r/Sales_Professionals

Do people who enter the sales side of careers (like Sales engineering, AE, and others excluding regular SDR roles) actually make more money compared to software engineers, mechanical engineers or just engineers in general?

The idea I have in mind is that if you wanna make the big money, you have to be in sales in some sort of way and not just traditional engineering careers

Because engineering careers (and the similar in pay) usually have a limit to what you can truly make as you progress through your career

This is obviously considering that you are at least “good” at sales itself

I’m asking this because I’m trying to figure out if I should lock in on a sales adjacent career and start building my experience while university in it (internships and more) in order to break into it

But generally, do sales adjacent careers really make that much more money compared to others if you’re good at it?

I'm curious to hear from the salespeople and sales managers in here.

I'm currently building out a sales team for a growing company, and I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding people who are actually hungry to sell.

I've tried Indeed, and honestly, the results haven't been great. Lots of applications, but very few people who seem genuinely interested in selling, building relationships, and actually producing.

So I'm wondering:

Where are you finding your best salespeople?

If you've hired or built sales teams, what has worked best?

• Indeed / LinkedIn
• Facebook groups
• Reddit
• Sales-specific job boards
• Recruiters
• Referrals
• Cold outreach
• Networking events
• Recruiting experienced reps from other industries
• Something completely different

And for the salespeople themselves:

What would make you seriously consider joining a new company?

Is it:

• Commission potential
• Recurring revenue
• Leads
• A product you believe in
• Training
• Marketing support
• Flexibility
• Fast payouts
• Advancement opportunities
• Company culture
• The opportunity to build something from the ground up

I'm involved with a newer health/research brand, and we're trying to build the sales side correctly rather than just throwing job postings everywhere and hoping someone good applies.

I'm not looking to turn this into a recruiting pitch. I'm genuinely trying to figure out where the good salespeople are hiding and what actually gets their attention.

Sales managers, recruiters, closers, entrepreneurs — what has worked for you?

If Indeed isn't producing, where would you go next?

I’m starting to question whether our weekly 1 on 1s are actually enough to improve close rates.We usually go over numbers talk about deals that went well or badly and discuss what the rep thinks happened. The problem is it still feels like we’re coaching based on memory. By the time the meeting comes around a lot of the small details from the actual customer conversations are already gone. I also think that we spend a lot of time talking about the result instead of what caused it, we know a deal didn’t close but we don’t always know if the rep missed a discovery question handled an objection badly or just never asked for the sale, would love to heart any suggestions you guys have.

I'm the founder of a small startup and we sell B2B software. Nothing huge but we're growing

The problem is my sales team and they're pretty young and eager. But completely disorganized.

I keep finding leads that were supposed to be called back. Days ago. Sometimes weeks. The SDRs forget. They don't log call outcomes in HubSpot. The pipeline is a complete mess

I confront them and they say something like sorry, slipped my mind. That's not good enough

I'm tired of excuses. And I'm tired of losing deals because my team can't stay on top of follow-ups.

I started looking for solutions. Found CloudTalk and it integrates with Pipedrive. Automatically logs calls right into deal cards. And every call is tracked

It sounds like exactly what I need. But I'm skeptical. Will it actually solve the problem? Or will my team still find ways to drop the ball?

Has anyone implemented call logging software in their sales team?

I run full cycle in security tooling and I've been at this company about two and a half years. I've got a deal around 40k where my champion keeps blocking me from her VP, and every time I ask for the intro she says she'll handle it internally and then it slips another two weeks. I know the rule is that single-threaded deals die and everyone would tell me to go over her, but she's the one who brought us in and she's the only person there who actually wants this.

What happened the last time you went around one anyway?

I sell software into mid market marketing teams and I've been doing it a bit over three years. I had a deal sitting at around 38k where the champion replied same day for six weeks, then went completely silent the moment i sent pricing. I've followed up four times across email and LinkedIn, i've sent the breakup email, and i've had nothing back for about five weeks now. I know the honest read is that it's dead and i'm not fishing for a magic sequence, i just keep forecasting it because nobody ever told me no.

How long did you keep touching a deal like this before you pulled it out of the pipeline?

Hey guys, my role is changing from mainly cold calling to handling the initial sales calls with prospects.

I’m in tech, selling cloud services, and I’d love some advice from people who’ve made a similar move.

What should I focus on during the first call? What questions should I be asking, and how do I avoid just jumping into a product pitch?

Also, any tips on how to qualify faster and move the deal toward a close without being too pushy?

My background has been rooted in sales and operations - most notably sales. I moved through the corporate hierarchy at a young age and have always had a knack for consultative/value based sales. I managed district sales and operations for a multi billion dollar company and have the accolades to show my success, boot strapped a start up, and have had what I would consider a successful career thus far. Sales has always come natural to me, along with coaching/consulting/developing/training on sales strategies and programs. I was often called upon to do the latter as a testament to my successes. I enjoy that equally as much.

With that said, I am looking to build upon this passion as it would compliment my current role. As someone who has held leadership positions I would call this fractional, but am open to different positioning as I understand the title semantics. The real value I would bring is on closing, strategy, training, and as it pertains to sales, would be looking for roles with strong inbound that are searching for closers. I could help develop the funnel to get to close.

I am familiar with many of the job boards (although I will take more recommendations), but am interested in feedback or guidance from anyone who maybe walked a similar path. As a business owner I feel there is absolutely a time and place for the fractional roles, but I am not sure how other businesses view this. If you did something similar, I would love to hear your story and feedback on growing a fractional presence as far as how you got started, where you found success, etc.

I’m 23 coming into my 2nd full year in sales position, managing about ~95 accounts in my book. Pacing 4+ mil this year in sales. Paid commission only no base, variable commission 1-3% averaging 2.65%.

How am I doing? Internally I’m a small time rep where I work but I’m up 1 mil YTD. No leads etc cold calling to build accounts.

Curious how many people are still picking up the phone versus leaning fully into email and LinkedIn outreach. Feels like cold calling gets written off as dead every year, but some people swear it's still their best channel. What's your actual mix looked like lately, and has the response rate on calls held up or dropped off compared to a couple years ago?

Curious what everyone's actual cutoff looks like before moving a lead to the dead pile versus keeping it in a slow nurture sequence. Some people seem to hold onto leads for months just in case timing changes, others cut bait after a few unanswered touches. What's your rule of thumb, and has it changed based on deal size or industry?

Hey guys, esp those in window and door sales. 🙏🏼🙏🏼Want to run these numbers to see if these owners are just trying to sell me (I’ve been doing sales- insurance and my own company- totally independent and have not been under a company before where anyone monitors my KPIs.) they said they’re experiencing growing pains right now and used to have a few more ppl.

I had an interview earlier this week with a guy and his biz partner. Small company of like 4 people now. Last week I had a phone convo with one of em and he seemed impressed and said I’d basically know everything he’s doing because I’ve run my own business etc etc

At the face to face meeting, they seemed to contradict each other. One saying to build relationships, the other saying to serve a high number of leads and don’t be pushy but don’t let them get off the phone without selling them. But when I told him last week that in insurance I objection handle 2/3x until I let them get off the phone, he was like yea we don’t do that. One says perfection is a hindrance to excellence, the other says perfection is necessary because one mistake is very costly.

Anyways. Their base rate is LOW- $4k a month. I live in LA and that wouldn’t even cover my expenses, much less time spent in traffic. 7% commission off net profits- I believe he said. honestly I was expecting $60k base- 200k bc their listing had said that last week. I went back to check and it said $50k-$200k for compensation. Says an average sales person should bring in $150k in business every month. They said I would make well over $140k within a year. They say others have made 200k and up when they were straight 1099. It could take a month to learn the products if I’m diligent, could take 3-4 months.

What are typical window/ door margins like? I’m assuming around 15-20% but looking for hard numbers from ppl in the industry. The numbers are not adding up if that’s the case. Anyways don’t roast me lol previous to my biz I was w2 with 0 benefits, so I haven’t really negotiated pay structure like this. They need someone asap but also want to interview other candidates and get back to us by the end of the month. 😫 Is this a red flag?

I’m Julia Freedom. I’ve had years of success in the collections industry, both retail and commercial. What I’ve found is taking a kind and helpful approach with debtors works! You don’t have to go with guns a blazin’ threatening people to garnish their bank account or their paycheck-that is where you loose people. If they could afford to pay their bills, they would. Something changed for them and obviously their business isn’t producing enough revenue at the moment.

Frame your follow-up as helping the
the client clear an outstanding administrative hurdle. Invoices get lost in cluttered inboxes, and accounting teams make mistakes. Approaching
the situation with helpful curiosity removes defensive barriers.

He says a senior guy there has never seen zero appointments before. The company has retail alliances with the top two home improvement retailers you know by name.

Hey everyone!

Recently got hired in a tech company to sell to the C-Suite in Big Pharma! Exciting stuff. But I need your help!

**Where I’d love advice, so any insights on any of these questions would be AMAZING:**

1. How did you learn to sell at the C-suite level?
2. How do you book meetings with people in big pharma? How do you pierce the armor?
3. What mistakes did you make early on that you wish you’d avoided?
4. How do you build credibility quickly when you’re not a “known name” yet?
5. How do you think about multi-stakeholder alignment in massive orgs?
6. What changed in how you prepare for meetings once you moved into enterprise?
7. Any frameworks, mental models, or habits that helped you “level up”?

I appreciate all of you!

Hey all. Familiar with the classics and oft-recommended books, though was wondering if there was anything particularly useful that was targeted for field sales. Any recommendations much appreciated, thank you.

I’ve been looking at cars after a recent car accident. Mentioned it around my daughter, who is three, and she immediately told me I should get a blue one or a pink one. Those are her favorite colors, obviously. I pointed at my shirt and said look, this one’s blue, is that what you mean. She said yes, blue. Then I told her I actually like black better. She thought about it for a second and said okay, then you should buy black.

And that stopped me. Because she started with what she wanted, found out what I wanted, and immediately switched. No argument, no talking me into blue, no explaining why blue is better. She just wanted me to have the one I liked. I’ve been in sales for 14 years and I watch grown adults fail at that constantly. Somebody tells you what they want and you spend the next twenty minutes explaining why the thing you’re selling is actually better for them. You’re not listening, you’re waiting to talk. The whole job is figuring out what somebody actually wants, which is usually not the first thing they say, and then helping them get it. Even when the answer is that they shouldn’t buy anything right now. My kid figured that out in about four seconds without knowing she did anything.

Anyway. She still wants me to get a pink one.

Can we all agree working 55 hours a week pounding the pavement and tripping over your colleagues to
Grab the next up right out of their car door all for a mini deal is the worst excuse for a “sales job” 99% of car salesman give everything away anyways and have no idea how to close. That position should just be salaried at 40k and be done with by now.

It’s not a real sales job since the stealership hires anyone with a pulse and is the largest swinging door business in sales

I feel like most sales advice is about what you should be doing more of — more calls, more follow-ups, more emails, more meetings.

But sometimes removing something has a bigger impact.

What’s one thing you stopped doing that noticeably improved your results?

Could be a habit, a sales tactic, a type of follow-up, anything.