r/sales

It’s the least important of the three T’s but what do you think constitutes it?

Charisma, work ethic, product knowledge etc

Hi all,

For those who sold services and products in outside b2b world, what was hard to sell? Services or products? Let’s say both have good products and service.

Thank you!

10 years in tech sales, been unemployed for 6 months now hustling for another sales job. What is with all these cognitive tests? I've never had to take one to secure a role before. Lots of times this is requested before I even speak with the recruiter on the phone. I was just sent another one for a frankly low paying sales gig. I'm in sales because I'm bad at tests but good with people so no, I probably cant solve situational math problems without a calculator nonetheless.

The stupidest one I had was with camera on sitting with a blank wall behind me so they could ensure I wasn't using a calculator lol. Just the ridiculousness of this job market rn.

anyone on here got experience selling Sportstech?

physical sports tech products are hard to sell so I wanted to ask for advice and experience?

selling a product to athletes and teams

Kindly f**k off

Every week dozens of you basement dwellers swarm every single sales related community offering commission only jobs on a product Claude spewed out

At least before coders and tech guys with no sales or marketing experience actually built their own thing and didn't start sentences with "you're right to call me out on that". No sales person worth their pay wants to jump ship to join your generous commission only offers

"If your confident with your skills commission only shouldn't be a problem" is my absolute favorite, a real darling. Oh I'm confident all right! I'm confident your vibed out product sucks and I'm confident I'd be better off working the till at Wendy's than joining your "growing team with uncapped potential"

Had to get that off my chest

I’ve been selling mattresses for a bit now, and while it’s been a decent start to a sales career, it’s just not worth staying anymore. I’m around average performance-wise for our stores in the Charlotte area, so it’s not like I’m a perfect salesman, but I’m also super young and inexperienced so I feel like I’ve picked it up pretty well for the most part.

I’m in the middle of Charlotte and Greensboro, NC, but I’ve mainly been going for SDR positions in Charlotte. I’ve gotten a few responses from companies that are rated about the same as my current one on Glassdoor, which doesn’t make me feel confident in switching to them.

So my main question is, what else should I consider? Is Glassdoor really even worth considering or is that mostly biased? Is it better to just get out of retail ASAP? How realistic is a $75k OTE role coming from retail sales? From what I’ve researched, an SDR role seems like the next best move, but there’s also an abundance of other Inside/Outside Sales roles in Charlotte, anything worth considering there?

Again, super new to this compared to many of you, so I apologize if anything comes across dumb haha. Any tips/motivation at all would be great. Just super hard not to feel lost here.

Just ranting here... anyone have passive aggressive customers that just get on your fucking nerve. I have 50+ customers and this customer is one my lowest revenue generating customers... everything is always urgent and he escalates to VP's for the dumbest reasons.

Huge competitor of mine just had videos leak about their ties to Scientology. It’s actually mind blowing how many of them are involved, including celebrity ties.

They are someone I go up against 80% of my calls.

I’m often asked why us over them.

I have been in the B2B space for 7 years and with this company about 4 years. With the recent comp plan change and leadership change, I start feeling burnt out and afraid that I will get fired even though I have achieved my quota and never missed. However, I got an offer at a medical company selling wound care products (non graft) and territory is promising but OTE is 70K below my current income but uncapped commission.

To those who went from B2B to medical sales.. what was your experience like? I’m day 7 and I’m ready to quit MS lol

I've been cold calling for a little and notice car detailers tend to hand the highest booking rate, but every single one of them no showed.

I really want to know what your experience has been and what industry you would recommend.

From residential solar to HVAC. Going from an established company to a smaller sized HVAC company (good amount of leads), what tips do you have for me regarding the sale process?

Averaged 200k a year. Solar was one call close, it was high pressure and follow ups never worked. People may not wanna hear it but getting an answer from them there and then was the way to go. Is HVAC the same? If not then is it follow up heavy? What do I need to understand.

Any tips from HVAC guys is appreciated.

Hey Folks, need some outside perspective on this, it's gonna be a long one;

I'm mid 30s, been in sales my whole career

Have been interviewing with a public listed company, role is located in DACH, salary band was around 200k OTE with 800k quota full cycle sales, focus on new business.

The interview process began as the recruiter told me they habe two openings (one commercial AE, one enterprise AE) and I clearly stated that the enterprise AE is what I want to go for.

Fast forward I passed a cultural fit, a case study (45 min Presentation how I would sell their product into one named account they chose). The hiring manager was completely stunned and there was literally no negative feedback or improvement on the presentation.

Then interview with the SVP, that's where things went a bit weird. This SVP was rather doing a police interrogation than a real conversation, and gave me a bit of a weird vibe.

Get called from the Hiring manager, he tells me he would love to work with me but HR and the SVP have concerns as I don't have enough enterprise AE experience on my CV.

Now I have (verbally) an offer on the table for a commercial AE position. I've been laid of end of last year but I'm coming from a Senior Sales title (let's call it Key account Manager). So the things I'm thinking here:

-it seems like a step down or at least a lateral move for me.

-they could have told me I don't fit at an early stage.

-bait and switch to get me cheaper, commercial role will be best case 180 OTE

I feel once I lock in a commercial role a path upwards might be significantly harder given the conversation I had with the SVP.

I have other processes running (strat AE) where the hiring manager was also stunned. However I don't know if I can get this to offer stage before the other offer runs out once it's there.

So with that all in mind, what do you think? Am I completely off on my thinking on feeling a bit lowballed here? Maybe commercial AE and enterprise AE are the same career wise and I just have a different perception? Also what other things should I consider?

Besides that I do have financial runway and I know it's an incredible tough market so even landing am offer is great. Just not sure if it will backfire in the long run.

Any advice or perspective would be helpful

Accepted a new role starting at the end of this month. Covering the PNW, Alaska, Montana, South/North Dakota for sure with potential for California, AZ, UT as well.

50-ish percent travel as needed. Industrial sales.

Anyone have any advice and/or tips for heavy travel role like this? Been in sales my whole life, not asking for sales tips per se (but would never turn anything down) but more for managing a large territory, etc.

If you’ve ever been in a s similar role, what’s a couple things you wished you had known before starting? Or had someone tell you?

Thanks!

I cold call and when I am looking for John and dont have his direct dial, I go via the office line and often get asked whats it about, does John know and all other sales call qualification questions - I am honest all time time. More often that not, I'm not patched.

Another reseller of our product i spoke to said he lies all the time for those questions - stating so Ive had on and off email contact with John over the last week and he has expressed some interest in our services so I'm just looking to run something by him and he's patched 90% of the time - so basically lying and getting through - his reasoning, the gatekeeper is trying to weed out sales calls and the above just helps getting the call patched.

What do you guys do if you were in my shoes? I really cant digest lying to get in but want to see what's the consensus like - he books twice of what I did last month in a far harsher territory / market which I need to pivot to

Enterprise HCM sales here. There is a local company that I’ve dropped at a few times. Not huge, but well known long standing company in the territory that would be a good logo to land. A BDR actually had luck engaging with the CTO at the end of April. He responded that he would like to meet wth us, so the meeting was set with him, the HR director, and SOC II Director. I usually have my SE’s join the first call depending on size of the business and complexity.

First meeting went great. All of them were impressed with having him join that first conversation. We found out that they were using a local Payroll company for years ,but they have 22 employees scattered across different states ,and they screwed up their quarterly taxes, and got fined from a lot of those states. They left and went to a competitor which promised them the world about a year and a half ago. Implementation was terrible, rep stopped answering their calls and eventually left the company, so now here they are with multiple issues again, and needing to make a switch as taxes were screwed up for 6 of their employees, as well as multiple other issues due to how that platform is built with disconnected HR and Payroll. So needless to say, they have a lot of PTSD, trust issues, and are understandably apprehensive about their next choice.

When the process started with them, they all agreed that they were looking at making a decision and closing by end of May. We went above and beyond, brought in one of our high ranking tax and compliance directors to explain our process and put them at ease, brought in a high ranking IT consultant to speak with their IT team. Every meeting went great. We got multiple compliments from everyone involved on how great the demo looked, our professionalism, and attention to detail around their needs after every touch point. Coming up to the end of May, we set up a sandbox access for them. Explained to the HR director that she’d need to sign an NDA prior, and we’d get her set up. She was completely fine with everything then silence after the NDA went out. At this point May was out of the question. The Docusign was sent 3 times. Then finally a week and a half later she responds that she never got it, but also was not responding to our voicemails or emails. She went back and found it and signed. We set up call with her to make sure she could get logged in and let the SE walk her around the system. Set up a call for debrief a week after the sandbox access. No show on that.

At this point, it’s been 3 weeks, we’ve sent emails to everyone involved, we even secured her NFL suite tickets to a team we have an agreement with because they are playing her favorite NFL team. The last outreach was week before last. Called her cell, left a VM, and shot her a text following up on her feedback from the sandbox. Gave them some breathing room since.

It’s also worth noting that the previous local company has come back in to the mix now ensuring her that they got the issues fixed from before that caused them to be fined in multiple states, so they’re trying to get back in, and the rep also happens to be a friend of the HR director. When she told us this ,she assured us that she wouldn’t let that make her decision, but we all know how that goes.

My thought is maybe letting the dust settle from the holiday and end of next week send out a break up email. I can understand the apprehensiveness after the past 2 experiences, but I’m not down with wasting my time on a one sided relationship. We’ve bent over backwards to accommodate them ,and the non responses aren’t something I’m going to continue spending my time on.

Been in the game a long time, feeling like I’m pretty exhausted from the stress of trying to sell. Sold pretty much everything but we know it’s all outsourcing to AI and people don’t really read emails ect anymore. With the success rate dropping daily, I’m thinking of making a pivot into something else.

has anyone moved from sales into something different / exciting?

what’s been your experience so far?

My team is like 30% of goal this past quarter, been getting a lot of this 🤣.

When I was eight I used to put a flashlight at the end of my bed and try to use the force to get it to move. No amount of "wanting something enough" is going to change the fact that 1. There is currently no demand for our services and 2. That almost every decision maker is out office until next Wednesday.

For those selling remotely, what CRM do you use?

GHL, Close, Pipedrive?

Taking a poll.

**asking because we have a software and are programming new integrations**

I’m a CSM at a native AI company in an industry that is booming. Unicorn company that is selling like crazy. I have 5 years total experience in this field, 3 in AI with it. (Previous company adopted AI)

Just started the role above 5 weeks ago after leaving company I worked 5 years at. Started as BDR - > Implementations then promoted into a CSM (3/5 years as a CSM)

Comp is great at new job and I am enjoying working. There are a lot of roles opening and movement.

My goal in 1 - 1 1/2 year I would have enough recognition to move into Sales / Solutions Engineers role. I would move into that role and stay as long as I could with the company and role until I get enough experience to move to top companies in my field as an SE.

How is the transition to the SE field? How is being an SE with native AI? Is it more viable in the long run than being an CSM? I want to stay in my industry as long as I can because I will become a subject matter expert. I do have a salesy mindset without being pushy and more consultant about expansion / upsell.

Anyone work for a construction company? Ive thought about sending my resume to a few construction/remodeling companies and am curious as to how successful you are. Two recent ads have stressed one-call closing is a must. OCC for remodel?? Ive never met anyone that has got at least a few bids on remodel. Any insight help, thanks.