RepVue Sales Floor

Exciting!!! r/sales watch out!

Neither... quota attainment all day (with a reasonable OTE, of course :)

I used to worry about this as well but over time I’ve found that it’s not uncommon for comp plans to get finalized mid to late Q1. One year in particular we delayed into Q2 because there was a major initiative to repackage our pricing, still not ideal but at least mgt was communicative and transparent on that front. I’d be slightly concerned if you get into Q2 without a plan in place. Keep pushing on your leadership for updates. Some would disagree with this advice but I’d recommend pushing your deals back if you feel reasonably confident about your pipeline. You never know if deals closed in the interim will be susceptible to a clawback or result in a change in your final quota. Hope that helps!

I would think a lot of folks are. Make sure to be active, network aggressively with hiring managers, and make sure to dial in a profile of what your ideal next role looks like. If you haven't added a RepVue candidate profile do that as we're in early stages of our AI based job matching beta, and you never know what kind of opportunities we'll put in front of you. Good luck! ✌️

Step 1: Tell your manager you’re using AI. Step 2: Keep doing what works.

I'm still bullish on software, as AI 'agents' are not going to be taking over AE roles. Yes of course AI, but don't sleep on: cybersecurity, medical device sales, manufacturing. Good luck! ✌️

I have, much happier on the partner side and find it more interesting as a whole. There are some similarities and depends on the consulting role but your job is to land new work, deliver good work and get the renewals and expansion opportunities.

I got popped last August after less than 90-days to make space for a friend of the CRO. So it put me in a bad spot looking like a "job hopper". I also have a lot of experience in the field and in market (read: I'm north of 40). I applied to probably 100 openings. In the end, what made it for me was connections to former co-workers. The only ones that I got a reply on were where I knew someone that could tell me who specifically to reach out to (the HM). From there, I figured out their email address and built a very custom "why me" email for each HM. Good luck out there!!!!

We had a CEO recommend folks log back on in the evenings after putting the kids to sleep “like he did”. He explicitly said if they can’t be bothered to do that and “hustle” then the company may not be the right place for them anymore

Honestly? I came in for the money, 100%. I was broke, saw a job that didn’t need experience and had commission upside, and said “yep, I’m in.” But over time, I kinda started to like it. there’s a weird thrill to it. Still not sure I love sales, but I respect it.

Hey there! I think this is the post you are referring to (LMK if not): --- Bring these 10 questions to the interview when they allow you to ask questions. These will show intellectual curiosity + business acumen + your ability to actually succeed in the role. 1. How do you define the TAM and how big is it right now? 2. What did the top performer in this role earn last year? 3. How much did the comp plan change last year to this year? (can I see a copy of both) 4. Will the company need to raise additional capital? If so when / what is the current burn rate? 5. Why is this role or territory open? If it was owned by someone else, why are they no longer in the role and can I speak with them? 6. Who will I be reporting to and how long have they been with the company? (if it's not the interviewer make sure to speak with them) 7. What are the top 3 most used 'closed-lost' reasons in your CRM for these types of deals? 8. What % of my pipeline is expected to be self sourced vs. coming from marketing / SDRs, etc? 9. What % of team members in this role attained their quota last quarter? 10. What are the top 3 initiatives you are working on to move that quota attainment higher? Would you be hesitant to ask any of these questions, if so which one(s) and why? -----

Cold calling all day. Email open rates are garbage right now, and everyone is drowning in inbox clutter. Calling gets me real conversations. Plus, I can handle objections in real-time instead of waiting for a reply that never comes. That said - email+call to the same person is still the best approach. Especially if the email will get your name to show up on their iphone when you call ;)

First 30 days, your ONLY focus should be learning. Sit in on as many calls as possible (live or recordings). Shadow top reps—steal their talk tracks. Read case studies, whitepapers, anything the company puts out. And do your own research outside of just your company-provided materials. You can’t sell what you don’t understand. Gotta become an expert on the *problems* that your customer is facing - not just the *solutions* that your company offers... that's the key to being effective in your role.

Many AEs may not seem like it but they do love helping. That said, here's how to approach it: Just tell them that you're looking to grow your career in sales and tell them that you admire what they've accomplished - ask them if they'd be up for doing a coffee meeting every couple months or so (YOU BUY) to get their take on things and answer some of your questions. Don't say: HEY WILL YOU MENTOR ME?? haha, just ask if they'd be open to catching up every so often. Guess what, that's mentoring. Good luck! ✌️

Ooh - this is a tough question for sure... but it sounds from your post like you're leaning towards the manager role. And if that's the case then its probably the right move I'd say. How many years have you been in the AE role? If your goal is to be a manager/leader - then it seems like you should jump at the chance. It's true that you will probably not make as much $$ as a top rep - but you'd probably make as much as someone who's in about the 80%tile on the leaderboard - and you're likely to have much more consistent comp. Why do you say you're likely to be a KPI-pusher? Is that the culture at the compnay? or just how you think you'd manage? Are there some sales managers/leaders at your company who could mentor you?

First of all, congrats on the offer. It's definitely a tough choice. I've said many times that a few short stints really don't matter too much, BUT, at some point the hiring managers are going to look for one long tenure. If ALL you have are short tenures, the perceived risk of the hiring manager goes up exponentially. So that really should be considered in this decision. With the new offer - do you see a path to 3 to 4 years? If you do, a 50% higher base is substantial, so you have to really dig into the product and the territory - can it sustain you being successful for 3 to 4 years. Not even coming close to your OTE in your current role implies that you're missing goal badly - do you feel at risk because of that? Good luck, let us know what you ended up doing. ✌️

This usually works when: 1) The accounts are very large (like probably F250 / $10B revenue) - so even though it's techically one account, there is a lot of opportunity to cross-sell into other units 2) The product is consumption based - you've got to be able to scale up in either seats or (better) usage; and 3) As you've mentioned - the comp plan takes into account more than just standard bookings Sometimes these accounts can be gold mines - and landing them can nearly guarnatee a pretty strong income for several years. But if you have concerns you might ask for a higher base - or some sort of non-traditional comp metrics - such as bonuses for division/product expansion (beyond just the incremental revenue that it brings in).

Some of this depends upon the average transaction size, but if you're exclusively inbound (i.e. fielding what comes in from marketing) really the number that you're comped against is a downstream effect of the volume that you are given, factoring in the average conversion rate (inbound to meeting) across the team. To add more color - if the average inbound conversion rate is 10% you would need to get 600 inbounds to hit a 60 quota. So how many are you getting roughly per month and what is your conversion rate. If you're constantly missing quota, BUT your conversion rate is about average across the entire team, then you have a legit reason to be a bit frustrated. Hopefully this makes sense!

Don't know if this qualifies but I still love the Steve Jobs email to the Adobe CEO. None of these shenanigans. Just direct. "Bruce, Adobe is recruiting from Apple. "They have hired one person already and are calling lots more. I have a standing policy with our recruiters that we don't recruit from Adobe. It seems you have a different policy. "One of us must change our policy. Please let me know who. Steve."

Unfortunately your scenario isn't that uncommon in sales. I had the same thing happen early in my career - when I just didn't know how to ask the right questions. The good thing is that since it's not that uncommon, you can also explain it when you're interviewing at other companies. I'd say try not to trash your current org though - when asked about why you're interviewing so soon you could say something like "unfortunately it's not what I was expecting" - without getting into details. But that will give you a good reason to dig into things like quota attainment and product-fit. Hopefully you have a couple of longish tenures on your resume? If so I think most hiring managers will definitely understand that this kind of thing can happen.

Was running into the same wall recently. I'd recommend not wasting your time with a blind application. Try to network with reps at the company to get a referral. Lean on your network to get connected to any 2nd degree connections on linkedin. That or target roles where the hiring manager is identifiable. In that case try dropping an application and then writing your pitch to that hiring manager on why you think youre a good fit. You may be doing all these things already in which case I'd say stay on the grind and be persistent. Its been a tough market for a while but you'll break through eventually. Good luck!

I don't think you're off base entirely, no. Every company is different and for AE roles I think the question of 'are you underpaid' should be evaluated based more on the OTE vs. the quota (or base vs. quota). We're still seeing a 10x base to annual quota ratio for software companies as the norm, i.e. if you have a base salary of $90,000 usd, you'd probably expect a ~$900,000 usd quota (annual, as measured in ARR or ACV). That said almost every org is a bit different in their naming and the thresholds going from one division to another. SMB, commercial, mid market, enterprise, strategic, majors, etc. Hope this helps a bit and happy to address any follow up questions here! ✌️

Hopefully someone else has dealt with this and can comment on it, although frankly it might be a stretch because this is unusual. If I'm a board member, I'm interested in this organization's ability to sustain growth, and what you're telling me is that some high % of your core sellers' time is now shifted away from selling and over to customer success, which would be concerning. I'm sure there are retention challenges predicating this and there may not be budget to hire more (or any?) CS reps, so this is the only viable solution. That said, for situations like this my general advice is to be really really specific about your numbers and metrics in terms of hitting goals - how much time will be spent with CS work, leaving a portion for new business. And there you need to create X number of opportunities assuming Y close rate to hit your number. You can back into activity metrics also and just work through how much needs to be done. Now is also a good time to flip your RepVue candidate profile over to 'passively looking'. :)

Well there are multiple types of background checks - many companies may require a criminal background check which will pull up anything criminal related in your past. It sounds more like you are asking about a reference check. In which case you can and should be able to provide multiple POSITIVE references from your earlier career, particularly those who may have managed you in the past. The hiring team may also do a backchannel reference check from their network if there is overlap with their network and your network. Those are kind of the 'under the table' conversations that they want to have because they know you're references are of course only going to provide positive feedback. Let me know specifically what you're referring to and we can provide more clarity.

Yes 100% it gets easier and it gets better and when you realize that them picking up is how you'll make money, get promoted, and win in life, you'll be more at ease :). That said, think through what's causing the anxiety - many times it's related to an uncomfortable feeling related to your knowledge or perceived lack thereof as it relates to your industry, your products, and your prospects. For better or worse, the best way to overcome that is to have repetitions on the phone. Good luck and stay after it! ✌️

The big names are pulling people back in-office, but some mid-size and bootstrapped companies are still remote-friendly. Don’t believe any recruiter who says “we’re hybrid but super flexible.” That’s code for “we’ll make you feel guilty for not coming in.”

Yes, 100% you can. But like everything, the macro-economic conditions are going to play a role here, and we're not in as good a position as we were a few years ago (but seeing some improvements). Many sales orgs will recruit for their entry level or SMB AE roles from SDRs at other organizations, although the organization where you are an SDR does matter quite a bit. In other words the recruiter for the SMB AE role may be looking for a brand on your resume in that SDR role - like are you an SDR at Salesforce/Servicenow? Or some no-name tech adjacent company? If the latter, my recommendation would be to parlay your SDR role into another SDR role at a better name brand tech company, put in a year there, then you'll be much more sought after. Good luck! ✌️

Sold burgers, cheese fries, snacks, air heads, whatever else we had at the pool's snack bar when I was 15 years old. Low ticket, transactional, and a lot of sampling the product. Wasn't as much selling but definitely was dealing with people. Good times. ✌️

It's been a while since I was an AE, but my strategy was always live off my base salary and never ever need any commissions or variable pay for anything month to month, including things like vacations. Get that debt paid down/off, start investing, etc. Could be the markets, could be an investment property, etc. Trust me when I say the $ amount going out is higher in your 40s than your 30s, and higher in your 30s than your 20s. Build that muscle memory now! Don't get caught up in keeping up with the Jones's (I guess now it's keeping up with the fake instagram crowd?). Good luck! ✌️

I used to use Loom a couple years back when we were just launching RepVue and I'd use it exclusively to recruit sales professionals for RepVue via LinkedIn DMs. It worked really well (if anyone reads this that got one of my video messages LMK!), but this isn't a b2b sell this was user outreach. It also wasn't the first step in the cadence either. My opinion though is that this shouldn't be the 'intro' to what you're pitching, they need to be warmed up first with other outreach/channels, etc.

Honestly CROs come and go and as an AE your success is going to be more tied to the product market fit of the company and your direct manager. Where the CRO has the most impact on your experience is as follows: 1. Constructing a great compensation plan that's rewarding, fair, and doesn't change on a whim 2. Not putting up with ineffective first line management, and making changes when they need to. 3. Providing 'air cover' for the sales organization across the rest of the executive team and being a genuine advocate for their team. The "BEST" CROs are typically going to be those that (through either luck or foresight) were able to hop on board a very fast growing company at the right time and ride that wave through to exit. They typically are skilled but also remember... timing, territory (product!), talent, in that order. You should be trying to do the same thing. Very few people would have experience with a ton of CROs and so I'd recommend looking at things like this first. Hope it helps!

My feedback is that if you're already in a full cycle role, unless it's a massive step up from a brand perspective (like going to a top 10 public software company) you should not take a step back from a role perspective. And even if it is a massive brand improvement, it's debatable. Instead focus on what specific challenges you have regarding pipeline generation. Is it amount of activity, is it reply rates, is it connect rates, or lead to opportunity conversion rate, etc. Break down the metrics. Second, you should look carefully across the team to understand the others in your same role - are other also struggling with pipeline generation, and if so have a dialog there. Look to the metrics, strategies and tactics of the peers who are not having the same issue. Break down why. Is it a you problem or an 'org' problem. An org problem could be a problem with your territory or book of accounts. The organization / leadership should also work very closely with you on this problem to provide guidance, training and a plan to improve. Hope this is at least a little bit helpful to you. Good luck! ✌️

You need to break down WHY you don't think you'll make much money. Are others in the same role making money? Is nobody on the team making money? If other are, what are they doing differently than you? Is there a territory problem, are you trained, is there a management problem, something else? Speak with those people doing well. If nobody is making money then it may be a capacity (too many reps) or a product issue and you should start passively looking to make a change. In parallel get a good understanding of what changes are coming from the company to determine if there's a path to improvement later this year as the company makes changes to improve things. Good luck. ✌️

I hear you. Have you followed up? Send a double-tap email, hit ‘em on LinkedIn, even call the recruiter or better yet the hiring manager. If they still don’t respond, take the hint and move on. But at least control what you can. The good thing is that we're interviewing for roles where the job is to be aggressive and follow up... so at the end of the day can they blame us??

Made a similar jump a few years back—from premium B2C sales into B2B SaaS. The biggest adjustment for me was the length of the sales cycle and how many people are involved in every deal. in B2C, it was usually a 1:1 convo and quick decision. In SAaS, it’s all about building consensus across teams, navigating procurement, and sometimes waiting months to close. ALso had to get way more comfortable with discovery calls v straight product pitching.

Question for you about your current territory here - have you had a very direct conversation about the territory with your boss and/or senior leaders. Taking a non-emotional approach and bringing data / stats, etc. I mean the leaders must know that it's a bad territory and they are probably losing good people (forced or unforced) on a regular basis. Any feedback on attempts on those conversations?

For a long time the cold calling bar to get over has been around 5% connect rate, but I would think over the past 12 to 24 month we're not seeing too many orgs reach that metric at scale. Open rates I believe are going to be even more impacted as AI will be more prevalent with email (remember an AI bot can't legally cold call you without consent). So historically a good open rate would be like 35%+ with a reply rate at 5%+. Of course this will vary significantly by persona, job level, etc. What's everyone else seeing?

I've previously been in a couple of Channel Sales roles - and they've always had a quota, similar to an AE role. The difference is that the quota is based on the sales that come through the channel partners that you are responsible for. But it also depends whether the channel is already existing / established - or if this is new and the job is to recruit partners. If it's the latter then it's probably going to be less commission-based - at least at first.

I've found a lot of success with Clay and have learned a lot from Patrick Spychalski on LI and YouTube. But I've also found that success varies based on your customer base (e.g. finding correct emails, updated data, etc). I've used Clay in 2 industries and the results were vastly different.

I call into K-12 schools, so I always get someone answering the phone...but the DM is typically never available.

Yeah that's tough and definitely nuanced and I can't speak for others' experience but one approach would be to confirm what details are listed in the job description related to the required skills. Are these typically things that are listed? If they're listed as required skills you could study up on them prior to the interview. Another approach could be to confirm prior to the interview that there are / aren't additional topics, skills, or lines of questions that you can prepare for (i.e. you've read through the JD but want to make sure you're fully prepared). Good luck and keep after it! ✌️

I redo literally EVERYTHING they give me. Half the time it’s some 5-year-old PowerPoint that looks like an intern made it. If your leadership is chill, they won’t care as long as you close deals. Do whatever works for you and ask questions later.

Every hiring decision has pros and cons, so you should focus on what you bring to the table as an internal candidate. Here are some examples that you should leverage during the interview / hiring process: 1. Your expert knowledge of your product, services, customers and market so you can hit the ground running. 2. The fact that you've been a successful contributor on the team for a while now which significantly decreases the risk vs. an external hire. 3. Your success on the sales floor has built goodwill among your team members - they know you can do the job and they have seen it. 4. You've built up goodwill with other departments across the organization and have good relationships and will know how to navigate internal dealings (not using the word politics, lol) A key worry that senior leadership may have is that you don't have experience managing people but you should say that you feel 100% confident in your ability there and you also have seen that the organization provides great support for managers which you're excited about. Good luck!

What if you did number 1 and number 3 at the same time?

So first off - congrats. You're doing amazing... but also good for you for staying ambitious and keeping your sights set high. I think it's hard to say what you should do without a little bit more context and perspective on what's most important. Do you have a family and young kids where the benefits and WLB are really important? Or are you single and want to really maximize your earnings in the next ~5 years? If the family considerations are high - it sounds like you're in a pretty great place. The saying about the "grass is always greener" is said for a reason... and it's usually not. BUT that said - it sounds like you've beat quota multiple years at a blue chip sales org - and that means you'll definitely have other opportunities. There's no doubt that there are sellers out there making $500K. There are sellers out there making $1M. But those are Ent/Strategic AE roles. If I were you I would do a little research here (RepVue) on orgs where the top sellers are making $1M+, and then look for either AM or AE roles in MM or Ent. If you can get hired into a role like that, then you'll be to move internally into the top $$ roles in a couple of years. The key thing though is that you gotta make sure that the quota attainment in those teams is at least as high as the org you're in now. What you don't want to do is move into a company where the top couple reps are making bank because they have the best accounts or territory on lock... and everyone else is failing and miserable. When that's the case you can see it pretty obviously in the team quota attainment - and also reviews. Good luck!

Interesting concept, couple points - obviously you should be open to considering unique roles where you can leverage your skills but here are a few off the cuff thoughts: - Is there a formal job description or is the job listed? If so does it align with your career goals? - To that end, is there a further path from this role a couple years down the road (management, something more strategic, etc?) - As it's something you'll consider, you'd definitely want to know what the OTE would be and if there's a meaningful variable component, how that would be measured. That will be a core part of your decision process of course, so you should be up front about it - Reporting structure is important - who would this role report to? A senior marketing leader? Someone else? Will this give you more visibility from your senior leadership team and put you in more strategic conversations? - Is this the first of this role or was there someone else in there? Are they creating it for you or do others exist supporting these or other products - seems this is somewhat new and unique but there may be others that you can discuss this with? - So my first step would be getting as much visibility into things like this as possible to make a really informed decision! Hope this helps - good luck! ✌️

Would love to hear from anyone who's got exposure here...

Couple thoughts on this: Number 1, you should be as transparent, without coming across as whining or complaining, about previous experiences that don't go well, and be as up front as possible with regard to providing that context and information. Number 2, I would proactively offer a few other references that you feel really represent you well, as a possible counterbalance to any potential negative feedback that was received. It's always best to get ahead of these situations, particularly if you know there's a relationship there (pre-existing). And yeah so the more you can counterbalance with strong references, the better. Bummer about this, hope this guidance helps a little. ✌️

If multiple reps bounced that fast, it’s a huge red flag. Either the comp plan is garbage, the product isn’t actually good, or leadership is clueless (maybe all three). Do yourself a favor and start looking before you waste too much time.

Make 100 calls a day and keep your outreach activity high. Emails, LinkedIn etc