r/techsales

so i've been at this since february and the results are pretty rough.

started with cold email. 250 emails total to real estate agencies - mix of mass market and high-end, US, Dubai, Switzerland. all personalized, short, no walls of text. I ran a/b tests in batches of 20 to see what landed better. tracked open rates - they were actually decent, 40-60% on some batches. got exactly 1 reply that showed real interest, they agreed to a call. then i fumbled the follow-ups and they went cold after the third one. never got to actually show the product.

after that i switched to instagram and whatsapp dms. Targeted solo realtors in the US from RealTrends - framed it as one colleague asking another a genuine question, nothing salesy. Sent around 50 messages. got 2 replies. both were polite, answered my question, then slowly ghosted when i tried to warm up the conversation. never got close to even mentioning what i built

now i'm testing home service businesses - HVAC, roofing, water damage. same approach, early days, similar pattern so far.

the product is a voice ai that calls back inbound leads within 15s of a form submission, qualifies them, books appointments. it works, demo is solid. no case studies yet because i can't get anyone through the door long enough to try it

what i genuinely cant figure out: is the problem the channel, the ICP, the follow-up, or something in my approach that kills it before it even starts. open rates say people are seeing the emails. But something between "opened" and "replied" is just not happening

if you've sold to small business owners or real estate people - what would you look at first

Hi, I have been working through preparing for the phone screen and subsequent interviews. I have been reviewing material on the STAR method, LPs, Youtube Videos, etc. But what I can't decipher is how technical this interview will be? I've been reviewing concepts from the AWS CCP will try to pass it before the exam, but does anyone have any idea on how in-depth they go? Any other tips greatly appreciated.

I sent HM a Linkedin Connection request before my interview. He still hasnt accepted and it's been 2 business days after the interview.

Could this mean anything or be a bad sign?

It could just be my company (won’t namedrop but phenomenal company to work for), and it could be that we’re PLG so it’s not like I’m cold calling and hearing “no” 8 hours a day. But there’s so many nice dopamine hits that make the job fun.

Someone picks up my call? Dopamine hit. Book a discovery call? Dopamine hit. One more added to quota? Dopamine hit. Get a godlike inbound lead? It’s like opening a pack of pokemon cards and getting the chase rare.

Everyone tells me the job is really hard, and I can definitely see it being hard to hit quota and there’s always so much more to learn and improve on. But there’s genuinely so many more miserable and harder jobs I could be doing that I actually feel energized and excited about my work.

Also, yes I have ADHD and I’m on vyvanse for it.

Huge crossroads and decision fatigue.

I’ve been out of tech selling for 4 years to be a SAHM and now need to return to work.

However, I am in an unusual spot where I can pursue any job that makes me happy even if it just brings in minimum wage. I recognize I am fortunate.

My personality leans towards healthy risk taking, challenging myself and being ambitious, and I already have 8 years under my belt of mid market SaaS, however this was pre-AI.

I’m wondering if at this point I just work at a bookstore or cafe or do something low stress if money isn’t the primary driver anymore despite me enjoying the craft of my previous career.

Should I leave ego behind and just find a low-stress analog job?

Would you return to this career if you didn’t absolutely have to or even had a shadow of a doubt about your future in it?

I tend to glorify the past, but I recall the highs were high and the lows were low. Felt like a constant rollercoaster and I worry about my ability to compartmentalize that when I am a mom with small kids who don’t deserve to have my bad work day projected onto them.

18 months in enterprise sales at a startup, cyber tool, nice to have not must have. Had my best year year last year but I’ve struggled this year so I got put on a pip

Passed a PIP last month. Manager confirmed I hit the criteria conditionally, then in the same conversation said I'm being moved to mid market and they're opening a new enterprise AE role. Found the posting. It's my job, word for word.

Couple of live deals still in my name, could close in six to eight weeks if I keep pushing them.

I know where this ends. But it's July, nobody hires seriously till September, and I don't want to take the first mediocre offer just to have something lined up.

Has anyone actually stretched a situation like this out, not to save the job, just to buy a few extra weeks before the exit lands. What actually worked versus what just felt like it was working.

Just started climbing the corporate ladder and a happy IC. Climbing in a thought leadership role and not a people management role.

All the RVPs that I am having meals with are 66+. No offence against age and ageism I will be there someday too but being in those conversations is depressing me. No wonder millennials do not have it together or climbing the ladder as boomers are refusing to let go.

Has anyone else noticed it?

I know life expectancy is increasing and everyone wants more $$, extend their social security but this is just making it harder for younger generations to even get a seat at the table.

Hi guys,

I'd like some input on my situation: I'm 26 and working in London, currently working for a slow growing SaaS company, but I've been offered another role. Both mid market/ enterprise sales:

Slow growing Saas Fintech: £84k base, £~130k OTE; standard/ above average hours worked, fairly low pressure environment, company growing at ~20% every year, and has been for the last 5 years. No equity.

Fast growth AI SaaS Fintech: £110k base, £200k OTE; very high hours worked, high pressure, VC backed and growing very quickly. Equity also offered.

I know this is person dependant, but I'm curious about what people would choose in this situation.

Thanks

I have been working in Ireland & uk for 4 years and I am planning on moving back to India in the next 6 months. I have been out of indian job market the whole time, so I request for a reality check from the experienced because I keep going back and forth on this.

Background:

• MSc from TCD. About 4 years experience.
• Currently on the founding team of a small B2B SaaS in ecom reg tech (£20 Mil Valuation), as product owner and product manager (small company, so the two blur).
• I own the backlog and roadmap, ship features, ran 5 country integrations, work with 2 dev teams daily, comfortable with sql & system design. A-CSPO and AWS Solutions Architect certified.
• I am also the point of contact for 5 enterprise clients plus around 30 SMBs. I run onboarding, understand their business, and upsell and cross sell, but with no sales quota. I brought in 4 partnerships and 2 are doing well.

I actually like product work. My hesitation is the Indian market. From the outside it looks like the strong product roles expect an iim or a proper tech degree, and I have neither.

I am torn between aiming for product (PO / PM) and account management, the farming kind, not cold hunting (I have zero experience chasing new logos). I do have equal liking and interest in Account Management.

To start, I need roughly 1.3L in hand per month atleast as am the sole earner in the family.

1. With this profile, would you qualify me to pivot to account management / customer success?
2. Honestly, any directional advise would be considered gold. Please slap me hard with any thoughts you have!

I’m currently interviewing for Mid-market and Enterprise AE roles at a few different SaaS companies. I’m thinking about putting together a 30/60/90 day plan to stand out, but I wanted to get a vibe check from this sub first.

Is emailing a 30/60/90 day plan seen as try-hard/cheesy, or is it a solid differentiator?

Saw a posting for an AE role. Anyone currently (or formerly) working there? Curious about the sales culture, and outlook of the company, team performance. Is it worth a look?

Curious for anybody who works in cybersecurity, or works with cybersecurity sales leaders, genuinely want opinions on whether this is a good idea or if I'm about to go too far.

i just applied for a Sr AE role a AI cybersecurity firm and reaching out directly to some of their sales leaders. I have the personal email of the director of their sales org, and I've got an idea for a follow-up email to stand out, but I want a gut check before I send it.

Since it's cybersecurity and this crowd actually cares about this stuff, here's the idea: Ryan Montgomery, ranked as one of the top pen testers, built a database search/pen-testing site that checks breach data tied to the 2024 National Public Data leak. If you have someone's email, birth date, state, and first/last name, you can pull a surprising amount of info. Most people have no idea this site exists, it was released as a public good.

I already have the director's info from researching him for outreach. My plan was to run it through the tool, screenshot the results (it's showing 30-40 "critical vulnerabilities" on him), and send that as a follow-up basically "hey, thought you'd want to know this is out there on you, since you're in cybersecurity." The goal is to provide real value, grab his attention, and get him to actually go back and read my original email/application.

Wording obviously matters a lot here, but given the sector and that he's in sales, I figured this might land well since I'm "providing value." Is this enough to actually start a conversation about my background, or does it cross into creepy and hurt me more than help? Honest takes appreciated.

Current AE at a hyperscaler. $350k OTE, last year’s W2 was $420k and this year will likely land around $370k TC. Will hit a bit of a comp cliff next year as my initial RSU grant dries up, and will probably drop down to $290k OTE. I’m 28, and have a stay at home wife and 2 young children.

Have a couple of career options and I am struggling to make a decision.

Option 1: Stay where I’m at. I enjoy my team, manager and like my book of business. If I perform well (which I likely will), I can likely get more RSUs/comp increase during next year’s performance review. Not a ton of career growth potential, but the lowest risk in my opinion as I have already built up a reputation/trust within my org.

Option 2: Take a sales manager role at my current company. Will come with a slight OTE increase, but not substantially. Will be good to get people leader experience at a large company like this, but the downside is I go from being in the field to having to be in the office 4-5 days/week with a 40 min commute.

Option 3: Leave and join a smaller ($1B annual revenue digital transformation company, so basically the implementation arm for the services that I currently sell). I would be the “Head of X Practice”, basically a client/sales executive for a new vertical they are targeting. Would get to build the GTM strategy from scratch. OTE would increase to $450k, with a ~$265k base and the rest of comp from an annual bonus plus commission (uncapped). It will definitely be a grind to build pipeline from scratch, and I’m not confident that I’ll make a ton in commission for at least 12 months as sales cycles can be a bit longer too. Honestly I’m just not feeling confident about my network, abilities, and experience, and I’m nervous that I won’t be ready to succeed. Could be a bit of imposter syndrome.

Things I’m grappling with:

1. Is getting people leader experience at a large company worth it for a resume boost? Even if I only do it for a year or so?
2. If leave and don’t like it, does coming from a smaller company make it substantially harder to get back to a hyperscaler/premier startup?
3. Does taking a larger role at a smaller company meaningfully accelerate your career, especially early on?

Really just looking for advice, things to consider, etc. from someone with more life experience than me lol Thanks!

So I have been an SDR for the past 2-3 years, I started to get sick of constant cold calling for not a lot of commission. My latest role is an outsourced SDR for different Saas companies but I got placed on edtech which is the last industry I want to be in. I decided to call it quits on sales and move into corporate where I have secured a Data and AI apprenticeship at a major bank. However, I’m also in the last stages for an AE role in a tech industry I actually want to be in and pay double what the apprenticeship pays as a basic and quadruple with OTE, it is also 95% inbound. I now don’t know what to do, should I still go for the apprenticeship or stick around for AE?

Crowd sourcing here: All things being equal role wise (managing existing customers) what’s the better move?

GCP FSR - Offer a higher OTE but lower base (40/60 split)
Less RSU's than existing RSU's at current

(Current) Snowflake AE - Higher Base but lower OTE (Traditional 50/50 split)

Always thought Google was the pinnacle but have heard there is general unhappiness in the field now?

Hello fellow sales people, I need a career advice.

I'm in B2B sales for 5 years now, mostly worked as a BDR, but I've done my fair share of running and closing meetings as well. I quit my last job in March and I've been trying my own business thing. I have a good looking pipeline, but I haven't closed anything yet. I'm blaming it on a few things, 1) my brand is shite, I need to invest more in my website, 2) The closing cycle for the business I'm after is rather long, 3) since I've been mostly involved in earler sales cycles, I'm really good at selling the meetings, but not great at closing them. I've just recently completed Benjamin Deneheys sales course, learned a ton about the sales meeting and how to close, so starting to practice some if that stuff.

Anyway, the current situation is a bit tricky. I have a few follow up meetings in September with a few tech companies that can (or can't) close.

However, in business the waiting game is high risk, and I'm leaving money on the table. So for now I've decided that I need explore the market, get a sales positon, and do my thing on the side.

What would you do if you were in my position, if you needed to land a good sales position quickly?

I've just started applying through Linkedin, but what's the fastest way to land a job?

Or perhaps what questions would you ask that I'm not seeing yet?

I really appreciate your advice guys.

Sales is tough for mental health, it's taking its toll on me for sure.

Thank you.

I recently went thru all the rounds for smb AE role at Salesforce. After the final round I was positive they liked my presentation and the director even praised me on the spot saying he loved my closing style. Today got an email from recruiter saying i didn’t impress him enough but he have recommended me to healthcare team.

Now have to start the interview process with that all over again. Has anyone in similar boat?

Who is responding to these recruiters? Their emails and LI messages all say the same dam thing everytime:

“Hi Firstname, I’m working with a company that I won’t list and the comp is insane, 100% of reps made over $1M+ and it’s the best company ever. Take a call with me even though I’m giving you no valuable information”

Does anyone actually respond to these?

I’m an early-career AE and I desperately need to know whether this friction exists at other companies.

FYI: My company has about 11k customers, 400 employees. Our product team is terrible in my opinion.

New products are marketed early and delivered 9-12 months behind schedule AND with only 50% of the promised features. Product team claims to be “customer-obsessed” but none of the feature releases are what our customers are asking for. Our “new” products are only new to us, not the market. The product team is open about having disdain for sales reps and vice versa.

Just us?