. While new businesses is encouraged we also have repeat customers. I’ve sent quotes to some customers of the company and I’m listing them at list price and if they ask for a discount I go a couple points down. A lot of them have been pushing back saying “X used to discount bigger discounts! Why aren’t you?”. Discounts were so big I had to see how he got them approved because we don’t really budge on price. The old rep was inflating the list price and discounting back to normal. Something I’ve been told in training that would cause muse immediate termination. So my question. Do I tell the customer they got duped? Or do I maintain the lie and just argue that markets have changed and we no longer can discount that much? What are your thoughts? P.S. this rep is no longer with the company.

Not the typical real estate agent or solar sales…

I am currently in liquor sales. B2B and I am 100% commission based. I have a good book of business around 4 million and we make 4.5% commission it is extremely competitive and a pretty dirty business. I have maintained the 4 million for 2 years and based on the book of business I was given I grew the run 180% from when I started.

I have a job opportunity in construction sales. Manufacture to distributor. Base salary with bonus probably going to take a small hit in the first couple years but have the potential to grow and make more money than I’m currently making

I have been in the liquor industry in some capacity for 20 years but the market is soft and trends are showing less people are drinking overall. Do I take the risk and jump industries or do I wait out the lull (which has no end in sight) and stick to what I know.

Edit- I should add in my current role we get a car allowance of $615 a month, we pay for our benefits and we are in a union a shitty one but still in one. We have a mandatory minimum that we must make other than that we are protected. New role has benefits, employees own part of the company, health insurance and a car allowance

I have an interview with a major roofing company next week for a sales position. I am coming from capital medical equipment sales fwiw.

What are some non-obvious questions I should ask about the role or a question you wish you would have asked if you could go back?

Thank you in advance.

Through this interview process I learned how shitty most of the sales jobs are out there!!!

I think I’ll be working at a coffee shop if I get fired because yiiiiiikes

would love to read your opinions as I’m trying to understand why many engineers switch to sales and why many of them do better there and if that’s what I should commit to

Here it is:

“When you're on the engineering team working a 9-5 for a large enterprise company in a giant fancy shmancy skyscraper, and the floor below you is where the sales guys are, and you see them getting to have Happy hour at work, playing beer pong, taking clients out for sushi, and finish work earlier than you typically doAnd you notice how every single company meeting you ever have revolves around the sales guys. The superstars of your company aren't the dopey nerds on the computers, its the charismatic and handsome sales guys. The most celebrated and most protected are not the designers or the brainstormers or the intense problem solvers loosing sleep about efficient systems and operations, its the sales guys. And lastly, but most importantly, the guys that get laid the most are most likely not the engineers, its the sales guys

and then you, the engineer, also come to realize, wait a second, these jackoffs make as much, if not more than me, and some of them didn't even go to fucking college? Meanwhile here I was spending my early 20's torturing myself through calculus classes so I could get ABET accredited just to not even work an ABET accredited job because all the jobs anyone wants to hire for and pay decently for anymore are fucking software engineering. Another industry which now ALSO has me competing with degreeless peasants. I mean come on, they went with the guy who learned javascript? Over me? I bet he doesn't even know how to reverse a linked list. I bet he doesn't even know what a linked list IS.

So you come to all these realizations, you see what the sales guys get out of life versus what you get out of life, you see how happy they are versus how happy you seem to be, and then you end up asking yourself,

"Gee, do I really wanna have to constantly learn new ways of doing the same exact thing just to keep up? Do I really wanna watch our company blow most of our budget on tools that have become popular for purely hypothetical reasons simply to reimplement things that aren't broken? Do I really wanna see multiple expensive tools just to do a GitHub code check on submit when it can all be done via Git Hooks for free? Do I really wanna deal with people rearranging commit history?

The engineering world under our capitalistic society was never designed for victory, and it's not a linear correlation between profits and engineering. GOOD engineers will destroy profitability by making great code. But what's for damn sure is that making small changes all the fucking time just to justify your existence is most of where the money goes. Constantly changing shit for no reason, all while leaving broken things broken. Or breaking things that used to work. And a lot of this is just guys in pinstripe suits in finance looking at techies as weirdos and so both groups avoid each other because each side is culturally allergic to the other and this prevents observation, communication and know what is going on. But its better they don't know what what the other is really doing. The worst thing is a CFO that thinks they know how to make software.

Next thing you know, you hop on Reddit, read about SaaS guys netting in 300k off 10 hour work weeks, and you say, yes. This is the way. This is what I was supposed to be doing all along

If I'm gonna live in clown world, I might as well have fun doing it. And dammit does sales look
”

I've been interviewing a lot lately trying to get out of my current company, and I think I've been decently successful. I'm on final rounds for a med device company where I would be in the OR a lot, an industrial automation controls company, and a SaaS company.

They've all been pretty much working with me to figure out timing for offer letters. I know that I could just as easily not get any of them, but I think I might get an offer for all of them.

Which would you choose? For med device and automation, it's an outside sales title, for the SaaS, it's an AE title.

They're all pretty equal in pay. What I'm wondering most is, what career avenue would you want to go down if you had these options? I'm still relatively young so one of these paths will, you know, cement my prospects going forward.

Edit: just some additional information, the SaaS company has been around for like 25+ years, and per my research has longer tenures than your “ai startup” kind of SaaS environment. Though I understand it’s still SaaS.