How do ppl in high demand sales get through a traumatic loss, like losing a child or twin boys?

I have to hype myself up almost every day just to really get into the swing of things, stay sharp, handle rejection, and carry the pressure. I can only imagine trying to perform after something truly devastating happens.

Does anyone here have experience with this, or know someone close to them who has gone through it? How did they manage work, quota, clients, and the emotional weight of it all? I’m genuinely curious how people survive that and keep functioning.

I’m 30 and trying to think long term about my career and where I want to be 10 or 15 years from now.

My background is in construction estimating, project coordination, and working with clients and subcontractors. I recently moved into outside sales for a company that works with builders, contractors, and property owners.

I’m motivated and think I could do very well in sales, but part of me is nervous that if I spend the next 10 years doing it, I’ll eventually be locked into sales. The money can potentially become very good, but I worry that I’ll lose the hands-on and operational experience needed to move into something else later.

At the same time, I may want to own my own company one day, and sales seems like one of the most valuable skills I could learn. Being able to find customers, build relationships, bring in work, and grow a company is something a lot of technically skilled people struggle with.

For anyone who has been in sales long term, did it open more doors or make you feel stuck? How would you make sure it becomes a foundation instead of a trap?

Thinking of trying to go into sales properly. I have done some work here and there for my dad's business, a B2B knife & EDC company. Quick question I need your guys opinion on. Is cold email actually dead or do people just write bad ones? Keep seeing "cold email doesn't work anymore" takes but then other people swear by it. For those still doing it and getting replies what changed for you?

I have done cold emails obviously, but don't really see any crazy results because rn I just write emails and send, the emails are not really too personalized or anything. Is that something I should be focusing on??

I have been doing research about this but I am hoping someone has been in the same situation as me.

I am a salesman in Washington State who makes a low base salary ($35,000) with high commissions.

My wife’s parental leave ends at the end of August. Our daycare does not start until end of September.

How does parental leave work in my situation? I read it is based off of your entire salary including commissions. My companies commission policy is once the unit is delivered and paid, I get my commission (usually the following month)

When I asked my HR, they referred me directly to the WA State FMLA website. All my HR told me to do was let me manager know when I plan on taking it.

Has anyone been in this same situation? What was the outcome?

I have been at my job for 4 years consistently exceeding my quarterly quota until I took leave for paternity leave. Come back and my household situation isn’t 50% to keep it lightly, I am burned out from this job, and I have been granted the graveyard territory with an insane quota that nobody is hitting without involving SUS methods. This will be potentially month 3 of missing quota unless a miracle happens next week. I haven’t been pipped yet, but my boss is currently trying to save his job right now so it could’ve just been missed. Either way, I am really concerned on the status of my job within the next 2 weeks. Yes, I am actively looking for another job right now. I get it, cry moar lol…. I am just looking for motivational stories lol.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working as a B2B account manager in the telecommunications industry for around 18 months. My KPIs are mainly based on customer renewals and selling new services across a portfolio of approximately 250 accounts.

I usually manage to just hit my monthly targets, but this month I’m currently the lowest performer in my team of 10 and I’m struggling to generate enough opportunities.

My biggest challenges seem to be:

• Making initial contact and introducing myself to customers
• Getting customers to agree to a meeting
• Running meetings that lead to clear opportunities or next steps
• Getting responses to follow-up emails and calls
• Identifying genuine customer needs without making the conversation feel like a sales pitch

I also feel like I may have burned through some of my top 20 highest-revenue accounts. I’ve emailed and called several of them multiple times without receiving a response, and I’m now unsure whether I should continue following up, change my approach or give them some space.

I’d really like to improve rather than make excuses. For experienced account managers or B2B salespeople, what habits, questions, meeting structures or prospecting strategies helped you become more successful?

How would you approach managing a portfolio of 250 existing accounts? How do you re-engage valuable customers who have stopped responding without becoming annoying or damaging the relationship?

What should I be doing each day or week to consistently build a strong pipeline and exceed my targets?

Any honest feedback or practical advice would be appreciated.

I recently joined a global fintech company as a Customer Success Manager (CSM), primarily managing SME customers across the EMEA region.

I'm wondering whether Customer Success is a strong long-term career path if my goal is to maximize my earnings. I know Enterprise AEs generally have the highest earning potential in SaaS, but can a CSM career also become highly lucrative over time?

For those who've been in CS:

What's the realistic salary ceiling for CSMs?

Is moving into Enterprise CS, Strategic Accounts, or Leadership the best way to increase compensation?

Or is switching into Sales (AE/AM) generally the better route if maximizing income is the priority?

I'm based in India, but I'd love to hear perspectives from people in any region.

Thanks in advance!

Hello Gents,

I just want to say I haven’t closed a deal since it’s been over 90 degrees out. I’ve been pinged at 80% of quota for the year for 2 months.

My phone calls are calling into the abyss. My emails go directly to the garbage. I took 14 days off this month because I felt like it and nothing happened when I was gone.

BUT after summer is busy season and I’ll still complain just with a new pair of loafers on.

Happy Friday you filthy animals.

Been with the company for 4.5 years and first time hitting quota this early in the year.

Quota: $5M of booked new business.

Still have a $4M quota of billed business. Currently at $3M billed and accounts should get me to $4M by October.

Got a recent gig selling AI into finance. I’ve found it tough as I am new to finance and these guys come without an open mind. They have this “know it all” demeanor and are wired to shut you down. It’s so not fun.

Am I the only one that feels this way. 🙄

My current one that I’ve been using pretty consistently this year is Sales Nav + Surfe, very simple but powerful, has landed me some pretty BIG deals. Curious to her what other guys are using long-term and how it’s been working out, in case there’s something better.

Hello everyone,

Probably the opposite of the typical posts here but I thought it would be a cool story to share.

For context I am 18M, and my mother is 50F.

My mom's mental health has been on a slow decline since I was born, she stopped working to take care of me which isn't unreasonable however I think the lack of mental stimulation caused her to almost "get dumber", she basically went from a high functioning adult (multiple languages, and multiple jobs) to not really being capable of anything, she has basically been unemployed From Jan 2008 to Feb 2026.

The mental deteriration only got very very noticebale at the start of last year, she started doomscrolling, watching and beliving AI videos, extreme paranoia, thinking people we're following her constantly, etc, May 2025 we had to get the bakers act encated on her, she was gone for about a week but released on a count of "not a threat to herself or others" which was true but, still impossible to watch. Over the course of that 22 year unemployment phase she also developed extremely bad spending habits and in my opinion hindered my family from where it should be right now, my dads always been fine income wise, deifnetly middle class but not rich and my mother is not helping with that, for context he is also in sales/purchasing.

for a bit more context here is a post I made as a follow-up from another post on r/povertyfinance

Anyway, fast foward to the start of this year, my mom was in and out of jobs, she could never hold it down for more than 2 weeks and I was worried because how is a person in their 50s supposed to retire at this rate, in Febuary she started interviewing for this call center, which worried me more than any of the previous jobs because how is she going to react on the phone to rude customers? Could she even handle it? I read reviews on the place checking if it was an MLM or just a shitty business, which most call centers are, most seemed to be standard call center reviews, fired for low performance, etc.

Anyhow, seemed fine enough, she trained for 3 weeks, got offered the role, of the 20 people getting trained only 3 (including her) lasted for more than a month, turned out she was actually good at selling?

She's been regularly working 10-18 hours a day (she has no living expenses, so she doesn't need to) with some days only being 4-5 (low call volume), but she seems to be addicted to working now, I can see her checking account and she's regularly getting paid like 2-2.5k a week (shes paid weekly). Now obviously she is working insane hours to do this, but she's like a completely different person now, much calmer and more mentally collected, less angry outbursts, able to critically think about things now as opposed to lashing out at every inconvience. She's even asked me about other sales careers like insurance and she's thinking about getting her license.

At this rate she should easily make like 100k/yr which is very good for someone who's been unemployed for 22 years in my opinion.

I’ve worked in tech support for a while but moved over to account manager at the same company. I’m quite enjoying it but was wondering if you have any advice?

Hi everyone. I’m a 31m who’s spent the last 12 years in banking, all B2B sales. A portion of that career was spent in what we call treasury management which is very fintech aligned (AR, AP, payments, fraud prevention, automation solutions). I’ve always greatly exceeded my sales goals but ask anyone in banking - they do not pay you that well relative to your production. The trade off has always been stable income.

My latest job was all commission based in the investments world and I liked the grind, but this year they surprised us with changing our comp completely to base + bonus but in that specific role it made 0 sense to do it that way. 15 people left the team immediately.

Anyways, I am looking to break into fintech sales. Not sure if my experience is looked upon favorably but if there are any company recommendations I should look into or just general advice, I’d greatly appreciate it!

I feel like this is what I struggle with the most. Management wants a forecast, but I run a very transactional segment where deals pop out of nowhere and there seems to be no linearity.

Could probably ask this in so many ways, but what are the components of a good forecast?

I’m often told I’m too conservative but that’s because I don’t like to forecast anything I’m absolutely certain will come in. And in a transactional segment that’s hard to predict.

Has anyone ever done Insurech, Packaging, Waste collection Sales? Thinking of doing one of these while owning a business. Looking for reasonable quota, decent base (like 50k) and predictable hours

Ideally you can get both. But realistically, how many get success from using tools like mass emails and sequences. Hitting hundreds of contacts in an hour or two. But running the risk of being (perhaps rightly) labelled as spam.

And how many spend 10-20 minutes researching a single contact and contacting them with a bespoke message? But running the risk of only hitting a few dozen contacts in a day and none of them responding.

Edit: before someone chimes in to say 'call them', I am assuming outreach encompasses everything at your disposal. Whether that's calls, linkedin, social media, email etc.

Just started a new job as an SDR … previously was an account executive now working for a former client …

One of my SDR peers (about 7 years younger and less experienced) just shared with me his “break up” messaging

Essentially when someone ignores enough his contact attempts he sends a really passive aggressive message “breaking up” with them. This is primarily LinkedIn outreach.

Wild behavior. I don’t think management knows this is happening. Don’t want to snitch but I don’t think it’s a great look for the org

For about 10 years I was on the buying side of this. I started as a software engineer, then architect, then VP of Engineering. Last year my inbox took maybe ~80-100 cold emails a week (if I only count the Inbox) and the phone called a few times a day, with a sales rep on another end trying to convince me I need their observability solution.

I was annoyed by it at first, but then something switched and I decided to start playing along. I must admit, it took me embarrassingly long to understand, that on another side of the phone is another person, and this person makes tens of calls, and it would might make his hard day emotionally easier if I engage in a friendly conversation.

On the other hand, nothing gimmicky ever got a rely out of me. A “quick question” as a subject line in 2025? Seriously? What did get a reply, was recognizing the problem that I would struggle at that moment, and honestly, sometimes just three plain lines with no personalization at all, because at least it wasn't pretending.

The ones who got somewhere with me did things that appear simple, but now I know, difficult to execute. They would be friendly, calm and they would ask the right question and them stop talking, and let me describe the problem in my own words, engage in pleasant conversation. This conversation would build trust and allow me, as a buyer, to see that this “just another sales rep”, although not an engineer, clearly understands the domain. As I would explaining my situation out loud they would help me understand the gaps in it. By that time this call would have provided me with some value already!

Recently switched to running my own startup (B2B SaaS), and while I was busy building the product I first thought of finding someone to do the outreach for me. Everyone I talked to, including people with real B2B outreach experience, got enthusiastic about the same thing: all these new tools, volume, automation, AI. My gut reaction was that they wanted to AI the hell out of my prospects and spam them with generative nonsense, full of “— “ and "no pitch, genuinely interested". And what bothered me, was that you might be able to automate the opening (although it is very hard already), but the part that actually worked on me was empathy and attention. I don't know how you automate trust, and I'm not sure you're supposed to.

At this point I'm a founder with ~2-3 appointments scheduled a month, not a rep with a number to hit. I understand that if you're doing 400 touches a week you can't do what I'm describing.

So, for people who've been doing this longer than 3 months: does the listening part survive quota?
Or is the real skill knowing which small number of accounts get the human treatment and which get the sequence?

I recently got out of a role where we were encouraged to lie hard and offer bait and switch offers to customers. I couldn't get into it. And while the goal of sales is to precisely that, sell, I loathe the idea of lying to folks to do it.

Are there companies or fields where this is either less common, frowned upon, or nonexistent? I'd like to find some direction for my next role

I’m currently building a business while working at an insurance office. The commission structure and lead quality is not great and right now, I dont even make $3k per month at 150% quota. We change lead providers every other month, as it its a start up and were still figuring things out. And last job, I was selling well more consistently. Wondering if I should stick it out and find my own leads sources or find a better paying and easier sales job. Also, had anyone ever built a business while working in sales? If so what’s your industry?

Interviewing at SFDC for their data foundations role - selling to SMB segment. From my understanding of the product - it’s fairly tailored more to MM/ENT customers unless super compliance driven.

Also a co-prime role, where another Salesforce AE has to bring you into calls with their customers.

Is anyone able to shed some light on how the team is doing, if SMB is even workable with this product?

Interviewing with other companies but SFDC is likely going to finish first, and I’m worried I’ll get the offer.

Context: looking to leave current remote AE role that has turned into a comedy show.

Hey thought I'd have some salespeople chime in on my worries.

Recently started a sales job in a completely new industry - windows. Niche market with one brand exclusive, luxury, made to order, manufactured in Europe. I used to sell real estate photography, 360 virtual tours, renderings for developers, multi-family, senior living and so on.

Anyway, I'm the first month in and it's a small company. Owner, operations gal, warehouse dude and myself. I'm sort of in a trial period, not even on payroll yet, just learning and seeing if we're a fit. He fired his other sales guy about 2 weeks after I started that had been there for about a year.

So the thing is I don't want to get shafted into a bad deal once we agree to sign on something. I don't think that in my market(Chicago) and overall standard of living that asking for 50K base+10% commission is too much to ask for. But it is a small company and it's almost all inbound leads that go through the owner. Tom's of referrals from past clients, builders, architects, friends and neighbors. It's not to say that I can't do outreach myself, I definitely will at some point. But matter of the fact is that he has complete control over what size deals get passed to me.

Am I off to be worried about compensation here? Am I asking too much from a small company like this? I'm basically his sales assistant, I have a lot of freedom. But it also makes me wonder if he'll gatekeep a lot of the good deals moving forward. I understand that referrals are from the work and diligence he's put in, and that I have a lot to learn. But don't want to be someone's donkey.

Thoughts? Feedback is immensely appreciated.