My agency makes outbound calls, has been doing it since 2013. We call businesses. Last year zero percent had AI screening/AI receptionists answering. Now it's about 5%. That may seem small but the math people on this sub will understand a zero to 5% adoption within one year. Next year it'll be 10%, then exponential. AI is extremely skilled at handing inbound calls, property routing them, qualifying leads, booking appointments. Within 5 or so years, you'll be making calls, AI will be answering.

Watched a vid yesterday of a SDR making 55 hours of calls to execs with a 6% answer rate. That 6% answer rate will go to zero percent.

I hire from time to time. I'm a small fish in a big pond but it's stunning to me when I'm interviewing sales reps, and it's in my job posting that it's cold calling, the number of reps who are like "well, I mean cold calling to start? When would I just work inbound leads?

My reply is always the same; "For inbound, that's a secretary position. I'm looking for sales reps." I mean...wow.

Not looking to quit. I love the product, and the base pay is good. I need strategy.

The crux: my manager's philosophy is "we all help each other." But in my case, help only flows one way. My territory is small. My peer's is about 10x bigger and full of pre-sold global accounts. When I go above and beyond for the team, it builds her numbers. Even if she helped me back, it would be on accounts a tenth the size. And when I ask for a structure that makes it win-win, I'm seen as "only caring about money."

Background: technical sales, selling a brand-new ingredient technology customers have never heard of. Former senior R&D. At trade shows, I convert about 95% of in-person conversations into leads, and 30–40% follow up afterward. My colleague has converted no conversations into leads or project due to not being technical, not being able to figure out the value proposition due to poor HQ training and due to being very junior in terms of career. Otherwise a nice person.

What's happened:
- I did the hard sell-in on two of her biggest accounts. They'll close in her name.

- My manager's boss has burned me three times: he gave my original territory and the commission I'd built toward to a new hire (who he had a long term previous working relationship with), and sneaked in and stole a major global CPG leadI'd opened. I trust my manager, but not the system he’s stuck working under (ie his boss) so now I don’t trust that things wi work out fairly unless we establish guardrails up front

- The greater team hasn't really started selling this line yet. Like most ingredient companies, ours explains what the product does, not why it matters for a customer's brand or ROI. I've worked out those value props by sector and audience, offered to build training, and asked if it could be a formal role, hence my very high conversion rate. I was genuinely excited to help the company grow.

My manager heard "she won't help unless she's paid." He got promoted by helping others for free. Every time I raise this, I feel like I'm digging a deeper hole.

Questions:
1. How do you stay a generous team player when the system only rewards one side?
2. How would you pitch a formal role so it lands as a business case, not a grievance?
3. Any career coaches who specialize in internal positioning for salespeople?

For reference, my colleague will be getting about $1M in commission in 3yrs once all this global accounts that came to her presold by me and our EU team close so this is ALOT of money on the line. This type of commission is not normal in ingredient sales!

Thanks.

What is everyone’s thoughts and opinions, and if you’re using them, strategies with voicemail drops? Bonus points if your company or team is a zoom contact center shop.

EDIT: by voicemail drop I mean automated leaving voicemails that are pre-recorded once the VM picks up. You click a button and head to the next call, and the system leaves a vm after the prompt.

Some on my team swear they need it. I think it’s gimmicky but open to it if it’s a proven winner for others.

Landed an interview with the Unified Services team at Microsoft. Anyone currently on the team or have insight?

Looking for some guidance as I get going.

I’m an experienced sales professional who recently started an inside sales position with a home improvement company.

We receive leads from third-party lead providers, and management has implemented a mandatory follow-up sequence that I’m finding rather excessive.

Here’s the breakdown:

Day 1: Two calls, voicemail, text, email.

Day 2: Two calls, voicemail, text.

Day 3: Two calls, voicemail, text, email.

Days 4–10: Daily calls, additional voicemails, texts and emails.

That’s 14 phone calls, seven texts and three emails per prospect in just 10 days.

Follow-ups then continue periodically through Day 75.

I currently have approximately 75 leads to work, with new leads arriving daily.

Here’s the kicker: Almost everything is manual. I’m personalizing texts and emails, documenting activities and scheduling subsequent follow-ups individually in our CRM.

I have extensive sales experience, including enterprise B2B sales, and I’ve never encountered a follow-up process quite like this.

I’m genuinely curious what other sales professionals think.

Is this considered normal in home improvement sales?

Does anyone have experience with this kind of cadence actually producing meaningful conversions?

And wouldn’t most of this be better handled through CRM automation?

I’m 23 years old and have been working in the B2B VoIP telecom space for just over a year now. It’s been a great transition out of consumer sales that I did previously (1.5 year T-Mobile consumer, then 1 year Electronics store consumer sales). I work really hard everyday and it shows in my numbers. I’m the #1 rep in my role, and have achieved the highest numbers ever in my role. My boss respects me, and the other reps look to me for advice as the person that sells 3x what they do.

I guess my main thing is that I have noticed the company itself lately has started to cheap out on me now that I’m performing so well. I used to get a lot of gifts for my performance and they’ve cut back on that for specifically me, as well as they changed the commission structure to a decelerator past 300% above goal (last month I was 450% above goal) and so, I kinda feel like I should be getting paid more than I am.

Now I don’t want to come off pretentious as someone that came from a poor background, but my OTE is $87K and my actual earnings are more like $150K, which is great, but then I look at other roles that start at like 200k and I’m kind of thinking of looking at those companies.

Do I have enough experience with 1 year of consistent experience being the top at my company? How do I sell this on my resume, in an interview so that I could potentially qualify for something that I wouldn’t normally qualify for on paper without looking at my performance?

For anyone who’s made a similar transition, what did you do? What do you recommend? Should I wait for my presidents club award to come in and then move, or just consider my hard numbers as good enough proof and start looking now?

If it helps, here’s my timeline of jobs I’ve had

17 fast food cashier
18 in store clothing sales & shipping store associate
19 electronics store sales & repair
20 T-Mobile consumer sales
22 B2B VoIP/AI Inside Sales Representative/Account Executive

It is so tempting to dive in and start aiming for the jugular - "what are you currently using for X?" "What's your role in the organisation?" Please don't don't do this! That's like trying to view an organisation through a peephole.

Because now you're just getting a peephole view of the organisation and you're going to fail to understand what makes the organisation and decision makers really tick.

"So how is Regulation X affecting the Pharma Industry at the moment"

"I hear there is some patents expiring for Y category of drugs at the moment - will that you affect you?"

Now you're not specifically interested in regulations or patents expiring. What you're trying to do here is find out what really motivates the prospect. Because if you build enough rapport, you will get the prospect talking enough where they will leak out what's really important to them.

Now "zoom in" for even more information.

"What's your role exactly anyway?"

"Ah, you look after Z process. What would happen if that stopped in the morning?" "By the way, did that ever happen before? "What did you do?"

Now, you have enough ammo in your kit to ask really powerful and relevant questions about how your solution can help them. This might sound really obvious advice but it's surprising the amount of sales people who don't do this.

I sell on a small Net New inside sales team.

Recently has some layoffs and deals were moved to other peoples pipelines on the team from the laid off reps territories.

Director originally said any deal closes outside of territory would be split 3 ways to alleviate complaining about others getting better deals.

A more senior rep had actually been helping another rep start one of the larger more complex deals however that rep got laid off and said senior rep inherited his territory.

The deal got moved to the wrong rep by mistake and she continues to work it. On top of that she was given another large deal that is about to pop.

This senior rep called voiceing his frustration about how he has worked so hard all year (he is on top of the leader board) and this other rep has struggled and she basically gets handed the two biggest deals of the year at their end stage and will beat him. Also one was technically supposed to be in his territory.

Also he is unsure if the deal split is going to happen because they didn't split the previous deals from the previous quarter.

I would benefit but I told him I didn't want to go to management with him because I am new and 6 months in and didn't want to make waves but I understood how he felt.

If you were management what do you think the appropriate course of action would be?

Also for clairty I am not the manager I am another rep on the team and he was venting to me.

I have improved alot by simply looking at success case studies before cold calling, It was really helpful I was alot more confident.

I'm curious how many of you have really strong conviction in the product/ service you sell. Thanks

I run a small engineering company, and a friend of mine who's an industrial engineer asked if he could put on his résumé that he worked at my company for three years as a sales engineer or account executive, even though that's not true. He asked me because he's struggling to find a sales job and wants to lie about his work experience.

What do you guys think about this? He only has one year of sales experience and was a top performer at a call center, but lying about having 3 YOE as an AE seems like too much to me.

Do you handle your own sales lead generation or have a team for it? I prefer meeting with clients, but understand the value of lead generation to keep pipelines growing. How do you approach lead generation (marketing, email campaigns, cold calling, etc.)?

I work in a niche industry where we work on contingency so commission calculations are a little bit wonky. Been grinding here for 2 years so far and because it is hard to calculate actual revenue per deal, my commissions checks have always been 12k or so per quarter before tax.

I just had my Q3 review and commission breakdown meeting and I was blown away. I’m gonna make 48k before taxes on commission alone and I’m flabbergasted.

This subreddit has been so awesome for me! I’ve been reading the subreddit weekly for advice on closing and boosting my numbers. My big takeaways really have been:

1. Know your industry as much as you possibly can. Constantly stay learning and bouncing ideas and strategies off your coworkers.
2. Keep outreach consistent but don’t be annoying or pushy. Building pipeline is everything. Never put your eggs in one basket. Just constantly try to grow your deal flow and never get emotionally invested.
3. If leadership is good, trust in them and lean on them. I’m very lucky in that my leadership team trusts me and wants me to do well. If you have that, then leverage it too it’s max.

Im just so grateful for all the advice on here and it’s genuinely been life changing. Keep at it everybody. After 10 years in sales, im finally hitting my stride. Tons of shitty gigs where I was making 70k max and after 10 years in my career I’m looking at 200k+ in OTE this year. It really just comes down to not quitting.

I’m 19 and have been working in car sales at a Ford dealership in a decent-sized town since graduating high school. Honestly, it’s been a great opportunity, and I’m making more money than I ever expected to at my age.

There are a lot of moving parts in this business, but I’ve put in the work and consistently rank in the top 1–2 salespeople every month. My managers respect me, recognize how hard I work my deals, and notice the effort I put into follow-up and building relationships with customers.

My biggest concern is the long-term stability of car sales. I’m currently straight commission, and while the earning potential is great, the stress and inconsistency of the income make me question whether I want to stay in this industry long-term.

Eventually, I’d like to move into a sales role that offers a base salary alongside commission, ideally in an industry with more predictable income and better long-term career opportunities.

My question is: At 19, would I be better off grinding it out in car sales for another few years, building my income and experience, or should I start trying to break into a different industry now?

I’m also curious whether companies in industries like B2B, tech, or other professional sales fields would realistically consider hiring someone my age with about a year of dealership experience, or if I’d be better off waiting until I have more experience under my belt.

For anyone who’s made a similar transition, what would you recommend? Am I better off sticking with what I’m good at, or using this experience to get my foot in the door somewhere else while I’m still young?

I’ll start off by saying I’m pissed off at myself that I’m even in this situation and the emotion is definitely clouding my best judgement, so looking for others who have been in my shoes

I started an AE role at a series A startup 7 months ago. I’ve been trying to stick it out and stay positive, but it’s obvious at this point I need to leave. I could write a novel about the reasons why. but, that’s not actually important. the summary of it is, Ive realized I was lied to about several aspects of the company/role during the interview process, my CRO was fired 1 month into my tenure and never replaced (so I report directly to founder), the company is extremely mismanaged by the founders and we have missed our goals consistently this year.

this is not my first start up, so yes - I understand they are usually chaotic, but this one takes the cake and is far worse than my previous experiences. it’s uniquely bad.

what I am struggling with it this: the whole reason I even agreed to take this role was, the previous industry I was in was really struggling economically, and that hasn’t changed. I was in my previous AE position for almost 5 years. I left on my own, but layoffs were abound.

going to this start up allowed me to bounce into an industry I had no experience in, that is doing well on the macroeconomic scale currently. getting this job with no industry experience was extremely hard, so I originally promised myself I’d stick it out the minimum of a year, to be able to use this experience to level up my career and stay in this industry.

for that reason, I’m not sure if I want to leave it off my resume completely. I have done a lot and learned a lot during my short time. but, I also see how a short tenure looks sketchy. this would be the shortest tenure on my resume, I’ve never stayed somewhere less than 1.5 years.

do I keep it on, or leave it off? if I do keep it on, how do I explain it, how detailed to get? how do I professionally say “this isn’t like me and I tried my best, but the circumstances were impossible to succeed in”? I feel like no matter how I phrase it, it reflects poorly. doesn’t help that I’ve been on the other side of hiring conversations where short tenures were scrutinized behind closed doors.

If I leave it off, how do I explain a 7-8 month “gap”? what about when they do my background check and see I’ve been working somewhere that I failed to mention on my resume, is that not a bigger red flag?

sorry, just never been in this position before and kicking myself over it lol.

And unfortunately, you can eat shit as obviously didn't even begin to crack the top percentage, at all, not even close homie.

Just wanted to let you know, how many more very very qualified people other than you want this same job. Vast seA of extremely better people than you in all ways I am afraid! Hope this makes you feel better that there are so many people more qualified than you will ever be on earth.

Bye! sincerely, Random job opening response.

Random rant

Been rewatching Mad Men lately and curious if there are still sales roles or industries where wearing a suit, or at least traditional business attire, is the everyday expectation

Seems like most sales orgs have gone pretty casual, where polos/chinos or quarter-zips are basically the uniform in my office, even for people selling into larger accounts

For anyone who still regularly wears a suit or jacket and tie to work, what do you sell and what industry are you in?

Also is it actually required by your company or just part of the culture in your industry?

Not gonna lie, question caught me off guard, I just said "I've worked primarily in start ups, most of my time is spent not just selling but acting as CS, product, and wearing multiple hats so I can be a team player. If I had 100% dedication to just selling there's a higher change I'd hit 200%"

They didn't really accept the answer and kept digging, but even then, the vibe just felt so off. I get that companies are looking for top performers, but what a fuckin stupid question.

Rant over.

Hey all, I'm looking for Account Executive roles (base + commission) that are open to someone with a few years B2B sales development and a few years quota-carrying retail sales looking to grow and hungry to prove themselves.

If anyone has any openings or want to learn more about my background to see if I'd be a good fit, please message me, thank you!

Anyone here selling preventative commercial hvac contracts? Curious what the earning potential is.

Completely hypothetical and in no way related to me whatsoever, given the choice between a PiP that ends at the end of the year vs. a severance package of base pay until the end of the year, which would you take?

My immediate thought was take the severance, but wondering if not technically being employed for those two months would effect chances of getting a new job.

Thoughts?

I had a revelation today.

I cannot tell you how many companies I've worked for at different stages from seed series startups to mature organizations and they all inflate, fictionalize or obfuscate numbers. It turned me off of corporate into consulting and working with startups and growing companies. But that was the same story between executives and shareholders when it come to scaling.

I hate to say this, but it's come to a point in this environment where so much of it is falsified and fictitious. I'll give you a concrete example. I worked with an underwriter on a financing deal to a company. He told me a story about two founders recently. One founder had strong revenues, perfect credit score, and couldn't qualified for a loan. Another had multiple bankruptcies on file, an existing credit line (which was overdue,) and still qualified for a loan to pay off his delinquent debt, which he ultimately defaulted on. When the underwriter asked him about it and what he intended to do, the founder responded, "I'll BK it and do it again."

This is literally the job market. This is literally the economy. It's so far off the rails.

I've been applying for work with gross performance numbers, not including attainment, because a lot of my roles were founding or consulting where no metrics existed so I established these against industry benchmarks. After applying for so many roles which I was perfectly fit or even overqualified for with limited results, a recruiter finally replied, "I don't see any metrics."

I kind of assumed they would understand gross revenues and the significance per industry, but they don't. They just want a tidy package to deliver to their client, and the client wants a tidy package with a story to justify the hiring case. So just invent numbers.

People say this all the time, and I never took it seriously, thinking the activities and performance would speak for itself (largest deal/transaction I worked on was $350M, largest net new logo was $120M account, $30M in pipeline generated one year, a lot of this done by my own namesake with no-name companies versus the revops, marketing, and support of a multi-national conglomerate, but it doesn't matter.) I assume most people are just kind of adrift in brain-rot and easy access. So just make it so simple they don't even have to ask.

Need some ideas for gifts to give out as a thank you for the year. Last year i did custom golf bags with our company logo on them to high level people within my dealers. Most of them use them weekly or biweekly and others within their organizations have asked for them. I dont want to give golf bags to the same people again and would like some ideas. No tumblers or polos or the usual stuff. What do you think a customer would actually use and not just throw in the closet with the rest of the stuff.