Happy Holidays!
Weekly team meetings are back. About fucking time.
Firstly, welcome to the new members of our paid substack, whether it was from our holiday comp drop or found us organically. We’re glad you made it and are along for the ride.
In this weekly catch up the team goes through any questions we’ve seen from followers, Twitter, and around the internet. As well as an open Q&A to ask anything you want our opinions on, info on that at the end.
The first thing we want to address is something that has caught our eyes a few times recently. Different variations of:
“I Suck at sales”
To be blunt: Yeah no shit, we all sucked at sales at some point.
The good news is you don’t have to keep sucking. Anyone can learn to be okay at sales, and most people can learn to be good. You do NOT have to suck.
The common threads we’ve seen fit under 3 buckets.
No good mentor/lack of training
New salespeople who are impatient or feeling the burn
You’re too lazy to actually put in the work and get good
If you’re in group 3, we can’t help you - nobody can. We don’t believe anyone here fits into that group.
If you fit in group 2, take a breath and a step back. It takes approx. 6 months to start actually understanding most products to the point where you can be effective, and a lot longer to master sales. Put your head down and grind it out - read out dominating SaaS Sales series, reach out to the people who are killing it in your current business, emulate what they do. Fake it ‘til you make it baby.
The first group is the hardest, hopefully you have a good mentor/manager/trainer, you just aren’t utilizing to the fullest yet, if that’s the case, do all of this, and start ASKING FOR HELP. Ego at the door when you trying to improve.
You’re going to have to work harder from this position. Reading something on the internet or in a book is one thing, but it is much faster to SEE and HEAR a pro at work, you learn a lot faster. (We’re working on a way to help with this)
That being said, you aren’t doomed. Our first recommendation would be to brush up on your resume, and find a better company to work at, but that isn’t always possible. If you can’t switch jobs for whatever reason, you need to start tracking what you’re doing like crazy - everyone should, but this is make or break for you. Fire up the SDR Forecaster we released previously. Start a word doc and start tracking your opening lines for cold calls, start tracking what you pitch. Make sure to track which ones are successful, how many times you succeed vs. fail.
Be relentless in looking for different approaches. If you can’t emulate someone directly, it’s time to figure shit out, because sales DOES NOT COME NATURALLY for 99% of people. The way you need to position yourself as an expert, even when you don’t always feel like one, and push people is tough.
Hint: We have product in the works that will be be given to subscribers early that will help with exactly this ;)
Start with reading these:
Challenger Sale
Never Split The Difference
Sandler Sales Method
As an SDR another good book is: Fanatical Prospecting
Just grind it out. Sales when you aren’t hitting target sucks, but it is temporary, you can hit, just follow the process, be smart about how, and you’ll get there.
Starting Over
You’ve made some moves in your life and you’ve found a place you’re not happy with. Maybe spent years in an industry that you don’t love or found a dead end, maybe something else. Whatever it is we are seeing people want to change their industry and start over in sales.
The first question is - Is it possible? Can I do it? etc. YES, you can. Anyone can get into sales, and if you have knowledge of a different industry, you can use it to your advantage.
Follow my breaking into SaaS sales post, or if you’ve been in the workforce for a number of years, you can try and skip the SDR route (Recommended if possible) and go straight into being an Account Executive.
To do this look for SaaS companies that sell to your old industry. If you know the space well, you can speak with authority and understand the real pain that prospects feel. You will be miles ahead of other salespeople.
When you’re interviewing, don’t be shy about who you are and what you’ve done. Sales is all about frame. You need to sell yourself as experienced, competent, and knowledgeable. Your industry knowledge will be a much larger asset than your lack of formal sales experience and sell the negotiation experience you do have managing interactions with customers/suppliers/internal politics, whatever you have.
If you are unable to skip SDR, then find a company that pays SDRs well and has a history of fast promotion. Get on LinkedIn, look at their account executives.
How many were SDRs at the same company?
How long did it take them to get promoted?
Do people stick around after that promotion or leave?
You need somewhere that promotes internally, promotes fast, and has a culture that compels people to stick around.
We don’t have a guide on how to do this, but those are the thoughts that immediately come to mind. As a parting thought on the matter, some of the most successful salespeople we know made this switch, the external knowledge when applied to sales is like a superpower.
Going Remote
No major advice here beyond that we highly recommend finding a remote job instead of in person if you haven’t already.
This is going to be a major theme of BTD throughout 2022, we believe that remote work (RW) is not just on the rise thanks to Covid, but it is the natural progression of the world. Why spend 8 hours per day with people you can barely tolerate in a building your company is spending way too much on yet is still somehow uncomfortable and underequipped for your needs when you can work from the comfort of your own home (Or an island somewhere in the pacific) surrounded by people you actually like that you can spend time with on breaks, or in some peace and quiet without your boss standing over you?
It isn’t only how it feels, as we mentioned in the last free post on Time Management, removing work allows you to work multiple positions, or manage your own businesses during the 9-5 work slot. It is perfect efficiency.
A lot of people don’t like RW because they like being with people, that is fair, but we say to surround yourself with better people.
If you aren’t already in a remote sales role, consider it. We spend a few months this year interviewing with a lot of companies with different remote policies for salespeople seeing what was out there and possible, and there are some great opportunities, one of which we ended up taking. There are great opportunities out there for anyone who wants to look and put in the effort.
Q&A
This is an open forum, any questions you have on sales, remote work, getting a job, SaaS/Online income, or anything else we might be able to help with is fair game.
The Q&A is usually open for 2 days, but as there is a lot of holiday time coming up, we will continue to answer questions asked from today until our next paid publication on the 30th.
You can submit questions in the comments on substack, ask our Twitter @BowTiedDingo or send us an email at dingo@degenisland.asia (As this substack is growing beyond the BowTiedJungle, this email will probably change soon)
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Hi Dingo, great post as usual. Wanted to ask a quick Q: have you heard of companies like SaasLeads.io? They essentially partner with b2b SaaS companies and interview prospective SDR's then give them a three month paid internship where they train you etc then at the end you have a (more or less guaranteed) job at the end of it. Completely free for applicants if you make it through the process, and the starting salary at the end is higher than the standard avg sdr salary.
Seriously considering doing it during my final semester of university as everything is remote (for uni + the program). I know I want to go into SaaS sales 100% so logically makes sense to me - but if you have any thoughts would love to hear it.
Thanks!
33 years old, married with a baby. Work in FinTech in a support for a trading platform that bank traders use. Make $150K after being there 9 years which is bad. I should have hopped to a competitor and negotiated more raises. Oh well. I gave lots of client demos so have some relevant experience.
Looking to break into SaaS and seems like the only way to get a AE role would be if it was FinTech related. Is it worth trying to land an AE role if I have pretty much zero sales experience? What kind of salary should I target? $75K base, $75K bonus ($150K OTE) or should I target higher? Or will I have to settle for less than $150K? Wondering if it's possible to transition right to an AE role given my background.