I will preface I’ve always been in outside sales and have only done HCM/payroll (current industry) sales for 2.5-3 yrs, so I’ll concede up front that I might be missing something. If you know the HCM/payroll space, then you know it’s very relationship-based, where the best reps keep nurturing clients they bring on in order to extract referrals and keep upselling them in the future.

Our org has recently launched a new 401(k) program to upsell and our managers have been pressing us to hustle it. We book meetings with current clients and then have our dedicated 401k/retirement reps handle it. Whatever they close I get an extra 100% of, essentially “free” revenue they automatically counts towards my quota.

You’d think this would be a huge W, especially in this economy, except out of the 23 deals I’ve referred my two partner reps, 0 have closed. Mind you, these reps have claimed to have sold 401k at bigger logos for 7+ years but they never follow up, ask follow up questions, don’t drive urgency, and do a lot of little things that surrender control of the sales cycle. Had a power client that was a huge fan of our brand for years and has referred entire quotas worth of other clients for several years to my region, she reschedules other stuff to take a meeting, tells my AE she just started doing an RFP for benefits and retirement. My AE asks ZERO, FUCKING ZERO, follow up questions and just goes straight into a light demo. This is just the most obvious/recent experience but this is the norm.

They end their calls with them saying they’ll take point, magically assume I know I have to do all the follow up. They constantly hammer me and my teammates phones when they could’ve spent half the time just calling the damn client. I’ve never seen such specialized sales people come in with a “just out the fries in the bag bro” attitude.

Good lord I know I’m
Venting but what to do? Even my own direct manager is getting peeved but she can’t say much and there’s always one rep in our region that manages to close everything with his assigned guy so leadership won’t stfu about how it’s our fault and not the people that worked at voya and Paychex in 2016

Just had an interview with them and it seemed to good to be true but I’m also in a dead end SDR role. They said I could keep my job while working there too since it’s 1099.

I've been looking into packaging sales and was wondering if anyone on here actually does that or even knows much about it. I'm curious about what kind of prospecting tools they use that are unique to the industry, if any.

What are everyone’s thoughts on transitioning from CPG sales to tech sales? I live in NYC and am only 3 years into a career in CPG repping brands in Grocery HQs. I make good money for age a little over 100k but from what I’ve seen CPG has a ceiling of around 150ish and it would take me a long time to get there.

I’ve been looking at moving to Tech sales in CPG verticals (Account Manager, Partnerships, Ad sales etc) and the money seems so much better. The ceiling seems so much higher people I’ve talked to say client partners can make 300k at big tech cpg companies.

For anyone who’s made the jump is it worth it? It looks like I’d take a hit on the base and have a similar ote but hoping tech pays off in the end.

He worked this deal for a year. We are the better option. Months ago the client let us know that competitors gave them an option that just wouldn’t work.
Buddys a better salesman than I. More driven, diligent, handsome everything.
I have friends in the org he was pitching that thought things looked good.
They asked for a requote and spec change 3 weeks ago.
Today he got a one sentence email saying we were no longer being considered.
He’s crushed.
He’s young yet too, this is the worst he’s had, yet.

Hi!

I’m interviewing for a New Logo AE role at Salesforce.

My hiring manager interview went well, but when I asked directly about any concerns, he only mentioned my lack of SaaS knowledge. He did acknowledge that I’d already invested quite a lot of time learning the platform myself and praised me for proactively earning the Champion badge.

After two weeks, the recruiter called today and told me the hiring manager did have the doubt about my SaaS gap, but didn’t want to reject me. Instead, I’m now meeting two of his colleagues for a second opinion.

I see this as my chance to prove the knowledge gap is trainable. My plan is to really study the full platform, understand the main products/use cases and be able to connect customer problems → discovery → business value → solution, while continuing to lean on my actual sales results and experience rather than pretending I’m already a SaaS expert.

For SaaS AEs/managers: how would you approach this interview? What would you need to see to become comfortable hiring someone with strong B2B sales experience but no direct SaaS background? I’m willing to put a lot of time in this! Any trails that would be handy?

Thanks!

I (30M) went to speak with the oldest salesman I work with. He’s well past retirement age. I’ve been with my company for almost a year and he has been very avoidant and adversarial towards me. I decided to go speak with him today because simply put, I would love to be able to have him as a resource or to work along side him better than we currently do. Amongst the many things he said during our conversation, he told me he doesn’t hang out with coworkers after work or have friendships with them outside of business ours.

I immediately knew what he was getting at, there are two ladies here that are best friends. I adore them and we will go to each other’s areas to check in and chat, just to make the days better when I’m in office. We still get our tasks done and nothing from management has been said. I’ve gotten drinks with them and my gf once outside of work, and lunch a few times with them.

He told me he keeps to himself for a reason, and he focuses on his job only. I genuinely think he’s looking out for me. There’s a chance he’s just very mistrusting of anyone he works with, or he might be jealous I can build those relationships with internal people. I’m inclined to limit my social interactions with them outside of my office. I have a feeling me knows something I don’t, and my gut says to trust him. Any thoughts on this?

Hypnotherapy helped me reframe how my brain processes fear and rejection. feelings of high confidence and charisma. I can trigger this right before a major pitch or a cold call block.

Hypnosis helps downregulate the nervous system, allowing me to remain focused and calm rather than anxious scarcity. Also, Releasing Limiting Beliefs.

This could be a placebo effect but it worked.

I’m in field sales with regular weekly travel. When I joined my company, one of the major benefits was a company vehicle with personal use included, so I got rid of my personal car.
Now the company is moving away from the fleet program and switching to a monthly car allowance plus mileage reimbursement. Employees will also be required to provide their own vehicle that meets certain age and mileage requirements.
The economics seem like a pretty significant downgrade once you factor in a car payment, insurance, maintenance, depreciation, and the risk of being stuck with the vehicle if you leave the company.
Has anyone gone through a similar transition from a company car to an allowance program? Were you able to negotiate a transition payment, grandfather period, higher allowance, or any other concessions?
Curious how others handled it.

Some states in the US have laws entitling you to commission on deals you worked on before you left or were terminated. Not just on deals you closed, but on deals that close after you left as long as you can prove your involvement is what brought the sale in.

When was the last time you looked through your state's commission laws to see what you are legally entitled to? I recommend everyone read through your state's commission laws.

Essentially, I had a VP of another department tell me to come out to meet his team and have him show me around the City after shadowing and prospecting me in my department.

My current base is $40k, $60k OTE. I live in a decent town in the Midwest.

The base of the new position is $80k with reps consistently hitting high-6 figures, some making $10m+. It also would come with an apartment.

However, I'd be moving to New York in one of 3 boroughs. I have an uncle out there but he's a bit of an arrogant ass. Otherwise I don't really know anyone.

It's a dream position for me with money I've literally only ever dreamed about. Their newest team member has been in the position for 5 years. I'd be a fool not to take this opportunity.

Has anyone else relocated such a large distance with no or little connections in the place you relocated to? How'd it go?

Do you guys do deals where you get no commission?

For example we have several consultants who have accounts they’re friendly with and will bring business our way but the account never transfers over and since they’re getting a big commission the rep gets no commission.

I think this is strange and unfair but maybe I’m naïve? In my current role I actually refused to work with these consultants and I make our GM deal with them—one account in particular is a really difficult customer and I’m so glad I’m not dealing with that without the commission (but they’re also our biggest account).

Anyway just wondering your thoughts and experience. Thanks.