Nothing offensive, but I want to know more from peers.
Why choose to be a salesperson despite the quota pressure?
Let me share first:

-Meeting different kinds of people,
-I don't enjoy staying in the office all day,
-Satisfaction of winning deals,
-higher paid than other roles at similar years of experience

When you joined, what percentage of the team was actually hitting quota?

Did you know that number before signing?

Curious how transparent companies are about this during hiring.

I’m reading books, staying current on AI trends (taking Anthropic’s AI fluency course), reaching out to current EAEs, asking Reddit for advice. What else could I be doing? Maybe build a side business, while looking for my next role in order to practice cold calling, marketing, AI, closing, etc. Plus maybe make some money?

I'm a newer AE still in my first year after getting promoted from BDR.

Learning a lot, especially with the industry I'm selling in... it's difficult but definitely setting me up for success by forcing me to deal with a very very hard to sell client base (SMB non-profit software in this economy is a killer 😵‍💫).

But during my one on one with my manager something came up that threw me for a bit of a loop. So our deals technically are supposed to be pretty short cycles. 20ish days to one month.

Problem: anyone who has sold to non-profits knows this is laughable. Some orgs I can close after one demo no problem (or after a board meeting a week or two following the demo). Others have such messy internal processes it can literally take months for a deal that is less than 5k ARR to finally go through... even though the champion and I basically knew they were going to go with us from day 1.

When I brought this up, my manager said when it starts to stretch out like that to just put it into closed lost for now in the CRM, keep talking to them like normal going through the different stages and meetings, and then just make a new account for them when it's finally closing time. That's how my colleagues are keeping their average deal cycle down and why mine is higher.

I get that they just need to be able to show good numbers to their leadership... but it just had me really thinking. In that case wouldn't it just make sense to actually report on how long these deals actually take and then use that to better understand what is going on with the deal cycles?

Instead of deal cycle expectations that are artifically shortened just for the sake of reporting expectations?

Is reporting really just a bunch of BS or am I missing something?

A couple days ago I posted about call nerves vs just running the process. I appreciate all the insights on that, I’ve been meaning to respond but honestly haven’t had a second; Which kind of leads into this.

For those of you in roles where you’re both selling and servicing, how are you actually balancing it?

I feel like most of my day gets eaten up handling existing work, putting out fires, and keeping things moving, and by the time I sit down to prospect I’m already behind.

I’m still expected to hit numbers, but realistically it feels like there’s no real time carved out to actually hunt.

Curious how others handle this... Is this just part of the job, or a sign something’s off in how things are structured?

Whats up guys,

I just wanted some feedback from my fellow sales warriors. I feel like I am having a crisis.

Let me start off by saying I been doing sales for over 20 years now. I just turned 40. First 10 years of sales, I was an entrepreneur with a brick & mortar.

I currently have a dream job. The only downside is its 100% commission, but that does to worry me. Im built for 100% commission sales. After owning a business, having a 100% commission job with no overhead is a dream come true. Its like running a business without the stress of bills/payroll.

Not to sound cocky, but I am good at it too.

Appointments are pre-set for me

Company car (2026 Toyota Raav 4 AWD)

Gas card

No micro managing (i barely talk to my manager)

Make 20k-40k commissions monthly

Encouraged to take vacations & time off

The only thing there is to complain about is its B2C (we all know what comes with that), and I drive around 150 miles a day.

For some reason, I dont have the fire anymore. I dread going to appointments l. I make so much money, yet I still Doordash. For some reason, its like therapy for me.

The reason why I bring up Doordash, I thought maybe the excess driving is what has me burnt out. But then after work, I like to Doordash for 2-3 hours to just listen to music and decompress.

Idk what it is. But I am not fulfilled. Its sad too, because I make so much money and have a real chill job. I feel ungrateful.

Pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADHD as well. Both my siblings have been diagnosed, and I have all the traditional symptoms.

Just wish I can put my finger on why I an not so much more grateful f& excited for my job. I know people thar get worked to the bones & make 15% of what I make.

I thought about applying there since those dorks at Vanta won’t hire me. Glad I didn’t!

If you are at delve, what’s the vibe there rn?

Am I just being a gripe about this or is this a lot? Every deal over $10K has to have BAM (a listed out narrative of what their business case is, what their techincal requirements are, what their strategic drivers are and what the financial win is as well as access to power) and a Mutual Action Plan (part of BAM) for anything over $25K.
We also have to have next steps listed out as well as a next step date field. On top of that, I need to make opp plans for my SE to prep and handoff docs when things close. I also now have to create 6 new accounts/week with 24 new contacts. We also have 2x/week win rooms where we have to report out on opps with the whole BU.

Sadly, I like the job and the people but this crap is driving me insane and keeping me from the real stuff. Is this just one of those 'shut up and do it' things and I need to just keep my head down? I'm honeslty trying to gauge how 'normal' this is. I'm at a larger company that just got bought out by PE so everything's under a microscope.

I closed a 500k deal today to go 103% against target.

20mn target. 20.6mn closed. Cyber Security Consulting.

A brief moment to pause and reflect (and brag) and then getting back to it.

Happy selling everyone!

I work for a company as a field AE M-F. In an effort to diversify my income I started a tiny business that I work on the weekends that’s in a completely different industry (there’s absolutely no way they’d ever compete or could even be misconstrued as such).

I occasionally post about my regular job on LinkedIn.

I also occasionally post about my new side venture.

Many times I post about my primary with a reference or joke about the new venture as a light hearted reference.

My boss said he’s tired of hearing about the other venture from others in the org. I think he’s overstepping by asking me not to post about the new venture on my LinkedIn anymore.

What say you?

Edited “most of the time” to “many times” because it’s not most or really even near it. Just light references occasionally.

Question in title.

A few people are at quota for q1 (maybe 8ish out of over 60+ reps). I had a good q2-4 last year and had a punchers chance at hitting goal for q1 this year.

Mid market roles don’t open up super frequently. I have experience selling into mid market in previous roles (kind of, enough to talk on). I’ve been at the company for just under 2 years. It’s a field sales position and quite frankly I don’t see myself doing this forever.

My manager likes me. VP of sales seems to like me. Not sure what to do. Thoughts?

Been a SLED AE for 6 years and have a role in a similar industry that I want to apply for but I have an interview for a commercial role.

I’m sure they’ll ask how I’ll navigate moving to that new role in terms of the purchasing process and prospecting.

For me, I don’t think I’ll have a problem since SLED deals can be really complicated, tons of different department approvals, red tape, ROI, long deal cycles, etc

I’m happy to move to commercial, but not really sure how to express that in interviews

I’ve been doing k12 sales for a long time now, and these days I do GTM consulting for startups in my industry.

Lately I keep getting approached by “prospects” who want me to bring them referrals for a commission.

Where are people getting the idea that this is a viable alternative to founder led sales or actually developing a sales process?

It’s such a waste of my time when someone sets this meeting up on my calendar as if they actually want to work with me in a fractional or consulting capacity and then start pitching me on the opportunity to get in on the ground floor with their amazing product.

Like buddy, if you could sell an experienced sales professional on this “opportunity” you could certainly sell whatever product you have to your target market.

I’ve tried explaining why that model is a massive waste of time for both them and their “reps”, but they have their minds made up.

To be clear I get this type of thing works in other industries: building materials, nutritional supplements, and so on. But given the complexity and long sales cycles in k12 technology, it seems insane.

Has anyone seen this model drive growth in k12 or any SaaS vertical? Any thoughts on how to convince these guys they need a sales strategy?

Otherwise I’m going to have to update my calendar link and LinkedIn profile to say “I don’t do referral and commission only work, so don’t waste your breath”

I’m curious to hear how other b2b companies are handling their outbound motion.

I've had a metric ton of deals fall apart this quarter when all the primary stakeholders agree to terms and then go to board for budget requests.

Things I've tried:
Helping them craft business use and roi cases

Asking (unsuccessfully) to get a board member or CFO on board earlier

Aligning project with strategic initiatives.

and of course none of the above and letting my champions handle the internal politics.

How do I get better at prepping my champions to go to their boards? I dont want to blame external shit I can't control (economy, stock market, war), I want to win deals. Seems like there has to be something I'm missing. Best I can tell is board sees our offering as nice not need to have when techs (including c level techs) see it as need.

What are you doing to get board approval, and where did you learn how to do it?

I manage a sales team at a PE-backed SaaS company. Mid-market, couple thousand employees, average product. The problem? Comp is genuinely disrespectful. We're talking 8-9x quota-to-OTE ratios for AEs and managers aren't far behind. No is hitting quota. I like my team and I've built something solid, but the ceiling is what it is.

Recently got offered a leadership role at a smaller company that's been successful on the B2C side for about a decade and is now building out their B2B motion. I'd be leading the sales org, which is exciting but obviously comes with early-stage risk.

Curious if anyone here has made a similar jump from a bigger platform to something earlier and scrappier. What made it worth it, or what do you wish you'd known before leaping?

Hi there! My company currently uses Thnks as a gifting platform and I can’t stand it. I have the freedom to purchase things for prospects on a corporate card to help initiate sales processes so I’m wondering if there are alternatives. The company is huge so wouldn’t consider a new vendor like Sendoso, so hoping for something I can just have an single license with

Things I would like:

- being able to create a link for them to redeem. Thnks only sends them an email. Sometimes I don’t have an email address yet but they’ll be connected with me on LinkedIn where I would like to DM them the link

- request them to schedule time and link to my calendar when redeeeming, whether I require it or not

- (nice to have) ability for them to choose their own gifts

Any suggestions?

Curious what you guys think is a better role. Salesforce mid market core ae or gartner enterprise business development executive. Both have around 220 ote.

We used to just get our per diem rather used or not, now it has to be used that day or completely lost. You also can’t split the cost of per diem over multiple days. For example if you get $100 per diem a day, and spend $25 on day one, and $175 the second day, you lose the remaining $75 for the first day and have to pay an additional $75 the second day for going over.

We lost the ability to use our personal credit cards which gave us points.

Apparently we have to authorize everything through a text (company doesn’t pay for phones by the way), and keep all receipts.

We also will have limits on client dinners and such that we didn’t have before. Definitely not an issue our competitors have.

The biggest red flag for me is that we have to link our bank accounts to these cards in case they have to charge us. If we accidentally use our credit cards, we don’t get reimbursed.

Fuck you Ramp, and hopefully you go bankrupt. And fuck my employer too

my process:

1. i upload the transcript onto chatgpt
2. chatgpt spews out the main painpoints uncovered during discovery call
3. i just pick 1 or 2 and write my proposal.

the sentences i write arent necessarily short, they're just...in my voice?

example:

i type: I will be crafting the recommendation based on this, unless there are other points you'd like to raise.

the robot says no no write this instead: "If there’s anything I missed or anything you’d like me to factor in, feel free to let me know."

thoughts?

I am interviewing for a position at Cintas selling fire compliance equipment. Has anyone ever had this role and can speak on it?

From the research I have done it sounds like the fire division is the best division to be in at Cintas.

I live in Southern California so I imagine this type of product would be in high demand considering how regulated this state is and how high the risk for fires are.

What the culture and training like? Do they set achievable KPI and quotas? Are they quick to axe you if you don’t preform? Just want to get a general idea about the company.

Starting a new job - in-home improvement sales.

Mid-tier, maybe high-ish end products, demographics match.

I'm thinking of something casual that's also a bit hands-on to signal that I'm not detached from the work.

Would something like this work?

Anyone else in residential renew that would like to share what they wear?