RepVue Sales Floor

Exciting!!! r/sales watch out!

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

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 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'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! ✌️

tech/edtech, 2022 Q3, 34k close 2nd-- tech/fintech, 2024 Q4, 33k

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.

Does your company have an Enterprise Associate Director role (role names may vary) which support Enterprise AEs? That would be a good stepping stone to moving into an Ent AE role as what companies will be looking for is exposure to enterprise companies, enterprise sales motions and overcoming the types of challenges enterprises encounter. If your company doesn’t have such a role, look for those types of roles outside of your company. Ent can sometimes be hard to break into but once you do, it can be lucrative.

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 spent 8.5 years at Salesforce, so I’ll admit I’m a bit biased—but objectively, I believe Salesforce is the stronger opportunity. At HubSpot, you’re primarily selling a single product SKU. It’s a great product, but more of a point solution. As a core AE at Salesforce, you carry a broader product portfolio, which gives you more levers to pull and significantly more upside in both deal size and learning. The long-term career value is also worth considering. Salesforce is one of the most respected enterprise tech brands globally—both for internal growth and for external recruiting. It opens doors. Don’t get too caught up in MM vs. GRB. The real distinction is platform vs. product. At Salesforce, you’ll be in more complex, high-stakes sales cycles that resemble true enterprise selling. That experience compounds.

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!

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

Are you saying you will be available in September? And want to know when you should start applying? Sort of depends on why you can't start until September. I would say start now and be up front about your start date when you get into a process. Maybe they're ok with it - maybe they have you circle back in a couple months, but either way if you know you'll be on the market I always like getting a head start. Hope this helps!

Without going into too much detail there are two primary use cases for you on LinkedIn (specific to the headline / summary section): 1. Driving prospects and interest in what you are selling 2. Using it as a personal branding platform for you as you think about your mid term / long term career objectives. Many folks use it as a balance of both of those things, but remember number 1 is only applicable if your prospects are active on LinkedIn. If they're not active, then putting a bunch of company branding/marketing material on there is a waste of time. If your prospects are active on LinkedIn then you could add some of that branding on there, fine, but if nobody sees it, does it really matter? What I mean by that is consider creating content on the platform (not pitch based, but giving value) to drive folks to your profile, where they then are made aware of your company and personal brand, it can help with prospecting, and it will also add value to you personally from a future career perspective. In case it wasn't clear, this is Ryan, the CEO of RepVue, and my headline touches on both use cases. Good luck with the new role!

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.

Played. Not normal at all.

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?

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!!!!

That seems odd - you're already a sales leader and you want to progress at your current company? And they're saying you need to go back to an IC role? Maybe I'm not following. But if that's the case, this sounds like a questionable organization and I'd consider the following: 1. Looking for lateral moves to a similar level leadership position in a company that may support more upward movement. 2. If you did have to consider taking a step back to an IC role, that's going to be a question you'll have to answer moving forward in interviews, so you should really ensure that it's for a VERY good IC role, possibly at a much stronger company, and one where you have a very high confidence of success. Happy to help further.

Feeling a bit of this myself, so you are not alone! I've been asking friends in CS positions and Sales Engineer roles who find it enjoyable, with way less pressure and involvement in the day-to-day grind of outbound, albeit with less a chance to make good money. Following this post for some other wisdom and feedback from the community, but hang in there! I'm sure you'll land somewhere you really enjoy.

Have you explained this to your new prospective employer? Most would understand the financial loss and either make up for it in a signing bonus or wait till you’re ready to move. An employer who doesn’t respect that you’re wanting to receive compensation for your hard work feels like a red flag. You’re not asking them to wait forever, just til a specific date (with a very logical reason).

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.

There's so much free content out there though too. If you're an SDR now is your company not working to train you up to eventually become an AE? Try to learn the craft as much as possible from existing AEs too. I think boot camps may be better served for people who want to break into sales or tech sales but your foot is already in the door. Especially if you're considering footing the bill personally.

I hate to oversimplify this but if you have any kind of semblance of what works for you, what drives success, my first recommendation is do like 50 to 75% MORE of that. There's no silver bullet here, for many folks we're going to need to have more at bats to accomplish the same. Good luck.

Many job boards have how long the role has been open. Sometimes it's a reasonably generic AE role or something like that and it's been open for MONTHS. Sometimes actually the organization will share that fact down in the job description. You should always read the ENTIRE job description too for many reasons. Of course many times they'll close and re-open the same role regularly too. Hope this helps.

Be very careful here, this is a huge red flag. Any manager who insists you keep dead deals alive just to inflate the pipeline isn’t looking out for your long-term success. They're covering their own ass by padding their team's pipeline numbers. If upper management or sales ops decides to dig into the pipeline (and sooner or later, they always do), it's your credibility on the line, not your manager’s. A good manager won't force fake pipeline numbers. Instead, they'd recognize a thin pipeline as a genuine issue and actively help you generate real, qualified opportunities—not artificially inflate it. Here’s exactly what you should do to protect yourself: 1- Document everything clearly in your CRM. Add detailed notes explaining exactly why an opportunity has stalled or died. Make it obvious that you’ve done your job properly and transparently. 2- Push back respectfully but firmly. Tell your manager directly, “I understand wanting pipeline visibility, but I’m uncomfortable risking my credibility if leadership audits the pipeline. Can we focus on actually generating more real opportunities instead?” 3- Ask your manager for help if your pipeline truly is weak. A strong manager steps up, supports you proactively, and helps fill gaps with legitimate deals. If your manager is simply telling you to fake numbers instead of helping you prospect, qualify, and sell effectively, they aren’t managing, they’re gaming the system at your expense. Bottom line: Cover your ass. Keeping dead opportunities alive can make you look bad, erode your reputation, and even jeopardize your job. Focus on building a solid, legitimate pipeline, and if your manager isn't actively helping you do that, start building your own internal allies and advocates immediately.

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. ✌️

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.

People fuss over the exact wording. Tone and confidence are everything in my opinion. I do like throwing in "I only have two minutes myself, this won't take long" to disarm them and establish my time's value.

No AE roles are fully inbound any more, SDR inbound is about all that fully focuses on that. Account mgmt has its pros and cons, expect a lot of tough conversations in the current market due to churn risk and unhappy customers

They’re probably gonna ask you how you’d explain their product to a non-technical buyer. Cyber can get real jargon-heavy, and a lot of buyers don’t wanna hear about firewalls or encryption standards. Practice breaking it down like you’re explaining it to your aunt who still uses AOL. Also prep for “How do you approach prospecting?” That’s a fave.

PIP is usually just a formality before they push you out. That said, if you REALLY want to stay, over-communicate everything, hit every metric, and make yourself annoying but indispensable. Otherwise, start job hunting ASAP.

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. ✌️

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!

Just some basics that you probably already know: 1. Do a detailed account map of all of your accounts vs. the products offered by your org - so you're looking at a grid of where there are opportunities, mapping them out based on which products your accounts already own vs. which they don't. 2. Then go through the list of which ones aren't owned and prioritize based on product-market fit in terms of the short and mid term likelihood to buy. 3. Then create an account plan for those top 10, 20, whatever opportunities 4. Go back to prospecting and account planning basics to get as many of those intro and discovery calls as possible to start from the bottom building or re-building pipeline. Use existing champions and if you don't feel like you have any or many, that should be a priority as well. 5. Present all of this to your manager, and walk through this in terms of what the true / real opportunity is in your territory in the next 12 months and how you plan on attacking it. This exercise, if done well, will potentially provide a clear picture of whether your current account set can support your NNARR (net new annual recurring revenue) targets, and if there is an issue there, you should have that conversation as well. Good luck.

I'm not 100% clear on what you mean by 'part-time' in this role - are you saying that you're hiring part time SDRs? If you've just been given a promotion and been told to hire 8 folks that were just doing your job the first question should be what kind of support are you going to have sourcing candidates, recruiting, interviewing, and then training them up - is there already a baked playbook in place or not? Is there a ramp plan, are you expected to put a new comp plan in place. Happy to help with more specifics on what you'll need to do if you can share just a bit more. Thanks!

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.

Not necessarily a red flag, but def a "yellow." Revenue-based comp can get shady real fast if they don't define it clearly. Gross revenue? Net revenue? Are they including discounts, returns, payment delays? Ask for exact calcs and examples from past reps. If they dodge it, run.

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?

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! ✌️

Thanks! I'm going to be responding to as many, if not all questions and topics on this board for the foreseeable future. Appreciate your support!

75/25 easy. If I’m not filling the top of the funnel, there's no nurture anyway. I hit the phones first thing every morning like clockwork.

A few things in parallel. While you certainly can get off a pip successfully (we'll discuss that below) you should make sure to get your resume dusted off, ready, and start getting it out there. Just from a % standpoint less people come off a pip successfully vs. getting shown the door. Be ready. Now on to the performance, you really need to break down WHY you're behind the number. Particularly for an SMB role, you can break down every point in the funnel: Are you getting the right number of leads based on what you should be every week Are you making the right number of cold calls (+ email outreach) Are these at bats turning into discovery calls at the right % Are the discovery calls converting into opps at the right % Are the opportunities moving through the pipeline at the right cadence and are they closing at the right % Are your deal sizes appropriate, etc So there's a clear funnel that should be happening - which of these steps looks off to you and how can you react and adjust to improve. If ALL you do is break this down successfully and put together a plan to improve the couple areas that are behind, I bet the confidence your manager will have in you will go way up and they'll want to support you. It's easier said than done, but that's like all things in sales. Good luck!

Are you on teh leadership team? (Or looking to move into a leadership role?) Seems like you're pitching a big vision if you're just an IC.

That's rough. Might be a tough time to start looking, though.

the good ole, lets break up babe that ends in the makeupsession that drags it all along for a few more weeks. how many makeupsessions till things change around here? unless youre making BIGGGG money + low hours + good manager, if you got the ick, aint no going back

Some of this depends on your current financial situation, especially given the macro uncertainties. There is nothing wrong with taking the AM role and the continuing to search for an SDR or AE role while you're gaining valuable skills and experience. You can also be a touch more selective with the organization that you eventually land at given you'll be gainfully employed in the meantime. The AM roles, even in more of a finance/insurance space, can be parlayed into a tech role, although to your point you may need to drop into an SDR role first. Good luck with this and keep us posted.