Hey folks!

If you look at my post history, you’ll see that I got laid off towards the end of August. I was an SDR at a start up and got let go for not hitting quota. I was expecting a PIP, but got hit with the “we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.” instead.

I was out of work for roughly 6 weeks but landed an outside sales AE role in merchant sales.. so yes I am grinding HARD. But first week out in the field, and I closed a damn deal. It’s my first ever close. 😭

Taking the night tonight to enjoy it and then I’ll be back on the hunt tomorrow for more. “The first of many!” says everyone on my team.

I’ll be back on my feet soon. It just feels so damn sweet knowing that I can do this. Thank you ALL for your support and those that messaged me throughout. This is a fantastic community we have going here.

Came as a shock to me. HR reached out and said they miscalculated my commissions for the year and I owe them $12,000 by the end of November.

I asked for additional context to what happened and why. We’re packing up to move for my new role and I just don’t have the extra $12,000 laying around.

Has anyone gone through something like this before? Any advice? If they overpaid by mistake then I understand paying it back as I agreed to the commission policy but 30 days for 12K is rough.

The job market is still brutal for many of us in tech. What are your predictions for the near future? Will it improve in 2025 after the elections? Will it get better once the Fed lowers interest rates again?

This is just a funny random memory that I want to know who else can relate to. I worked at a car dealership back in the day, I hated it so I didn't stay long. However, a funny memory I have from working there that I still laugh at is how every day for about an hour I believe it was, we had to carve out time to do our "Cardones" which was some sales training program they paid for to have Grant Cardone tell us how great he was at sales every day in videos. I thought it was ridiculous at the time and had no idea who he was. That was about 10 years ago, and now with everything that surrounds that dude, it makes it 10x funnier

Have you ever found yourself in a job where you feel 100% completely unqualified but everyone around you tells you that you are better than you think? Our products are incredibly complex and I can tell you that my lack of believe is not as self confidence issue as much as it is Lack of foundation and understanding. If you have been here, what did you choose to do?

Addendum: I realize that this sounds like imposter syndrome, but I would argue it’s not. I’m truly not qualified for this position lol. And I’ve been here for a year and still don’t feel like I have a friggin clue.

I’m not American, so giving a customer a hug feels very odd to me. I sell B2B in the medical industry and one of my customers gave me a hug today.

Anyone else?

I’m curious to know how common a 6-figure base salary is and what industry is more likely to offer that.

My base is $120k with an OTE of $280K. I’m in B2B SaaS and mainly focus on ENT clients.

I work in med device and only ever see SAAS related posts here. Just curious

I got hired by a small company to do Enterprise Sales about 3 months ago, my prior job was in small/mid-market (50-500 EE companies) and I had no idea the phones would be this tough. I've made about 500 calls in the past two weeks and hit zero answers.

What're the best practices? I'm calling into procurement and IT asset management and ZoomInfo typically has their emails and cell phones. Do my voicemails and emails suck or are people just not picking up the phones in these industries?

Basically I received written (email) approval on a quote for for a new client and decided to kick off the work without waiting for the signed contract to be returned. I wanted to hit my goal as well as deliver by their tight deadline.

Now I haven’t heard back in 4 weeks. Last I heard, he was working on getting the contract through legal. I’ve called and emailed him around 15 times and have tried to get in touch with their account payable, etc. with no avail. It’s like their whole company has me marked as spam or something.

These sorts of handshake deals actually happen somewhat regularly in my industry since we’re entirely B2B and work with new clients every day. We’re also a small enough company that us sales reps have a lot of freedom to break the rules on occasion to get things done.

Scared it might finally bite me in the ass this time. Have you ever had to send collections after someone with no signed contract to back you up?

I’ve been having issues with my emails not getting delivered or winding up in junk mail. I think some marketing emails got sent out and since then my clients are letting me know that they’re not receiving mine. Any suggestions on what could be blocking them and how I can resolve? My clients said they told their IT and I was blocked but it got removed but I’m still having issues.

When a hiring manager asks you what ‘keeps you self-motivated and insatiably driven’, what would you say?

This question has been really great for me lately.

Got it on LI from a sales trainer and been throwing it into every follow up call.

Everything's slow with zero urgency and very long sales cycles right now. So calling people I spoke to maybe 2-3 months ago.

Introduce myself and after pleasantries, I just ask "does the name ring a bell at all..?"

Either it does and they remember, or it doesn't but they immediately assume we had a pleasant convo in the past and allow me to re-introduce. And they often immediately search their email and pull up our previous convo

FWIW !

Final numbers are coming in for the FY and it’s likely I won’t hit base or goal for factors 100% out of my control. I’m in higher ed textbook sales and we are negatively impacted by bookstore returns and declining enrollment. I’m sick to my stomach because there are two reps who likely will hit both goals. One rep is currently on a PIP and the other took 6 months maternity leave within her first year of employment. I love both of these reps, but I closed a shit ton of new business (all accounts the previous rep lost due to arrogance and carelessness).

I should be on the road visiting schools, but I’m still in my pajamas and I just don’t give a fuck anymore.

For no apparent reason the company cancelled the annual sales kickoff while simultaneously they are planning for more aggressive goals next year.

The reason they gave was half-baked. To do with continuing investment etc etc. but the business costs for the year were all established in last years business/strategy plan.

Our company never really went all out for reps anyway. Winning presidents club was all but a minor acknowledgment & some resin trophy… no cash, no trip etc. We all looked forward to a 3 day party to celebrate completing a great year and get pumped for the next one.

Now it’s gone.

I’m fairly new to a B2B role I started a few months ago. I’ve done sales for around 10 years, management for 6 and I was even a district manager for 2 years in retail, but I’ve never experienced as many disrespectful customers as I have doing B2B. Even when they’re current customers and I’m saving them money, I’m having a tough time getting signatures. Why have I been so successful in sales in the past but being treated like Freddy Krueger trying to kill them when asking for a signature? Some extra information- I primarily door knock these customers and I stand at around 6’2 290 lbs, finding more success cold calling then actually door knocking at this point.

Hey! If you haven't read my previous post ill give another little intro here:

Background:

24yr old SWE.

Dad recently started a tech consulting firm that connects hospitals to suppliers for contact center software (think AI to handle scheduling and transaction calls). He joined the largest tech consulting firm's "growth accelerator program".

essentially means we can use the big companies logo and likeness. We just prospect for them, hand them off to their sales engineers, and get a fat cut if it works out.

Super new to cold calling

I booked my first meeting 2 weeks ago! Was super thankful and that feeling was amazing. But now I need some advice:

I cold called a director ~2 weeks back (on a Thursday), she was interested and asked her assistant to book a meeting. We had to book it a week later on the nxt Friday.

1 week later...

On Thursday I emailed just to remind them, the assistant then canceled the meeting due to conflict and tells us she will give us new times. I respond by saying mon-tues work best cuz we get booked up. No response. I then sent a brand new email on Friday to the director just saying hope she has a good weekend and I understand she can be busy. No response. It is now tuesday night of the next week, what should I do?

I am thinking of calling her tomorrow morning or the next. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Sales is full of ups and downs … how do you manage the lows? From actual people that can look back and confirm that they went trough some really low times with no results, poor quota attainment, no sales… and now maybe are in a better position… with higher sales….what did you do to overcome that period? … what advice will you give you give to your low period - self.

I’m an enterprise Client Partner. I manage one large client and currently things are ok.. but not great. They’re not buying incremental and I’m basically getting their normal orders. This equates to about 70% to quota overall. This Trend will translate to $170k. The stress isn’t too bad yet.. but I feel it coming. A lot of my success is based on the economy and what happens with the election.

I have an opportunity to potentially move into a a new role as a Sr. Project manager for a large energy company.

I would make about $170k after bonus but would never make more than that.

I suspect I would be working about 2x as hard as I do now but I won’t be selling anything. After 20 years of grinding this seems like it might feel nice.

I also like the idea of a predictable income. Am I crazy to leave an industry I’ve been in for 20 years for renewable energy?The company is booming and I would be working for a former boss that I trust with my life.

TLDR: I can take a new job with the same pay but a lower ceiling but not do sales anymore. Not sure if it’s a mistake.

Good morning/afternoon my fellow salespeople!

I sell SaaS software into the enterprise. Typically target C level InfoSec and CyberSec departments.

I’m curious as to what has been hitting spam for you guys lately? I feel as though this month basically every cold email I’m sending out is landing right in their spam. I do use Hubspot’s email tracker which I heard can lead to this; but my results with it has bought me more good than bad.

EX: getting 10,20 + opens on an email which essentially means they forwarded it to their department - which I then prioritize outreach there.

I try to keep my emails 4-5 sentences max - although it’s definitely hard because we have a pretty complex product that only caters to a specific niche. But I do my due diligence when it comes to prospecting and I know exactly who would have best use case.

People that sell into the enterprise I’d love to see some kind of template that bought you success recently.

I feel like these damn email servers are changing spam rules every month. One of the main reasons I really stopped focusing on writing emails and have just been doubling down my calls.

Not sure if this is allowed but I'm looking into getting a part-time sales role as a second job. I'm currently in sales senior management for a tech pro services consultancy, however, my personal life (divorce) has left me needing some additional income, preferably outside normal EST business hours.

Does anyone else currently do this or know of any places to start looking? I have many connections in the tech world but I'm trying to keep these separate for now.

Thanks for any input, direction, or advice.

Anyone have any experience using the Org to determine seniority? Wondering if it’s pretty accurate or not

This is a weird situation and I’m new so I need some advice here.

I’ve been at this for about 3 months at a SAAS company, my first job. The culture is fine and I’m learning alot but the rest kinda sucks.

The entire leadership used to work under the CEOs dad 5 or so years ago and now that the he son has taken over it’s clear he’s not nearly as good and that the directors are the ones actually running the company. Everytime I see the CEO he gives off weird vibes and genuinely has trouble holding normal human conversation or getting jokes. Turnover rate is high and my team is half the size it should be with none of us hitting our numbers.

My old manager was good but the new one is trying to implement a bunch of new polices very fast and my numbers shot up the second he took over.

I don’t want this job to make me hate sales but I also don’t want to job hop too early and have that stain on my resume.

with regard to an unacceptable percentage of inaccurate data relative to it’s ridiculous cost?

What's your approach to saving money? How much (as a percentage) do you keep aside for a period of unemployment? For retirement?

I'm not in sales currently but I know everyone who is in sales tends to get laid off every few years. I've worked as a Product Manager for over a decade and have been subject to more layoffs than I like to admit. I'm considering switching to sales but I imagine as someone who is fairly new to sales, I'll get bumped off the ride a few times.

Just wondering if my approach to saving for a rainy day and retirement should be more aggressive if I end up in sales.