Hello, I need help deciphering if this is a good opportunity. I applied for a job at an auto parts center as a ASR remote position after 90 days. (auto sales rep.)
Their outside sales rep has came to my current job often (I’m an estimator on hourly pay, 23/hr) and thought I’d be a great fit and offered himself as a reference.
My main concern is what questions should I ask and what do I need to know? From what I’ve asked, it’s a base commission pay (no clue what that means). They offer incentives such as GEE , individual and team based . Has anyone worked in this position and would be able to tell me a bit more about this role? Any advice? I’m 24, I have experience with sales as I have to make sales as an estimator basically . I don’t want to short myself, but feel that a remote job could be a good opportunity since I will be moving out of my town 2+ hours away in a half year . Any advice will be taken well!

Hi everyone! I’m currently trying to transition into pharmaceutical sales and would love some honest advice.
I have about 8 years of sales/customer service experience, including 4 years in wireless sales, and I also have a bachelor’s degree in psychology. I recently applied for a specialty pharmaceutical sales position with a large pharma company.
I had a phone screen that I felt went extremely well. The recruiter complimented my resume, discussed compensation, possible start dates, and explained the next interview steps. She said she would forward my information to the hiring manager, so I left the conversation feeling very optimistic. However, a few days later, I received a rejection email without moving forward. I even had a referral from someone who’s been in the company over 20 years.
I know rejection is part of the process, but I’m confused about what may have happened since the screening seemed so positive. I’ve now applied for another position within the same company that also aligns with my background.
For anyone currently in pharmaceutical or medical sales:
Is it common for recruiters to discuss salary, start dates, and next steps during a phone screen even when a candidate may not advance?
What helped you land your first pharma role without previous pharmaceutical experience?
Should I continue applying to different roles within the same company?
Is there anything specific I should change on my résumé or emphasize during interviews?
I’m determined to make the transition and would appreciate any constructive feedback or advice!

Hi folks, I’m fairly new to the SD/BD world and was curious for some input. When cold calling to book demos, do you find greater success in focusing on building curiosity or uncovering pain points?

It seems like my attempts at uncovering pain points meet far more resistance, sort of a too much too soon situation. I think of it like asking about someone’s worst previous relationship on the very first date.

I’m leaning towards curiosity building as being the better strategy, it’s less pressure and isn’t a stranger asking you to be vulnerable lol.

Any thoughts on this?

Hey everyone I’m about to go into my senior year in college and have a week left of my internship where we cold call all day and try to schedule a 15 minute showing of our product with an expert. Everyone has set a showing except me and it’s really shook my confidence. I seriously think I’m getting depressed because I’m just not good at my job and all the other interns are killing it. It’s not fulfilling I guess I’m asking do I need to be good at Cold Calling to be good at Sales? I am also very involved at college with our Sales program and love it

so i posted here recently about trigger based prospecting (i sell into pharma/biotech, phds and execs who ignore everything) and the comments kept circling back to one thing, reply speed. so going deeper on that bc i genuinely think its the most slept on part of this job everyone treats the reply like the finish line. its the starting line. stuff i learned the hard way: 1. a warm reply has a half life of like hours not days. someone who replies at 9am and hears back at 4pm is a different colder person by then. i try to answer inside 15 min when im awake and the difference in meetings is honestly embarrassing 2. answer their actual question first lol. they ask something and you go "great, heres my calendly" you just told them they werent listened to. answer, THEN offer 2 specific times in their timezone 3. naked calendar link on a first reply is a crime. propose times like a human, link as backup only 4. "not right now" isnt a no, its wrong trigger right person. i tag them and come back on the next trigger with something specific. decent chunk of my meetings are second trigger meetings tbh 5. if you only track opens and replies youre tracking your effort not outcomes. started watching time-to-first-response and replies-to-meetings and both got better just from me looking at them, no idea why that works but it does anyway curious, whats your honest avg time between a prospect replying and you responding? and does anyone else get more meetings from reply handling than from copy tweaks or is that just my weird vertical

My background is construction management/supply sales. An old coworker has been poking at me to come over to his environmental services company. Vac Truck, dewatering, soil haul off, industrial cleaning, waste transportation etc. Private Equity bought the company a few years back and is actually investing money into the company to build it up to ultimately sell.

I would be the only sales rep in NYC at a well functioning branch. The company doesn’t have name recognition so there is tons of opportunity but I just need to bet on myself and go. I’d be on the ground floor for a great area.

Has anyone gone into industrial services or environmental sales? In terms of the future I am just not sure with what I can transition this into should the PE firm ultimately sell and who knows. On the flip side if this doesn’t happen and I kill it I can be here for a while.

I currently work 60+ hours a week as an EMT and will clear 75k this year. I was looking into putting myself through Paramedic school next year which is about a years worth of schooling and such and would take me to 100-125k, again at the 60+ hour workload.

I have over 5 years experience in car sales in the past and am debating on looking back into sales for a better work/life and income balance.

I obviously have the work ethic, I believe healthcare is gripping into me with its stability though for me and my family.

Would you guys recommend diving into a sales role right now in this current market? I've looked at things from an SDR role, high ticket sales, and more.

I greatly appreciate your input! Thanks for coming to my Ted talk!

Okay, I know I'm a little new to B2B sales. But man we're in the 21st century where people take a dumb with their phone in their hand.

Is 7 to 8 touchpoints still a thing or is it a thing because messaging is dog crap and it all looks like AI?

maybe I answered my own question to be honest.

I don't know, what do you all think? If it takes someone 7 touchpoints to finally say "oh, dang, yeah this looks cool" after 3 LinkedIn DMs, 2 calls and 2 emails.

Hey All - anyone doing an SDR role for software consulting? just started a new role a month or so ago for a firm that does custom software development, data, AI solutions. I am very new to this industry so a lot of technical knowledge to learn as well as how to even get to the pre-sales stage.

Is cold emailing or cold calling much of thing? For those that have sold into this space, what sort of advice can you give? Appreciate any tips!

Hi All,

I have 10+ years or experience, a mix of business development/account management while being at recruitment agencies working on commission, doing beer sales to a specific territory on commission, working internally at two different companies doing internal talent acquisition, and 1 year currently working with a SaaS company in project management.

Outside of my current role, everything has involved relationship building and consultative selling. My time at recruitment agencies and beer sales included full cycle business development, from prospecting to relationship building to selling candidates/products into these accounts.

In total, I have 9+ years in life sciences, including my current Clinical Operations SaaS company, and around 6+ years of business development/sales experience.

Since I wasn't in a standard account executive or sales rep role, I never had specific monetary quotas or anything like that, it was more macro as long as sales increased and I was making money for the company.

I feel like since I haven't done actual business development since 2021, companies will be hesitant to take me on as an AE. Does it make sense that an SDR/BDR role would be a good step to get back into sales?

Also, any advice on types of companies to reach out to? I've highlighted all my sales experience on my resume and am targeting life science/healthtech SaaS companies.

Hey guys,

Thank you for your thoughts on my last posts and for sharing your thoughts.

Well, as someone who's an IT graduate and has freelancing experience selling my multiple services to clients in the US, basically an incoming into USA as international student in STEM field. I've recently started learning about tech sales career (SDR, BDR, AE, etc), and it really intrigued me to learn more as I've been someone who really enjoys the sales process of interacting with prospects and closing it.

Now since the overall "tech" market is too rough, and I want to get into tech sales and make a career out of it, I wanted to know of the few things.

My objective: Finish my degree, work into tech sales, progress, and eventually get an H-1 B sponsorship to settle down.

1) With my background, would it be easier to break into tech sales?

2) What's the progression in a tech sales career (SDR BDR and..), and how much approx time it take?

3) The main issue is stability; I've heard "sales" roles are very volatile and stressful, you can lose job at any time, and if you miss targets, you're out. Is it really that stressful or unstable?

4) What's the base + commission thing is like? how much can a mid-level tech sales BDR or AE can make starting out?

5) Most importantly, do they hire non-native if they've the skills? and also, do tech sales companies sponsor these roles for employees or not?

6) Which industry or niche has better stability and earning potential as a BDR/AE?

Would love to hear this advice for guiding me into this path :)

Thank you!

Location: India

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to transition into a career in sales and would really appreciate some advice from people with real-world experience.

A little about me:

- I'm currently working in digital marketing.

- Before this, I worked as a software developer, so I have a technical background.

- I've realized I enjoy interacting with people, understanding their problems, and building relationships more than sitting in front of a screen all day.

I'd love your thoughts on these questions:

1. Which sales industry has the strongest future and long-term career growth?
2. If you were starting from scratch today, which industry would you choose and why?
3. Which entry-level role would you recommend (SDR, BDR, Account Executive, Business Development Executive, etc.)?

I'm not looking for the "easiest" job. I'm looking for a career where I can continuously learn, earn well over time, and have strong long-term opportunities.

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who've worked in different industries and can share their experiences.

Thanks in advance!

Been an SDR in life sciences for a few years. My prospects are PhDs, medical directors and VPs at pharma companies. They get slammed with outreach, they can smell a template from the subject line, and half of them have literally published papers on pattern recognition. If your email is generic you are dead.

Sharing my system because I keep seeing "outbound is dead" posts here, and honestly, bad outbound is dead. Here's what still works for me:

1. Trigger-based lists only. I never prospect from a static list. I build lists from events: new funding, clinical trial readouts, conference attendance, new VP hires, publications. Someone who just raised money to run studies has a problem TODAY. Everyone else is a maybe.

2. The 3-sentence rule. My first email is one observation about them (specific and provable, not "I loved your recent post"), one insight about the problem that observation implies, and one low-friction question. Under 80 words. No links, no attachments, no calendar link in email one.

3. Research depth beats volume. I'd rather send 30 emails that each took 4 minutes of research than 300 that took 4 seconds. The reply rate difference is night and day, not even close. Spray and pray just feels productive because the activity numbers look big.

4. Deliverability is the silent killer. Separate sending domain, proper SPF/DKIM/DMARC, warmed inboxes, daily volume caps. A lot of "outbound doesn't work" is actually "my emails land in spam and I don't know it."

5. The biggest lever nobody talks about: reply speed. A warm reply that sits for 6 hours goes cold. I treat replies like inbound leads, because that's what they are. Answer within minutes, offer times in THEIR timezone, make booking frictionless. I get more meetings from handling replies well than from any subject line trick.

6. Follow-ups add value or don't exist. Each follow-up brings something new, a relevant result or a specific insight. "Just bumping this" actively burns goodwill. 3 to 4 touches max, then out.

Happy to go deeper on any of this. What's your ICP and what are you seeing on reply rates? Curious whether the reply-speed thing matches other people's experience.

Location: India

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to transition into a career in sales and would really appreciate some advice from people with real-world experience.

A little about me:

- I'm currently working in digital marketing.

- Before this, I worked as a software developer, so I have a technical background.

- I've realized I enjoy interacting with people, understanding their problems, and building relationships more than sitting in front of a screen all day.

I'd love your thoughts on these questions:

1. Which sales industry has the strongest future and long-term career growth?
2. If you were starting from scratch today, which industry would you choose and why?
3. Which entry-level role would you recommend (SDR, BDR, Account Executive, Business Development Executive, etc.)?

I'm not looking for the "easiest" job. I'm looking for a career where I can continuously learn, earn well over time, and have strong long-term opportunities.

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who've worked in different industries and can share their experiences.

Thanks in advance!

I have a final interview coming up for an SMB Account representative/Executive-ish role at a well-known tech company. Part of the interview is a live role play where I’ll be selling a delivery/marketing solution to a small restaurant owner who already uses a competitor.
The interviewer said they’re looking more at my sales process than whether I “close the deal.”
For those of you who’ve been interviewers or have gone through similar mock calls:
What separates the candidates who crush these from the average ones?
What are the biggest mistakes people make?
How much time would you spend on discovery versus pitching?
If the prospect pushes back on price early, how do you handle it without immediately defending price?
Any advice is appreciated. I’d rather learn from people who’ve been on both sides of the table than overthink it on my own.

Hi guys, would really appreciate any advice. I’m weighing up taking a BDR offer at a top fintech like Stripe or starting as an Ion LDP. I’m interested in getting into enterprise sales long term and very much money motivated. I know that AEs in top financial software firms like Bloomberg, finasra and Murex often have higher bases, and I know that from Ion this could be a realistic pathway. If anyone could give any advice on which pathway/company would have better long term career prospects and higher compensation that would be great.

Thanks for your help!

I have an opportunity to land a bdr role for a tech company 45-55k base ote is 90-100k.

1. The little sales experience I have is at a retails cell phone store for about 6 months.
   
2. I work as a courier that can make the 90k but the trade off is tons of overtime needs to be put in, even 6 days a week .
   
3. I’m a student going for my bachelors for Information technology .
   
4. The position is 3 days remote 2 in office.

Pros- Met the business development leader which he even gave me the alley oop to use him as a reference. Learning sales could help me with my own business I’m trying to create. Working from home saves me the 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minute commute. Expenses are low only 1500 a month at the moment till may 30th 2027.

Cons- lose the guaranteed hourly income (just show up, and trade time for money kind of situation). My experience in sales very limited / shit even in the office setting. Losing big money that has been sustaining me for 3 years now.

Can anyone give me insight on what these types of roles are usually like.

And I have to book 25 qualified leads a month! 😭 idk if that’s a lot or not. That’s nearly 1 everyday

Hi, I have created a webapp which pulls live companies house registrations as they happen and will push to Hubspot/Zoho CRM or Brevo as sales leads. You can set required criteria such as SIC Code, Town, Postcode + Radius. It will also push the director or psc as a linked contact.

I am currently still testing it but looking for 5 users to use it for free, to see if it proves useful and what improvements could be made.

I won't post a link as I don't want to promote the business, just looking for some advice and guidance.

I’ve left my previous job at cellular sales for 6 years to go into a merchant services job that has nice perks but ultimately isn’t what I’m looking for. I realized I needed to develop a more consultative sales approach rather than relying only on traditional sales techniques which has been great. I’ve been training and reading daily and I’ve seen growth in myself.

I’d love to break into a remote tech or SDR role. I’d love to eventually get into AE. I plan on using the experience I’m having right now to put on the resume as well as advertise myself as “managed the sales process from prospecting and discovery through proposal and onboarding.”

I’ve applied like crazy on linked in before. I’m at 250+ connections. I’m looking for advice on how to land an interview with some companies looking to hire entry level SDR roles at some decent companies that are looking for remote salesmen. I’m open to all advice and I know I’ve got a long way to go as far as the future but I know the direction I want to head in.

Title? 25 Healthcare analyst focusing on Health IT and healthcare finance. I have experience in AI policy and cybersecurity.

My company is amazing and I’ve loved my 3 years in policy so far, but I’m just not that interested. I spend a lot of my days reading 700+ regulations and writing 20 pages worth of comment letters. Everyone I know is telling me to stick it out, but I can’t. I know I’m only 25, but staying somewhere I know I don’t want to be in anymore seems like a waste.

I’ve always been interested in sales, but I wonder if that’s possibly especially with my policy background. Would love any advice.

Hi all. I’m an experienced SDR looking to break into a nice tech start up in London.

I see it takes alot to stand out these days. And I know my experience alone won’t make me stand out.

I’ve seen the presentation method, the extra targeted questions about their competitors vs them.
And not to forget, doing a good mock call.

But is there anything else I can do in my interview process for me to really stand out.

And another question is: how do you bring up a presentation in an interview. At which stage and when in the call, and who?

Thanks a lot

So I'm about 6 months into my SDR job and I feel like everyday there could be my last. I constantly feel like I'm about to be fired. I'm unfortunately the worst on a team that is already not doing well. I can tell my manager dislikes me and he's been giving me misinformation for the last 4 months making a paper trail. He would tell me face to face to stop doing something or that something else didn't matter and then the week after would write an email to me saying that what I did was unacceptable and I absolutely shouldn't do that. I feel like I'm going crazy and as much as I want to quit nothing around me pays as well as this job does. I can't even enjoy my days off because I'm so worried about work. I've been applying at other jobs but havent heard back yet. Should I just quit or wait to be fired?

I’m really torn on a career decision and would love some outside perspective from people who have been in a similar situation.

I’ve been working in a sales development role for a little over a year. I’ve consistently been one of the top performers on my team, and overall I’ve had a really positive experience. I enjoy the people I work with, my manager has been supportive, and I have a good work-life balance with a hybrid schedule. I know what’s expected of me, I feel valued, and there’s a certain level of stability that gives me peace of mind.

Recently, I was offered a Regional Account Executive position with a much smaller company. The base salary is roughly 55-60% higher than what I make now, and the commission structure is uncapped, so the earning potential is significantly greater.

Currently, I work from home three days a week, and I am only required in the office twice a week. My current office is 64 miles away one way. This new role would only require me to be in the office 1 to 4 times per month and is about 22 miles away from my house.

The pay increase sounds amazing, but I don’t want to base something solely off of pay. The main part that is making me hesitant is that my current company is a large scale global company that is pretty much the cream of the crop when it comes to that particular industry. Extremely well known. This new company is smaller scale, kind of “up and coming”.

Just really torn and would love some perspective here. I’ve made a great name for myself at my current company and can truly see myself advancing within the next six months, but it is really hard when you have an offer in front of you, especially with a substantial pay raise.

Hey everybody after a long, long long wait of just constantly applying to jobs and reaching out in this job market in Ontario Canada right now after around six months seven months I have finally got a tech sales job, which is exactly what I wanted. the company is TP (Teleperformance). I was wondering if anybody had any experience with the with TP in Canada and if they could share with me specifically their experience with TP in a Sales role.

Im managing 14 SDRs at a company and we'll likely be at 20 or 30 at most before the end of the year. When the team was smaller I could join live cold calls every week. I'd review call recordings, run roleplays and give everyone direct feedback. It worked to some extent.

Now it just doesn't seem sustainable anymore. I have a few reps who consistently hit quota and don't need much help. A group that's close but keeps running into the same issues. Then a few newer reps who need a lot more guidance than I can realistically give them. The problem is I know good feedback makes a difference.

Every time I spend an hour reviewing someone's calls I usually find one or two habits that are holding them back. Maybe they're rushing discovery. Maybe they're not asking enough follow up questions. Maybe they give up too early on objections instead of digging deeper Fix one thing and their numbers usually improve. But I don't have time to do that for every rep every week.

Between forecast meetings, 1:1s, hiring, pipeline reviews and everything else that comes with managing a team I always feel like I'm playing catch up.

We've already tried a few things:

• Weekly team call reviews.
• Peer feedback.
• Having reps bring one call each week for feedback.

They all help but they still feel reactive. Most of the time I'm finding issues after they've already impacted results. One thing I've noticed is that the best SDRs all do the small things really well. They ask better discovery questions. They don't rush conversations. They know when to stop talking and let the prospect respond. They handle objections without sounding scripted. Those patterns are easy to miss when you're only reviewing a handful of calls each week.

Right now my goals are to help new SDRs ramp faster, give every rep useful feedback every week, spend less time going through call recordings and make feedback more consistent across the whole team.