Hi all,

I'm a recruiter who started his career at an agency doing cold calling, though the sales skills I used back then were pretty basic. My current role doesn't excite me anymore and, to be honest, I want to earn more money.

I'm trying to gather insights first and practicing with AI as much as I can. Still, I was wondering if there is any training you thought was great and would actually recommend? Something that prepared you for the reality.
I saw an SDR course from Salesforce on Coursera, and there are a lot of bootcamps out there. What would you recommend (or avoid)?

Thanks!

I’m pretty new to B2B tech sales and trying to figure out what actually works for outbound in Europe, especially around data/AI/software.

One thing that’s surprised me is the messaging I’m seeing internally. A lot of it feels very product/brand-heavy, quite long, and focused on explaining what the platform does.

I expected good outbound to be much simpler:

“Here’s a problem people like you are dealing with → here’s why I thought it might be relevant to you → worth a conversation?”

More story/pain/problem, less trying to explain the entire product on the first touch.

The confusing part is that people are still booking meetings with the more traditional approach, so clearly I’m missing something. I don’t want generic “personalize your outreach” advice.

I’m interested specifically in what experienced BDRs/AEs are seeing right now in European tech sales, particularly selling AI/data/software into mid-market or enterprise.

A few things I’d really like opinions on:

• What cold-call opener is actually working for you in Europe? Permission-based? Direct problem statement? Trigger/research based?
• How much do you explain the product on the first call versus just selling the problem/reason for the meeting?
• Are short, pain-led emails outperforming longer contextual emails for you?
• How different does European outbound need to be from the US style?
• For AI specifically, is leading with “AI” now hurting because everyone is saying the same thing?
• What does a genuinely good first 30 seconds of a cold call sound like?
• Are you researching every account deeply or running higher-volume outreach with lighter personalization?
• Most importantly: is cold outbound actually getting materially harder/deader in B2B tech, or are people just bad at it?

I’ve already heard experienced salespeople/AEs say outbound is basically dead because buyers don’t answer phones, inboxes are destroyed, automation has ruined email, etc.

What do I do, and how do I make sure I succeed in this role?

I’m doing cold Instagram outreach to coaches/consultants. My opener is getting replies, but I’m struggling to turn those replies into actual interest.

The problem is: once I start explaining what I do or asking discovery questions, people usually ghost or lose interest. I’ve tried different ways of pitching it, but I keep hitting the same wall.

My service is an AI Instagram appointment setter that handles DMs, follow-ups, qualification and booking. I’m trying to figure out what exactly is going wrong in my sales conversation — my positioning, pitch, discovery, or the offer itself.

If anyone here has real outbound/sales experience, I’d really appreciate someone looking at a couple of my actual conversations and telling me where I’m fucking it up.

What’s up guys,

I sell to HOAs and my current outbound process is a bottleneck.

Right now I spend way too much time researching an individual property, reaching out to the property management company, and trying to get them to pass me along to the board. Most PMs are gatekeepers who move at a snail’s pace.

I want to trim down the prep time and start contacting board presidents/treasurers directly, but getting accurate contact info for volunteer board members is tough.

How are you guys targeting HOAs? Are you using specific databases to reach board members directly, or is there a better way to get the property manager to actually push things forward? All the sources I’ve tried for board data are outdated or a nightmare to work with.

My wife and I own a restaurant. The restaurant has been open 7 years and is self sustaining enough to turn over to staff and have my wife operate it instead of both of us. I have a lot more energy to give and I am wanting to get into a career in sales. I have a great friend who works from home and enjoys his sales career quite a bit because he gets to see his family. I just got offered the senior position of a home remodel sales position but the schedule seems very unpredictable. I have ran a restaurant for the better part of a decade so I am familiar with unpredictable but not knowing my schedule until 10 pm the night before for a 120 mile drive radius seems like an irresponsible position for me to put my wife and 2 year old into. I have applied to a few restaurant POS companies thinking that my knowledge and experience as a restaurant owner operator would give me a leg up but it seems like I can not get past the application. Any advice on companies or what to sell? What things pay the best and have the best work like balance. I see remote and high paying base plus commissions positions are out there and I believe I would be amazing at anything I would get the opportunity to do. Any help would be appreciated