RepVue Sales Floor

I am currently a sales manager at a portco owned by a top 10 PE firm. Sales do not stop. Period. Can't deliver, keep selling. Bad product, keep selling. Late delivery or launch? Keep selling. Broken system, can't launch? Keep selling. You will be asked to sell no matter the circumstance. The good thing, most AE's, etc. are overlooked when it comes to layoffs, belt tightening. Managers, Directors, VP's get cut long before the reps. You aren't producing? It's your boss getting axed, not you. Series B startup? Fun, high pressure, GTM may change often if traction isn't happening fast enough. Less stress, more fun, better on your resume than a portco is. If you can sell in the startup environment, you have a better resume than an established business that was bought with the intentions of being grown to flip.

Ugh - "send me an email" is the worst... and unfortunately I'd say that 95% of the time it's just to get you off the phone and you'll never hear from them again. If I were you, I'd think about whether there's a way you can counter what is effectively an objection... so maybe something like: Them: "Great, send me an email" You: "For sure - but just to make sure that I include the right stuff in the email so it's not a waste of your time, would you say that ..... [x]" I don't know what you're selling so not sure what you'd say there - but the point is to try to get some piece of info that would be useful in qualifying them. And essentially you're offering to let them off the hook (phone) in exchange for that info. So what would that be for you?

I mean, you will likely be at a disadvantage, but realistically there are very few entry level SaaS roles that will accept a fully remote candidate. For more senior roles, yes. The critical piece of the SDR role is getting training, hearing calls, working with peers. So even if you were able to land an SDR type role, yes, you'd likely be at a disadvantage there. Similar to what others have said, if you have 10 years selling technology, you could try to work your way into an AE role and bypassing the SDR role, which would likely open up a few remote opportunities. Good luck!

Is this through your school? Is the role paid?

I'd do a few things here. First - do you have a tool to visualize where your accounts fall into these categories (industry, region, language, etc.)? If not, I'd put them in an Excel sheet and create a pivot table so you can see how many accounts you have in each group. This can also help you visualize where your accounts are distributed and you can say "alright, 20% of my patch is in this industry which we play well in, I'm going to prioritize these". From there, I'd make a OneNote page for each of these groups where you can start compiling content your company has and what you find online so you can better learn how to sell into each group. I'd then create unique messaging for each group and add that to the respective OneNote pages. You can use what your company has + input these categories into ChatGPT to see what email templates it spits out and tailor it how you'd like. Now when you do cold or targeted outreach, you can filter your list to whichever category you'd like and have a quick repository of relevant information for your emails and cold calls.

I used ChatGPT and just asked it to help me prep for an sdr skill assessment. Wasn't for ServiceTitan, so it may be different for you, but it worked pretty well.

gotta add more context if you want any help. here's the short answer making an assumption about your question: if you're not already in sales, you won't get a job like this. go get an sdr job.

You left out the most important variable. Are you hitting quota currently? Maybe even overacheiving? And what % of this team at the potential new org is hitting quota? That's way more important than OTE. Also, I'd heavily discount the "likely IPO". That may happen. But more likely than not it won't. Regardless, if you leave before then you may not get much out of it anyway. Consider it additional upside - but not part of a core decision. Lastly though - if you are really interested in govtech (selling to gov seems like a nightmare to me - but to each their own!), then I'd say go for it as long as the team quota attainment is solid (at least 50%... 60%+ is great)

Would you be interested in being an AE selling MSPs? I work for JumpCloud’s MSP partnership program and could help you get an intro if you wanna connect

Congrats on landing a role and having a successful first day of calls! Appreciate you posting a win!!

Some additional background - our sales cycles are long so a lot of time, energy, and effort goes into these deals. I always reflect on lost deals + ask for feedback to apply to the next cycle, but it's defeating when pipeline is low and you lose a critical deal.

Don’t forget the basics: - introduce yourself and set an agenda for the call - ask at least two probing question for every discovery question and try to quantify pain ie get a metric (lost x amount of money doing y resulting in z problem in business) - ask about who else in the business needs to weigh into decision and who signs a contract. Suggest they attend next call. - always set up a next step on the call itself before it ends - understand urgency of problem (when do they want it solved by) and whether there’s budget allocated

Spray and pray won't work, especially not right now. Treat it like you're prospecting. What worked well for you when you were a top performing intern? Do that, but instead of booking meetings, you'll be booking interviews.

Tons of variables here. Are the open/reply rate benchmarks from the sales automation platforms or the companies selling the lists? What kind of numbers do you need to hit your sales targets? How much testing have you done of subject lines and messaging? On the technical side, is all your authentication (DMARC, DKIM, SPF) set up to make sure your emails aren't going to spam folders?

Market - it's very tough. You have to know someone to land interviews a lot of the time.

Lol, I just had 7....

Unfortunately I think it's definitely a thing. I've seen it a lot in the last few years (as I've considered myself more "seasoned" than a lot of my peers. I'm in SaaS and there's no question that a lot of companies are very biased towards hiring people in their 20's/30's for SDR roles. For AEs it's a little bit better but unless you have a solid enterprise track record it can be tough to be successful as an outside hire if you're over 40. Sucks but that's what it seems like. I would guess that it's different in some different industries maybe?

Do the pitch if you’re comfortable doing it. No need to pretend it was the plan. Things happen and a quick honest comment acknowledging that something unexpected may have come up for the AE is fine. You also don’t want to waste the prospects time or squander the opportunity. An abbreviated pitch to whet their appetite, along with some good line of questioning to understand current state + pain points, then tee up a follow up meeting to go deeper with the AE would likely be the best path.

Not necessarily however ensure you clearly speak to about your prior closing experience. What was your ADS? What was your annual target? Your Target attainment? Stakeholders you engaged with and how you multi threaded them. Average deal cycle length. Key achievements and external training i.e. Have you invested in any training resources outside of 9-5? It may be worth going into a company such a HubSpot as you will have enough experience to go in as an AE and then after 1/1/5 years you can pivot that into a smaller company as an AE and pay will increase dramatically. Question is tho have you done outbound prospecting before? As you will need to and a vital skill to know. If not SDR is probs the route.

Revolut, Alan, Spendesk and more on welcometothejungle. We don't have many software editors except the famous (Google, Hubspot, SAP, etc.)

Not sure if anyone here has experience using it in a legal context... from their RepVue profile it looks like they have decent Product-Market Fit, but the sales reps don't seem particularly happy... https://www.repvue.com/companies/harvey-ai

I'm definitely seeing a lot of companies pausing of slowing down hiring due to general economic uncertainty at the moment. Tough time to be job searching for sure, unfortunately. Hopefully things turn around soon!

What took me from decent to great? Ownership. Everything changed when I stopped thinking like a rep and started thinking like the CEO of my own book of business. I stopped waiting for marketing to deliver leads or enablement to give me content. I built my outbound motion, created value-first messaging, and treated every meeting like a boardroom pitch, not a demo. In my early days, I learned how to cold-call and sell capital equipment door to door—real “eat what you kill” stuff. Later, I sold application security (SAST, SCA, DAST, you name it) into some of the toughest Fortune 500 accounts in the country. Deals with Equifax, Brown & Brown, and others didn’t happen accidentally. They came from relentless follow-up, deep discovery, and knowing how to challenge the status quo without being a jerk. The most significant leap came when I stopped chasing quota and started solving problems. That mindset and W2-validated top performance got me named Fortify Seller of the Year. So, if you're hovering near your target, ask yourself this: Are you an order taker or a deal maker? There’s a huge difference.

Abnormal Security is probably worth checking out.

I'd respond with - "I wanted to quickly level set where we are. When we originally kicked off the trial, we scoped it for 14 days, which we’ve now extended multiple times to support your testing and internal discussions. That flexibility came with the intent of being a true partner, not just a vendor. That said, this level of engagement — especially with the support we've provided and the specific needs around [X, Y, and Z] — goes well beyond the scope of a standard free trial. At this point, it’s only fair to convert this into a formal try-and-buy agreement. That ensures continued access, accountability on both sides, and sets us up for a clean transition to production. If moving forward is still the plan, let’s get a short-term agreement in place this week. Otherwise, we’ll need to sunset the environment so we can refocus our resources. Let me know which direction you want to take — we’re ready when you are."

Hey this is a great question and appreciate the insights. Frankly speaking we're seeing what we thought would play out, play out. The new AI tools tough the advantage being deep research and enrichment, which is great, but now pretty much everyone is doing that so all the emails look the same (again). Some things I think will matter more and more: 1. Founder brand through social and connecting with their market community (this is frankly what I try to do on LinkedIn for sales professionals and it drives a lot of awareness in our brand) 2. SEO yes, but think GEO (gen-AI engine optimization). The game is changing. Low quality content that used to work like Hubspots blog 'best sales books' or something is not gonna cut it. Need to be really specific to the product and not fluff. Also user generated content is doing really well. 3. Then you can pair some of these strategies with some traditional outreach like email and cold calling (well I just have to say at this point you just can't abandon it). 4. I also love just general social engagement with prospects from sellers (founder brand provides air cover). It's HARD out there right now, and don't expect it to get easy any time soon.

are they dogging you about updates? there was an article i saw last week about "malicious compliance" — which gave a name to something i've been doing for years. go above and beyond and document every little thing. see how long it takes for them to tell you to ease up. really only works if they get an email/alert for every update.

Hi! From my Experience, you need deep technical knowledge about the industry that you will work in. I for myself am a technical Consultant for Cyber Security at a big distributor, and I got offered a Sales Engineering role several times. You need deep technical expertise not only in the Product you are selling (obviously) but also the broader spectrum. For example, you get offered a SE role at ZScaler. You not only need to know how ZScaler works technically, but also how Networking and Cyber Security works in general. You will encounter several different Networks and Products of all kind of sorts, which is why you need to know what you are saying and understand the Customers needs technically. As you probably know, the SE role isnt an entry level role, which has its reasons. I would guess mostly people with 3-5+ years of IT Experience can venture into an SE role. Have you talked about your wanted change with your current Org? I can give you some examples of good Certs, but we need to know your industry first (Cyber Security, Networking, HR Software etc.).

for me, you could've stopped at "a CRO that has zero clue." your question isn't a pitch. if you can't say anything like that, all you could say is "hi, how are you?" and be rightfully ignored.

Still a lot of wait and see for us.

Can you A/B test? Send the marketing version to half and your version to half (random prospects, don't cherry-pick) and see what happens. If youre right, show it to your sales lead.

Maybe it's just me, but seems like a very short amount of time to be an AE before hoping to move into leadership. If you're making plans for your career, that's awesome. Not enough people do that. See if a sales leader you like at your current org will mentor you. Otherwise, I'd say stay an AE and keep crushing your quota for a few more years.

Are you looking to do sales in banking / fin services? Or a totally different industry (like software or med device)?

Rough numbers: 1-2 hours / day prospecting 4 hours / day calling 2 hours/day emailing I was at 90% to goal (we're comped on meetings) but I was first on my team. Goals were adjusted down slightly this q so I think I'm on pace to beat target.

I have a very similar talk track and would say 95% of the time the prospect agrees to hearing my "pitch". Traditional cold call training would say it's not good to give them an "out" but it's way more human/casual and always works for me.

Sorry - what's a Channel Director?

Hey Emmett - Jordan from RepVue here... This is tough for sure - but we're actively working to help RepVue users get engagement from recruiters on jobs that they're a great fit for. Have you filled out your candidate profile here: https://www.repvue.com/user/candidate-profile Once you fill that out, we'll notify you of roles that you'd be a good fit for based on things like sales experience, buyer persona, etc.

I think ultimately it’s a gut feeling but that gut feeling is based on an accumulation of data points. I’m just dipping my toe into the job market because my company has similar challenges. Our product was market leading a few years ago but we’ve been passed by our competition. Executive leadership is too busy drinking their own koolaid and don’t feel like any new strategy should be employed as they think we are still the best.

Depends on your prospect and how good the cadence is. It's not about what you like or don't like, it's about what the prospect wants. And if what you send them sucks, being top of mind isn't much use.

You’re not doomed but ask yourself: do you wanna build the plane and fly it? That's what early stage startup life is like a lot of times.

Hard to say since it will depend on the negotiations your partner ecosystem team had with SAP. We had it where if our product was sold on their paper we got 50% in the past. It created weird tension with the clients and prospects as they could see both reps were fighting on getting the deal done on their respective papers. Now we have it so both reps get 100% either way which obviously increases the likelihood of collaboration but it’s brand new so we’ll see.

I hate to even say this but multi threading and executive alignment are key to being able to overcome that situation.

Talk to the pre-sales engineers at your current org if you can. Ask if you can sit in on calls and shadow them occasionally. Build a rapport, and they can help you make connections and/or recommend you.

End of the following month isn't uncommon. Quarterly is brutal. As for protecting yourself, what does your contract/comp plan say? And do you have room to negotiate?

What a rug pull. Did they change the comp plan after you started or did they just lie to you?

I think the biggest thing is asking if the level of detail they provide passes the smell test. Seems like you have some experience, so you'd know if you're seeing the official plan or just the parts they want you to see. If it seems like the latter, doesn't seem like an org I'd want to get involved with.

When did you hit quota? What’s your fiscal year ? If your paid quarterly and only made quota in Q4 that means most of you commission were paid in the new year so totally normal