Currently 35, been making 6 figures + for awhile now in tech sales. Feeling a bit jaded/burnt out.
Was pre-law track in college but I had a bunch of lawyers who "made it" tell me if you are not 100% sure don't take on the debt. Thought they were right until I started feeling burnt out on sales.
Anyone go back to school at my age? What was it like?
I recently took a inside sales job at a company I thought was pretty cool (Good Brand Recognition/Great Product). I had experience with this company in the past and knew one side of their product pretty well. Speaking with the hiring manager (Who is later promoted and I have a new manager), he mentioned that I would be swimming in inbound leads for my territory. This is the first year they moved into actual territories. I understand why. It simply makes sense to do it this way for various reasons. I was also guaranteed 100% of my commission payout upon completion of my first quarter. (This is still true). Also thought my first quarter had a ramp period. (I will admit I never explicitly asked about this just assumed this was the case and was even told so by a coworker that was hired the previous year/my new freshly hired manager). Some facts.....
I was hired in the very middle of April and did not get access to the CRM until 2nd week of May. There was no target number associated with my name until last week.
The company switched from a pure quarterly comp plan to a yearly one where payouts are based on YTD attainment. So for example if you hit 120% in Q1 and 80% in Q2 you get paid for 120% of Q1 and 100% of Q2 because of where you are YTD. HOWEVER, if you hit 50% Q1 you essentially need to make up the difference and hit 150% Q2. This is the first year this switch occurred. The other piece is that if you make up the ground, you get the yearly attainment pay at EOY if that makes sense, so you can essentially make up what you lost.- Was on a call where reps found out about the model switch from Quarterly to Yearly attainment based payouts.
There is a 70% minimum to get paid.
Currently looking at charts and reports I noticed I am not getting the lead flow in my territory that I assume was originally estimated. Also I found out I actually had a full target number associated with my first quarter. Meaning my attainment for this quarter is abysmal. Like not 0% but really, really bad. Also I have a ton of ground to make up next quarter. They are still paying me 100% for this quarter but the attainment number carries over so I have a massive hole to make up going forward. Also I said I was happy to cold call and not just rely on marketing but I was not given a data tool and emails are a requirement to be put in the CRM.
My bosses admitted it's not an ideal situation but my targets are in fact "doable" and my start date highlighted problems with the new comp structure that they are going to bring up. He did also mention he was surprised they let him set targets that low this year. I don't think they can do anything but it's definitely something to consider. Right now I have almost 1.5X for next quarter in my pipeline. I really need TOF (Top of Funnel)
I am also pretty worried because I feel like some changes are coming in the sales org as a whole and on paper I look awful attainment wise. I know my immediate boss would fight for me even though I haven't been there that long because he knows where my head is but I am worried if there are layoffs.
What would you guys do in my situation? - Am I being neurotic and overthinking it? I have a good performance history in my previous roles and took this job because I wanted to play on a bigger scale/go back to working remotely. At my last job I was performing but got a little sick of how in office it was.