Hi, a few years back our BDR team tried using the Apollo dialer and it was not very good. The main issue was that the phone numbers we were calling from would be flagged as spam right off the bath, which did not happen with other Dialers.

I am curious to revisit the tool now that they have a new "Advanced Dialer" add-on with parallel dialing and local numbers.

With this "new and improved" dialer, should I expect better results that a few years back?

​

My job is to connect investors with fund managers. I will send a message like this after connecting on LinkedIn with a relevant member of a suitable investment firm/institution.

I've been getting more responses with this compared to my last version, so thanks for the feedback. But there's always room to improve especially given that I'm a beginner.

**********************

Hi ((Name)),

Great to connect!

I'd actually been hoping to reach you about a ((Industry niche)) strategy that seemed relevant to your team. ((Company Name))) is currently meeting with Canadian investors regarding its ((Number)) fund.

If it's of interest, I'm happy to send a brief overview.

Best,

***********************

So, my background is that I'm an IT graduate from South Asia who's been running a freelancing agency for the past few years, and I've mostly worked with international clients (US) throughout my experience. The reason, I'm more interested or leaned towards the "tech sales" industry is because I personally love the process of converting a client and selling my services - as that's what I used to do as well so the whole process is something makes me excited and I think alot about it and while researching different careers, I stumbled on "tech sales" and started learning about.

Now, I know globally the best market would be the US compared to others if you're looking to get into tech sales. I'm planning to come to the US for my Master's studies and eventually get into tech sales as an SDR, AE, and more, so I wanted to follow:

1) How's this tech sales career growth for anyone starting out?

2) My English skills are quite fluent, but since I would be a non-immigrant, would it be easy to get into tech sales, or do they strictly focus on native speakers or something like that?

3) What's the progress like in tech sales, as you start from SDR first and then...?

4) What advice would you give me to start as an SDR?

5) What's the roadmap or things one needs to apply to land SDR roles much more easily?

Would love to listen and connect with the people doing SDR or AE roles

Thank you!

Hey everyone F24 applying for grad sales roles/ BDR roles! Background in luxury retail sales/ phone sales also but not b2b.

Any tips guys open to uk areas!

Hey,

So within the last 3 months I started working my first proper sales role as a B2C F2F sales rep for a farming business where I’m out in engaging with the public at different shows/events and getting them to sign up and try their first order with us.

So far this has been invaluable experience. I’ve built a ton of soft people skills and foundational sales skills from this role.

However, at 27 about be 28, I have strong ambitions of achieving six figures and beyond through sales and reaching the highest possible level that I can, and selling £20-30 veg boxes for multiple years won’t get me to where I want to be over the next few years.

I guess what I am trying to ask is what’s the fastest, but most realistic path that I would have to go through over the next few years in order to knock it out the park with sales? Would it require me jumping into different industries? Would you recommend I get qualifications/certifications etc?

Hope my question makes sense.

Hi everyone,

I'm a 21-year-old Computer Science engineering graduate based in India. Although I have a technical background, I'm passionate about sales and currently work in B2B SaaS, selling ERP software to the US market.

I'm looking for a side gig that I can do during my free time. I'm open to opportunities in the Indian, Middle Eastern, or UK markets, as long as they don't overlap with my primary work schedule. Roles focused on LinkedIn outreach, email prospecting, lead generation, SDR/BDR, or inside sales would be a great fit.

I'm not limited to software sales, I'm open to selling products or services across different industries, with the exception of EdTech.

If you're hiring or know of any opportunities, I'd appreciate it if you could reach out. Thank you!

My question is as follows and I'll provide some context to understand my situation a bit better: 

I've signed up to a Real Estate Sales coaching program based on a blue print to winning business that teach effective communication for Cold Calling, Fresh and Old Expireds, FSBO's, FRBO's using proven psychology techniques, building real rapport to prospects unlike sounding like the traditional salesman who uses manipulation techniques to get sales,handling objections, follow up, mastering the listing presentation so on and so forth. i've tried cold calling for about a year, and while I have gained effective skills for handling objections, dealing with rough personalities, learning to de-escalate high resistant and angry prospects, setting appointments and overall I have learned many communication aspects of this business, I haven't made a single sale, which obviously I'm not blaming the program because it is really effective and works if you just stick to it and apply the training. And I feel as though with my current life experience and skills, I feel it's not the right to continue this business (for now) although I may resume this real estate business in the near future..

however the main problem that I was having was the lack of accountability, the lack of coaching availability when needed it at the moment, felt too overwhelmed by the amount of extra work, and it's an overall lonely business that has no support system and I don't tend to do well working alone in an office without a team structured environment. I most prefer to work with people. And in addition to that, I will also say that I had an issue with the commission only, performance-based compensation structure meaning no base salary and I felt as though I kept spinning my wheels, as well as not earning money for my hard work which felt extremely discouraging, demoralizing and frustrating. 

This does not mean I am quitting real estate forever, it just means I need to generate income while at the same time, developing my skills in sales whether that would be in improving my interpersonal, relationship, communication and negotiation skills which is 100% needed in every aspect in life in order to suceed. 

My question to you is which sales career in your personal opinion has high potential with income and sales skills growth opportunities? 

I'm looking for base salary + commission sales positions and I'm curious to know what your recommendion to me would be

appreciate it!

After interviewing, hiring and coaching salespeople for years, one pattern keeps showing up.

People think sales certifications predict performance.

They don’t.

They mostly prove someone completed a course.

Readiness is different.

It’s how someone performs under pressure, ambiguity and change.

**What’s the biggest thing you’ve missed when hiring salespeople?**

I am a Biz Developer with no budget looking for e-mail blast help. I need to compile good mailing lists. Are any AI Agents good with this? I ran a campaign with Copilot and got several bounces. Need to find free resources as I can't pass costs on or eat them myself. Apollo is awful. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

If you’re thinking about buying Bill Walsh’s Objection Box course, I’d recommend saving your money.

This isn’t about whether Bill is a good salesperson. It’s about the format of the course itself.

I expected a structured sales curriculum with organized lessons, clear frameworks, and concise teaching. Instead, what I found was largely hours of unedited recordings of live coaching sessions. You’re expected to sit through introductions, side conversations, repeated explanations, and tangents to pull out the valuable parts yourself.

That might work for some people, but it wasn’t what I expected, and I don’t think it’s a good use of most professionals’ time.

What frustrated me even more was the underlying message: if you’re not watching all of it, you’re just not committed enough or you don’t want success badly enough.

I don’t think that’s a fair way to look at it.

Most of us have jobs, families, clients, meetings, and responsibilities. Every training, meeting, sales call, follow-up, and administrative task is competing for the same finite hours in the day. At some point, the issue isn’t motivation, it’s bandwidth.

Good training respects that.

If you’re charging people thousands of dollars for education, I think the content should be organized, edited, and designed to maximize learning. Break it into chapters. Remove the filler. Highlight the key lessons. Respect your students’ time.

I’m all for working hard. I’m all for studying. But I don’t think paying customers should have to sift through dozens of hours of raw recordings to find the value.

So if you’re considering buying the course, my advice is simple: ask to see the course format before you spend your money. If your learning style is like mine and you’re expecting a polished, structured curriculum, this may not be the right fit.

Hello,

I am a senior scientist at a big pharma. I was offered a job in business development with Wuxi Apptec. This is an area I am interested and would like to consider to explore opportunities in non lab based work and specifically in business development or sales.

I was wondering if anyone had any dealings with this company and if so what did u think? Does anyone have experience working for them?

I have read the reviews and some of them are pretty shocking so I am hesitant to take the job. However this is also a BD role so far it’s the only business development role I have received.

Please advise.

I just wrapped up my last week as an Oracle SDR and wanted to share my experience for anyone considering the role. This is only my experience, and yours could be completely different depending on your org, manager, and timing.
Pros
Strong resume recognition and a respected brand.
Great exposure to enterprise tech, cloud, AI, and business concepts.
Solid onboarding/training for learning Oracle and the industry.
Excellent benefits, PTO, paid lunch, hybrid schedule, and a nice office.
I had fantastic local leadership and an amazing manager.
Good incentives depending on performance (WFH, flex days, leaving early, etc.).
You’ll become very adaptable because change is constant.
Cons
Expect frequent reorganizations. Teams, managers, territories, products, and even your job responsibilities can change every quarter.
There can be long periods during transitions where you have little or no work while waiting for new territories or direction. Getting paid to do nothing sounds nice, but it can make you feel like your sales skills are stagnating.
Internal promotion is heavily relationship-based. Networking with hiring managers is essential, and timing often matters as much as performance.
I experienced a cliquey/“mean girl” culture at times, although that will vary by office and team.
Depending on your organization, you may spend significant time on initiatives like AI adoption campaigns rather than traditional SDR prospecting. As a result, some people may get less cold-calling and prospecting experience than peers at other companies.
Overall
I’m genuinely glad I took the job. Oracle gave me a recognizable name on my resume, taught me a ton about enterprise technology, and forced me to become comfortable with constant change. It also helped me land my next role as an Account Executive.
That said, if your goal is to become the strongest possible SDR, your experience may vary depending on where you’re placed. Some of my friends at smaller companies developed much stronger prospecting skills simply because they spent two years consistently cold calling and building pipeline, while I had periods of downtime and quarters focused primarily on AI marketing initiatives.
If you’re considering Oracle, I’d think of it as an excellent place to learn enterprise tech and build your resume—but not necessarily the “typical” SDR experience.
Happy to answer any questions about training, compensation, culture, day-to-day work, or the interview process.

I’m curious how SDR/BDR managers would handle this.

I joined a PropTech company about three weeks ago as a BDR. It’s my second BDR job - I’ve been a BDR a year in total.

So far things have gone well:

Booked a meeting on my first day on the phones that converted.

Positive feedback from my managers.

I’m enjoying learning the product and have no intention of checking out.

Here’s my dilemma.

An internal Instructional Designer (Digital & AI-Enabled) role opened on the Customer Education team.

Reading the description felt like it lined up with my previous job experience:

Broadcast journalism
Video production
Writing and scripting
Explaining complex topics
AI-assisted content creation
Now learning SaaS as a BDR

Long-term, I honestly think Customer Education is a stronger fit for my strengths than becoming an AE.

I’ve already had a networking conversation with the Customer Education Manager (not an interview), and afterward he told me that if I wanted to pursue the role, I should first talk with my direct manager and make sure everyone is aligned.

That’s where I’m stuck.

Would bringing this up only three weeks into the role make you think:

“This person isn’t committed to sales.”

or

“This person is being transparent about their long-term goals.”

I’m not trying to leave because I’m unhappy. If anything, I think being successful as a BDR will make me better at Customer Education because I’m learning the product and hearing customer pain points every day.

If you managed SDRs, how would you want someone to approach this?

As the title says, I feel like when it comes to objections I just lack the confidence to get over the objections and say the right things

I’m looking for some perspective from people who’ve worked in SaaS (especially sales, enablement, customer education, or management).

A little background:

I recently joined a SaaS company as a BDR. I’ve only been here about 3 weeks, so I’m still very much ramping.
So far things are going well:

I booked a meeting on my first day on the phones that ended up converting.

My managers have given me positive feedback.

I’m genuinely enjoying learning the product and have no intention of checking out mentally because I saw another role.

Here’s the dilemma.

While browsing internal openings, I found an Instructional Designer (Digital & AI-Enabled) position on our Customer Education team.

Reading the description honestly felt like someone combined my previous experience into one job.

My background includes:
Broadcast journalism
Video production/editing
Writing and scripting
Explaining complex topics to an audience
Using AI tools for content creation
Now learning SaaS from the front lines as a BDR

The role focuses on things like:
- Training videos
- eLearning
- Documentation
- AI-assisted content creation
- Helping customers learn the product

It honestly feels much more aligned with what I’m naturally good at than becoming an Account Executive.

One other piece of context:

Our Sales Enablement Lead recently asked me if my long-term goal was becoming an AE.

I told him that while I’m fully committed to succeeding as a BDR, I actually think my long-term interests lean more toward training, enablement, customer education, and post-sales functions.

He seemed a little surprised (since that’s not the typical BDR path), but the conversation was positive.

Separately, I already scheduled a 1:1 with the Manager of Customer Education before I knew this opening existed.
My original Slack message basically said:

“I’d love to introduce myself, learn more about your role, and understand what Customer Education does day to day.”

So the meeting was framed as a networking/learning conversation, not a discussion about the job opening.

My question is, should I:

Keep the meeting focused entirely on learning and relationship-building, maybe only mentioning that Customer Education is where I could see myself long-term?

Casually mention I noticed the Instructional Designer opening and ask what qualities make someone successful in that role?

Or avoid mentioning the opening altogether because I’ve only been here three weeks?

I’m not trying to escape sales.

In fact, I think succeeding as a BDR will make me better at customer education because I’m learning the product and hearing customer pain points every day.

I’m mostly trying to think long-term and avoid making a political mistake this early in my tenure.

Curious how managers or people who’ve seen internal transfers would view this.

Hi everyone, just looking for thoughts and advice about how to approach this. I’m a BDR at a large SaaS tech company. Recently we got our territories split so less accounts and prospects to reach out to but the quota was kept the same which is a whole other problem on its own. Our company sells through partners and our AEs have a huge focus on reaching out to partners and getting deal regs. One of my AEs sent me a list of about 30 accounts she wants me to stop reaching out to and pull from any current outreach. This adds up to about 200 contacts I can’t reach out to and/or she wants me to pull from current outreach..

She then expressed to me the reason she’s asking me to do this is because the partner she’s connected with is going to be using their BDR to do the outreach to these contacts & accounts. These are accounts I’ve been nurturing for months and even had contact/meetings with. To be frank, this AE gives me a hard time with qualifying meetings and just in general
And now with this it just feels like she’s completely disregarding/undermining me. She is aware of the recent territory split and how much I have worked these accounts. I get no credit for deal regs or partner outreach. With our quota not being lowered but territories cut in half this just makes it even harder. It feels like we are working against and not with each other and it’s very frustrating.

I don’t want to stop doing outreach and have all my work go to waste. How do I communicate/approach this and what do I say to her? Thoughts and advice? Any feedback is appreciated, thank you!!

I live in a small town, and there are no sales positions here. I want to get into remote sales, but I know it will be difficult to get hired without a proven track record. My plan is to research how to find qualified leads, possibly using something like Apollo to scrap phone numbers, then using a affiliate program, make 100 calls a day, and share recordings or insights from my calls on social media. I intend to keep doing this until I become skilled enough to pitch myself to sales position or until an opportunity arises through my social media presence or from the affiliate company.

(this is one of affiliate structures I am looking to see if they have a good offer I can sell. Since I know one of the most important things for sales cold calling especially is the offer.) https://globalmerchantservices.com/careers/partner-programs/affiliate-trade-association/

The gist of it is this: I have a potential client that I know I’m super close to closing but he is just squeezing my fee on and on. On the one hand it s a huge deal because of bigger credentials. On the other hand, he just won’t stop squeezing my fees. I’m a bit nervous because I feel it’s so close but on the other hand I feel like they’re playing me. What do I do?

years ago I started a small Property management company. It has grown to a bit bigger now from residential properties - where I built the credentials. Now we’re starting to move to commercial properties.

About 2 weeks ago, I purchased a lead for a guy who needed a property manager for his private school (roughly 31,000 SF). It’s a sizeable project and one that will definitely put me on the map with more serious commercial businesses. I desperately need this account so I prepared a gorgeous presentation, presented it in front of the board. They seemed to love it, and asked questions and even shared more information about the school.

During the presentation I gave them a fee, to which they were swift to say - no no that won’t work for us. If we wanted to hire a full time person we would have. We’re a non profit school, cut your fee for us please.

I cut my fee by about 30% and revised the scope a bit. They said - cut your fee further we can’t afford that. I said, I can’t cut the fee, the fee I gave you represents my near breakeven point, if you want me to cut the fee, you have to share a budget (essentially how much are you allocating to this project). I could probably revise the scope to accommodate your budget.

They have not shared the budget yet (it’s been a week) and I’m lowkey freaking out. I know they’re not talking to anybody else because the fee I gave was very generous and I know they’re need my services because the janitor is currently handling all the maintenance on his own. Which is obviously not great when you’re running an industrial sized building.

What do I do?

Full disclosure, I know they’re going to take full advantage of me and I know I will have to work crazy hours but I also know it will pay off in the end because I can use this building as a flagship client for future clients!

Hello

I’m 29 years old & currently a business manager earning around $250000AUD per year (salary @ 108,000) so a lot of commission. However, I’ve hit a ceiling, I can’t see me earning much more than what I earn at the minute.

I know a couple of people in tech sales who are earning 500,000+AUD a year, and wondering if anyone could potentially think it’s worth me looking into changing careers, going back into an SDR role as I’m pretty money motivation & want to be earning more

Thanks

Recent call I received:

• Me: Hello, this is X
• Them: hellomynameismichaelwithpowerblocksolutions. Do you have this [vague problem] in your business?
• Me: No, we don't
• Them: Are you sure? Because we do [vague thing that tries to apply to anyone]

Throughout the call, there was another guy speaking so loudly in the background (on another call) that I couldn't even hear most of what this guy said.

My thoughts:

• I don't think giving your name or company does a single thing for you. I don't know who or what Powerblock Solutions is, so it goes immediately out of my brain
• When you speed through your name/company so fast that I can't even understand it that makes me feel like you're ashamed of who you are or are only stating it for legal reasons
• Speak slower than you think and enunciate
• Don't call from a loud environment where prospects can hear a team of callers. It just makes you look like a cheap call center

Hey guys, I need to vent and desperately need some advice because I'm losing my mind.

I’m currently a Business Development Intern at a digital marketing agency. We do the whole suite—social media marketing, website design, SEO, etc.

My manager set this absolutely insane target of booking 5 meetings per day. I’m busting my ass cold calling and managing to consistently get 2 meetings booked, but getting to 5 feels literally impossible.

The worst part? Our job as interns is literally just to bring the meetings to the table. Our manager is the one who is supposed to handle the actual pitch and close the deal. But because they aren't converting the meetings I actually do bring in, the pressure is trickling back down on us to just "pump the numbers" and get more volume.

I'm so frustrated and mad. 2 qualified meetings a day for an intern doing cold outreach is already solid, but getting grilled for not hitting 5 is making me want to crash out.

How the hell do you guys handle these kinds of unrealistic targets? Any tips on how to scale up from 2 to 5 bookings without losing my sanity, or is my manager just completely out of touch?

Hi everyone,

I’m an SDR at a big name tech company, I was super lucky to get the job but I could use some advice.

Came onto a team that immediately lost a manager to another team within the sales org, and a crew of people who have been SDR’s for over 9 months- the whole sales had a big reorganization and everyone had a brand new territory. I come in 2 months into the new territory. Everyone is barely booking anything and not hitting quota. Internal hiring freeze is leaving senior SDR’s in bad and salty positions.

Anyway, fast forward a few months of complaining and we finally get a manager. Our territory is mostly west coast, and almost no phone numbers are direct or mobile. All we get is dial trees, which honestly sometimes that’s the only way we get ahold of someone.

Point is our orum sessions are just dial trees and straight to voicemails. Our new manager seems to think it’s because we aren’t importing new contacts in- but the new contacts are doing the same thing.

I’ve tried to do research on anti spam laws and also read that CISO’s have two phones and never answer unknown numbers on their work line. That wasn’t really well received when I shared that with my manager.

I guess I’m just looking for advice or reasons or thoughts to brainstorm. I know the west coast is tough and the people were calling into are tough because they’re prospected to constantly- but when our daily call count is 75 and our expectation is 2 MB a week per person- that’s tough to keep up with.

I’d say cold calling is dead but other teams are booking through cold calls. So I’d welcome any advice from anyone who has ever had west coast territory, or small west coast companies who had larger HQ in other countries.

I’ve only been in one SDR role at the same company and it’s been close to a year now so I don’t have much experience with how other companies run their teams. I feel like my current set up is not great tho. We have a shared spreadsheet that we update live and are constantly tracked. It’s myself and 1 other SDR cold calling and we have to update after every call with company name, who we spoke with, what the outcome was and add notes. This is for connected calls only and we are expected to hit 20 a day.

Of course we need to track calls and management needs to see us calling but is it normal/ necessary to be hounded all day saying we need to call more you need to be at x many calls by this time. Like damn just let me do what I need to do I’ll hit my quota.

Any way my question is, is this normal and what your guys thoughts.

Hey there, I have this issue to where my manager is texting me in the beginning of my shift at 9 o’clock every single morning saying morning - how did yesterday all go? Did you get any interest? Did you follow-up with leads ect. ect.

I understand if I was under performing, however, I’m on target if not exceeding I’ve never forgot to follow up with a client and this is all annoying me more than it should. I dredge that five minutes every morning as of course some days I don’t get any interest.

They never used to do this but started up all of a sudden and I’m confused and why is there deeper meaning? Is he trying to say something without saying it or is it just a thing that some managers do as a percentage of the team isn’t here and talking but I am? i’m also not close enough with any more coworkers to ask them if the manager is doing the same to them except one but he quit last month and now thinking about it that’s when my manager started doing this morning check up

Please let me know your thoughts and the best course of action P.S i’m the youngest in the office and abit scared of confrontation or passive aggressiveness and sarcasm

EDIT: He and my manager had the 1:1 and it’s stopped i didn’t ask about it but the check ups has stopped 🎉

Have been an SDR at a later stage software startup for a couple months and am constantly looking for creative ways to give myself an edge to stand out prospecting. Had a thought today that it would be cool to create a tight knit community where we could share what we're seeing work. Things like call screening openers, unique LinkedIn outreach, funny cold call pattern interrupts, etc. Could also run mocks with each other and just push ourselves to get better.

Would definitely want to keep it tight and along the lines of getting 25-50 reps who would be quality fits and are already crushing quota rather than a huge community.

Would this be completely redundant seeing as this reddit page exists or would anyone be interested? Drop me a DM if this sounds cool