How often do you consider switching careers? Sales and Selling |
- How often do you consider switching careers?
- Promoted to Sales Manager and up for my first sales training
- What's a good/bad starting salary out of college?
- Advice on selling wholesale clothing?
- I'm just going to vent a bit. Or a lot.
- Golden Handcuffs. What do I do now?
- When the pressure is on or you are out the door
- Gartner Large Enterprise AE or Billtrust
- Do you ever feel like you’ve worked yourself into a box?
- Should I stay in B2B sales or accept non-sales offer at a medical sales company in order to go into medical/pharma sales?
- Should I apologize for frequently reaching out?
- What do you do when a prospect who doesn’t answer your calls text you to ask for you to text them instead?
- Picked for a second round interview for an account executive job, advice needed
- Mental block with sales/linked to a bad experience?
- What’s social media tools are you using to follow your prospects and accounts to watch for trigger events?
- Prospect’s company blocked my domain
- I'm familiar with the online email testers, but they're very slow. What's the best way to test 1,000 email addresses?
- What's the best way to build a leads database?
- TV Dashboard/ticker for sales floor - best options?
- Transitioned from the fires of tech sales to a more niche Industry that is not commission based dealing with 20+ year relationships AMA
- Any CDMO Business development or API account manager professionals here that can offer tips?
- Interview Case Study
- A recruiter for a Boston-based company asked me when I graduated and my previous salary. And she called me at 6:39 AM.
- Side hustle question
| How often do you consider switching careers? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 07:25 AM PDT I've been a long time lurker, and I love this channel. Thought I'd ask what's on my mind. I've been in Sales since 16, starting at Bestbuy, then going into telco, then technology hardware, and now in enterprise SAAS. About once a year I get the feeling or urge to just say fuck it and switch roles and careers all together. The feeling comes and goes, but it's something that comes up every so often. I have a technical BA degree and love the software industry but often battle with the idea of have a long lasting career in sales. The money is great, the stress and BS that comes with it is manageable for now. Does anyone else struggle with this thought or have made the change to or away from sales? [link] [comments]  |
| Promoted to Sales Manager and up for my first sales training Posted: 16 Oct 2020 01:25 AM PDT Hi, I recently got promoted to Sales Manager. Our company is an IT infrastructure/managed services provider. Now i'm up for my first sales training, starting with the "first line", the inside sales/backoffice. A lot of smaller deals are lost due to a lack of follow-up or not the right skills to use the right questions/triggers. What is, for you, essential in this training? Thanks for your input! [link] [comments]  |
| What's a good/bad starting salary out of college? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:22 AM PDT Hi! I'm a senior in college and have been interviewing for sales jobs. What's a fair starting salary? Maybe a better way to put it would be: what's a BAD starting salary if there is one. As of right now, ,my mindset is that I'd be happy for any opportunity, but wanted to hear what you all had to say. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Advice on selling wholesale clothing? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:58 AM PDT Hi r/sales! I'm a complete beginner that got into the apparel (women's jeans) wholesale business. It's a relatively new business (2 years) and I have absolutely no clue how to sell to our customers, who are mostly boutique and online store owners. I currently only do emailing to our customers by sending them photos/catalogue of our new styles. I also considered cold calling, but most customers are busy during the day tending to their own customers that come into shop in their stores. My email body would be something like this: "Hi ____, this is u/manhowdoi with ____ sending over our catalogue of new styles available. These styles compose of soandso materials. We are also currently offering free shipping for orders +$200. Please let me know if you have any questions about the styles." I'd really appreciate any insights or tips that will teach me how to become a better salesman. Thank you in advance for the time and help. [link] [comments]  |
| I'm just going to vent a bit. Or a lot. Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:54 AM PDT I've been where I am for about a month and a half and I've grown from being incredibly excited about the opportunity to feeling bitter, angry, and mislead. I accepted the position because, even though the base salary was dog-shit, it was presented as a product that was in high demand, the company has been seeing record growth for about a year, and it has a very short sales cycle. It's strictly cold calling. I haven't done a lot of cold calling over the past four years (most of the companies we reached out to at my last couple companies didn't have phone numbers, so Skype/Linkedin/Email worked best), though I'd always enjoyed it and thought this was a great chance to hone my skills. However, I'm making 100-150 dials a day and I'm getting, on average, one pickup per day. My best day yet four people I've dialed have picked up. This, combined with the awful base salary and completely fucked up job market, has really left me beyond stressed out. I've asked for help with the problems I'm having, namely that I can't get in touch with anyone, and have heard in response "what do you want us to do? We can't make people pick up the phone" from everyone I've asked. I've suggested supplementing the calling with email and they've responded that they don't want us doing any email outreach. Which wouldn't be an issue if picking up the phone worked. I'm prospecting for all the companies I reach out to myself, with zero guidance, and attempts for feedback on the companies I've researched have resulted in someone in management taking a five second glance at my now 2,000 company long list and saying "that looks okay". I'm seeing other reps (all of which are in another vertical) getting in touch with people and closing deals. Remember how I said the company's seeing record growth? It's all in that vertical. The one I'm not in. They get more commission per deal, there's WAY more money to be made in that vertical, and of the 9 people on the sales team, 7 of them are in it. The only person getting anything done in my vertical is the VP, who I report in to. There's one senior rep in my vertical, who seems to be getting in touch with people. This should be great, since I report into this guy and he's finding success. Most attempts to learn from him have come to nothing, as he's set, and then cancelled, more than 6 meetings we've had on the books to help me through these challenges. The few times I have spoken with him, I haven't received any meaningful feedback. The pitch method where I'm at is a 1,250 word, four page long script, and the sale strategy is just to talk at the prospect as much as possible describing the features of our product, and while it works for people, it's SUCH an obnoxious way of selling. I've always taken a consultative approach to selling, and been a firm believer in the power of shutting the fuck up and listening. I've resolved to leave my ego at the door though. This is a vastly different way of doing things than I'm used to, and when I started I resolved to shut the fuck up, listen, and work hard, as I'd figured it would be a good chance to learn something. I haven't learned anything, and the way they do things clearly isn't working, at all though. I left a job with twice my current base salary, because, while I was closing deals, I wasn't making as much commission as I was accustomed to, and no one else in the company spoke passable English (it was weird). Also, the industry I was coming from has been declining for years and is SUPER unethical, so I figured it was good timing to leverage my experience and look for something better. I've been in sales for 9 years. A year ago I was leading a three person sales team, for a company I loved (which unfortunately went out of business due to a poorly timed YOLO bank loan during a downturn), making $140k+ per year, and feeling hopeful about the future. Oh, did I mention that my current role is actually just an SDR role? Yeah. I'm appointment setting for the VP who closes the client. It would have been GREAT to have known that before taking the job, because I never would have taken it. I don't know what my point is here. I'm resentful: at them for misrepresenting the opportunity and sticking me in a bullshit vertical, and for myself for being stupid enough to believe any of the bullshit I was fed in the interview process. I'm looking at the numbers for what I'm doing, and if I were to make 200 calls per day, I MIGHT, with a shitload of luck, get as much as my previous base. I'm so tired. [link] [comments]  |
| Golden Handcuffs. What do I do now? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:27 AM PDT I've been in b2b IT sales for about 8 years, both on the reseller and manufacturer side. Even before that, I was in IT procurement. I'm tired now. I've had my fill of it. I want to find something else that would allow me to be more creative. I dont know what. Maybe advertising, pr, brand strategy... I know my skills are transferable, but I can't imagine what I could do that wouldn't require a MAJOR pay cut. What the hell do people do after sales? [link] [comments]  |
| When the pressure is on or you are out the door Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:19 AM PDT Having been told I have 7 weeks to book 6 meetings (doesn't sound bad but we offer a niche product) in or I'm being made redundant am thinking how the F shall I approach this. Trying to book our clients isn't a small order, some people take months even a year to book!!!! I've got to book 6 people in. Telephone numbers aren't in an abundance to call or they are invalid or wrong and responses back to emails aren't great either. How would you organise yourself to achieve this ? Fyi I did say it's unrealistic but management refused it. [link] [comments]  |
| Gartner Large Enterprise AE or Billtrust Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:01 AM PDT Working to make a decision between two offers. 1 is a Large enterprise Account Executive for Gartner while the other is a hunter role for Billtrust in their Corporate Large Market division. Both are 125k base whereas Gartner is a 215k OTE and BT is a 250k OTE. I come from a hunter SaaS background currently. Pros for Gartner: Established company with great name recognition. Hunter/Farmer role. Fortune 500 level accounts and the experience that brings. Established local accounts to maintain and up sell. Not just another "slanging software" job. Cons: less ote but might be more attainable. Huge company with many management layers. Seems like they have very rigid process metrics. Sale of an intangible (research and analytics). Pros for Billtrust: Higher OTE but attainment might be lower so that is all relative. Pure hunter role which is what I am doing today. Smaller and in high growth mode. Stock options. Management seems more relaxed and flexible to individual processes/style. Potential future IPO. Cons: less name recognition, smaller sized companies (giving up potential enterprise resume experience here). Unsure of strength of value prop for companies of this size (below $500M). Travel into territory required. What experience does anyone have in either role or knowledge of these companies? I would prefer specific to the Large Enterprise at Gartner GTS. What else am I missing? Feedback and recommendations appreciated as I deliberate this decision. TIA. [link] [comments]  |
| Do you ever feel like you’ve worked yourself into a box? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 06:10 AM PDT I've been in sales for 6 years after spending 5 years in a technical role. I've become really good at it, but there are quite a few aspects I don't enjoy at all. I sell architecture/engineering services to local governments and I'm tired of schmoozing politicians and being out late for council meetings or fundraisers. I'm looking for other opportunities and have identified a couple within my current company. After some lengthy discussions, this week I was told they understand why I wouldn't want to be in my current role, but there is no other opportunity and won't be for a few years. Basically, the job is the job...if you don't like it, it's all we have for you so goodbye. For reference I'm at a medium sized company with over 500 employees. I'm going to try to turn my attitude around and stick with it, but with a complete lack of leadership from my direct supervisor, I think it's going to be difficult. I don't have any interest in doing the same role at another firm. Now I feel like my only option is to do something completely different and switch careers, but in the meantime, does anyone have any thoughts for getting out of a rut or feeling like you've worked yourself into a box? My company's thought was I would be in this role forever. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2020 09:55 AM PDT So i've wanted to go into medical or pharma sales for years but haven't been able to get my foot in the door yet. I'm a recent college grad with 1 year of telecommunication sales and 1.5 year of inside saas sales and some great successes on my resume, but unfortunately my last job was eliminated due to covid so I've been interviewing. I received an offer for a 6-month contract from one of the world's largest diagnostics and pharmaceutical companies, that consists of demoing their diagnostics products for providers and a lot of travel. No selling involved. It's under an external recruiting company. I'm not sure if it would be better to accept this since it has some of the similarities as a B2B outside sales position without the selling, or if it would be better to get more B2B successes under my belt. The recruiter keeps telling me it would help me get a faster track into life sciences sales at this company, but I'm wary because I know he wants to get his commission off me and I have noticed most life sciences companies tend to be sticklers about their qualifications. I'm also thinking that if I changed my mind and wanted to go into saas sales in 6 months, or was unable to get an internal position after the contract is up, I would probably get a lot of questions in interviews if I went back to saas sales after that. Would it be a good idea to accept this position in hopes of getting an internal sales position after the contract is finished, or should I stay in B2B sales? [link] [comments]  |
| Should I apologize for frequently reaching out? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 09:28 AM PDT Working on a deal and it's currently going through quality testing. I've asked for a timeline from the prospect several times because this can vary per customer - could take a few weeks, could take 3 months. I've sent him emails and left him a voicemail but nothing. Still, my boss is asking and I need a timeline so I know how long this is going to take before we get a PO. Called earlier but he was out of the office. Should I email again and apologize for reaching out but we need some sort of response/timeline?? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2020 08:37 AM PDT Every so often I have a prospect I'm trying to reach out to that doesn't answer their phones and then would ask to send a text instead with a text message. We've never talked / introduced and most times when I've texted back, it gets ghosted or they tell me to stop calling them. I feel like if I bring up my name/ company in these texts, it'll bring up bad will and we'll never get an 'at-bat' with this person this way. What are your guys' thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Picked for a second round interview for an account executive job, advice needed Posted: 16 Oct 2020 08:21 AM PDT I'm currently self-employed as an online personal trainer, but have decided on a career change. I have a background in sales formerly as I worked for Cydcor in 2017 and also have been selling training programs to new clients and re-selling to repeat clients. For those that don't know Cydcor, it's a door to door sales company that sells a variety of things, internet/TV in my case. The first round interview was over the phone, the recruiter seemed to be highly interested with my door to door sales background and invited me back for a round 2 interview to discuss more in-depth. The job would entail selling office supplies. Comes with a good base, uncapped commission, benefits, the whole 9. Which is ideal because I'll be turning 26 in March without coverage from my parents' insurance anymore. Current account execs, what kind of pointers would you give someone going in to interview? [link] [comments]  |
| Mental block with sales/linked to a bad experience? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 08:19 AM PDT Hi all, I'm owner/MD of a moderately successful consultancy, we do ok, c.$300k turnover a year, although growth has flatlined in the last year, can't really blame COVID given our full year-end was May '20, so we'd already not really developed things enough to grow substantially. We have grown our staff and now have 4 people on the books and we are developing 2x web platforms for our products to ensure that we can scale things in a more cost-effective way. Some of our customers are now on these platforms also. Despite this, I hate sales, I have done everything myself but sometimes, sales have been as a result of being backs to the wall with a tax bill for example to pay, so I would pull an offer together and get extra work, or billing in, to pay a tax bill, or another such scenario. As such, the attitude to sales and growth has been difficult and there is a distinct feeling that I have now is one of not being bothered, after 10+ years, things don't appear to get any easier with it and I am tired of being messed around by people committing, then backing out over various times, ridiculous excuses and of course, one detaches but it's hard, you're invested, the company is everything as you put your all into it. But I just can't bear the scattergun based approach any longer, COVID makes it difficult in any case and we need a 'machine' to generate leads and move people on, as it is, we have various trials and people getting our service, but then what? I almost can't bear dealing with it all(!) Some advice needed as it's not great and I am frustrating myself with this and impacting our growth as well. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2020 08:09 AM PDT I need an easier way to watch / monitor all the social media sites for my prospect's and their company's news and updates. I would love one place to see specific people I follow on LinkedIn and Twitter and a way to see blog updates for accounts I'm prospecting. What's everyone doing in this area? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Prospect’s company blocked my domain Posted: 16 Oct 2020 07:48 AM PDT I'm not sure if I should be upset or see this as a badge of honor from a sales point of view. I'm handling partnerships for a startup in the pet sitting space. I'm brokering deals with companies in the travel industry to get them to present an offer for pet sitting from the company I'm working with after a booking. It's been going well and I have some huge deals in the pipeline. But, there's one $25 billion hotel company that no matter what I do I have not been able to get my foot in the door with for almost two months. I love a good challenge but I've gotten meetings with their competitors with ten times less time and effort. I sent the first email two months ago and have followed up every two to three weeks. I was going to send my final one today and none of them went through. I officially waived the white flag on this company today. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2020 07:27 AM PDT I would like to test about 1,000 email addresses. How do I do this for an email campaign? Specifically, I have 100 companies that I'd like to prospect into, and I know that the email addresses would fit 4 patterns. I can create all 4 email address patterns, and I'd like to test all the email addresses. How do I do this? [link] [comments]  |
| What's the best way to build a leads database? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 03:30 AM PDT OK this is a very broad question but I'll explain what I'm trying to achieve. I'm a freelance writer and, over the years, I've worked with quite a few content marketing agencies. I want to begin cold pitching again so I'm looking to find a list of them. My qualification criteria isn't overly specific. Basically I'm looking for:
I've tried Googling 'content marketing agency' and while I get some results they cut off in a few pages. Do you sales wizards have any suggestions for how I can find a more robust set of leads to pitch? [link] [comments]  |
| TV Dashboard/ticker for sales floor - best options? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 07:01 AM PDT Hi all! Not sure if this would be the right place to ask, but I figured it wouldn't hurt. My sales team is asking for a TV dashboard/ticker-type visual to project on a TV on their sales floor. Anybody know of a good software option for this? Preferably something free? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2020 06:58 AM PDT As the title states, I have worked and been relatively successful in tech sales. I have worked for one of the biggest tech giants in the world and a small start up. I could feel myself burning out very quickly so I decided to take my talents to a different industry to test the waters. In short I can honestly say I now love sales. If you're in tech and have questions, fire. I can probably relate to a lot of things. [link] [comments]  |
| Any CDMO Business development or API account manager professionals here that can offer tips? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 05:45 AM PDT I'm currently working in the specialty chemicals industry in a role that is essentially full-stack sales and marketing. I'm selling to the sealant, adhesive, and coating sectors and currently develop and implement our marketing, develop new leads to the point of purchase, and then manage existing accounts by helping them grow through R&D support. Now I'm trying to use my same skill set, but move into the pharma industry; specifically I'd like to work for a CDMO or an API manufacturer. I feel like there's a lot of overlap and with my chemistry and mba background I thought it shouldn't be too challenging, but unfortunately I can't seem to make it past the "3-5 years CDMO experience required" on every job app. If anyone here works for one, I'd love to have a chat to learn more about breaking into the industry. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2020 05:19 AM PDT Looking for a little advice and direction from this group. I've learned a lot from you guys and it's always greatly appreciated. I'm a final candidate for a manager position that would be selling network membership to healthcare providers. Essentially, this company is the conduit from health plans to providers. For health plans, the incentive is cost savings. For healthcare providers, the incentive is an increase in their referral base/volume. For the final round case study, I have to put together a call script for my team. Let the prospect (healthcare provider) know who we are, what we do, and the incentives to work with us. Here's the challenge: we now represent the health plan, which essentially leaves the provider's contract with the health plan to be terminated. So, if we can recontract them, they will be taking a 15% cut in their reimbursement. This provider is national and has large contracts with other health plans, so they may not care about losing the volume. It's a tough sell. My initial thoughts are to share that I have good news. The health plan has decided to partner with us, as industry experts, and we are in turn partnering with only the highest quality providers in this space. Provider prospect has met our criteria and we would like to repaper our contract so that we may continue sending referrals. Our organization has been in this space for more than 15 years and we are rapidly growing, and partnering with additional health plans. This is great for provider prospect because it means as we add more health plans to our portfolio in their market, they will have instant access to that referral base, and an additional revenue stream. In addition, we will function as a single payer source for provider prospect, meaning they will only have to deal with us for claims processing and management. This in turn will alleviate a large administrative burden from their billing team and allow them to redirect those resources. Clearly the above is not a script, but my thoughts are that we're calling with good news and share the reasons why. Of course I have to shoehorn the 15% cut in there, but it will be phrased as we'll be reimbursing at 85%, rather than a cut. Am I on the right track? I'm in a similar role now- I manage a small team in the same space that is a hybrid of sales/ account management, but the dynamics are different. Reimbursement cuts are standard where I am and we're not calling with news that their old contract is void, and to repaper they will take a hit. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2020 04:35 AM PDT I applied for a BDR job, and I heard back via email from the recruiter who's based overseas. She was interested in a prescreen with me. I replied that I'll make myself available to her and her schedule, which is 10 hours ahead of ours, but we didn't formalize a date/time. This morning at 6:39 AM she calls me up, but I didn't answer because I was still asleep. I called her back at 6:51 AM, and I just got off of a prescreening call with her, and it left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth (or maybe that's just my coffee). She asked me how much money was I making, and also, and this is more egregious for me, she asked me when I graduated from college (that's a proxy for my age). Is this appropriate, and if not, what can I do about it? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Oct 2020 07:12 PM PDT Howdy everyone! I am a sales engineer, and I sell projects and services. I was trying to find something I could sell on the side to utilize my skill set. Anyone have any ideas of a good product or service to sell with no overhead and something that isn't a pyramid scheme or essential body oil? Lol Thanks all! [link] [comments]  |
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