I’m new to Sales and in my offer letter the company explained that for a period of 1 year after leaving the company I can’t work for or help a competing business. Does this mean I can’t be an SDR for a year?
Hey, so I am working from home and I am the only SDR at my company as of now. Cause of this, sometimes I feel I am missing out on mentorship and work culture, I would happy to interact with other SDRs working from home, I mean it is really interesting to learn about how different companies have different style of working and day to day activities. Would love to chat and connect with other SDRs. You can tell me what are you selling, how does the process and day to day activities look like and how it is going rn etc…
Thanks
I’m hitting a wall with this. I manage 8 reps. Two are new, one’s steady but quiet, one is always “about to close something,” and the rest… depends on the week. I should have a clean handle on the pipeline.
And yeah I’m supposed to ‘live’ in salesforce and clari every morning.
Reality? Some days I avoid it.Not because I don’t care, because it’s just noise!! Between CRM alerts, slack blowing up with “updates,” random deal notes, stage changes… it’s constant pings all day. Half of it isn’t useful, and the other half I don’t trust without digging anyway.
Then I open the dashboards and it’s more of the same: Everything looks fine at a glance… until you actually start questioning it. Pipeline looks “covered” but feels thin.Commit looks okay but I couldn’t defend half the deals if someone pushed me. Stuff sits there green that I know is shaky. Meanwhile my day is back-to-backs, reps pulling me into calls, internal asks, and I’m trying to coach and unblock deals in real time.
What I actually need is simple: a txt every morning with what’s slipping, what’s at risk, who needs help right now. That’s IT!!! Instead I’m stitching together a story from dashboards, Slack noise, and rep updates… and hoping it’s accurate. And then you get on the forecast call acting like you’ve got it dialed in… when honestly you’re hoping nothing blows up.
That’s the part that gets me. Is anyone actually getting signal out of all this noise in a simple way?Or are we all just managing off gut + selective updates and pretending the system has the answers? HELP!
I’ve spent the last 4+ years in home services, primarily in Sales Ops. My role has been 100% remote, focusing on data-driven lead routing and conversion optimization.
I’m looking to pivot into outbound cold calling to build a new skillset and generate some side income. I’m assertive by nature, have experience managing a department, and understand the "big picture" of the sales funnel.
I’m looking for a company with a strong culture of training and mentorship to help sharpen my cold calling game. Any advice on how to position my ops background to land an SDR/BDR role? How should I target these companies to ensure they actually offer training rather than just "throwing me to the wolves"?
Any advice is appreciated!
Hi everyone,
I’m currently transitioning from Software Engineering into Sales Development and I would love to connect with people from Serbia who are already working in sales.
I have been out of a job for a while and I’m actively trying to break into this field, learn as much as I can, and hopefully find an opportunity soon.
If you are from Serbia and working in sales, I would really appreciate any advice, insights, or even just a quick chat. Also, if you know about any opportunities or companies hiring, that would mean a lot.
Thanks in advance.
Hi, I am 29 years old female, working in a company in tech, in sales. I am with this company from 2024 September and the manager who hired me is unfortunately gone after my 9 months. Thankfully he signed the papers for me that I passed probation and etc.
There is a new guy came in, and I was feeling he was not respecting me as I am the youngest in the sales team. Many accusations like “haven’t you got in touch with this customer earlier” or “you should be more careful about this for credibility” etc
2 weeks ago, he asked me to come to the office, and mentioned that he is not happy with my performance and I am underperforming. I was surprised because I have completed %61 percent of my whole sales target for a whole year only in Q1 - I am obviously over performing.
He mentioned this is not a formal PIP, however he said he needs to see significant progress to not to make it to PIP. I didn’t do anything for PIP literally.
He wrote that into writing as well, saying that this is not formal PIP but he needed to see significant progress- those are in email afterwards.
So I am feeling that he is trying to make his way to kick me out, am I feeling right?
Note 1: I From previous sales team, me and one guy 12 years old tenure - we are the only ones left. The other are either let go, or left.
Note2: My last years target was 1.9 million euros, and I accomplished 1.78 and it is acceptable for my company to continue with 80 percent and above target completion. This year, he shrinked my yearly target to 900K - I was surprised but I said okay, easy peasy. Now I completed 564K at the end of March from that whole yearly target and he says “the progress is too slow”
Note 3: he wants me to report to him every week. I prepare what sales I am expecting to be closed. He asked “how can you be sure”
I am feeling like he is making his way to kick me out.
Any advice?
Can he really be a nice man and trying to train me? Don’t really think so but..
Hey everyone,
I've been in pure outbound/ hunting sales for a couple of years now I have been offered a key account manager role in Spain, in Madrid.
I literally just did the first interview just now and I still have a couple more left so it's not really confirmed but I'm considering it
A bit more context: currently I've got a main job as a full cycle account executive, which kind of sucks right now. I have just been considering what's the sort of best path forward, seeing all the layoffs and AI coming for everybody and stuff like that.
The package is €38k base + €6k variable.
My main concern: I'm used to roles where the variable is a significant chunk of total comp, the risk to reward ratio is the whole point. This KAM offer has a variable that feels low, but the base is 8k higher than mine right now. They mentioned there's some hunting involved, but it's mostly account management and growth.
A few things I wanna ask:
Would love to hear from anyone who's been in a similar spot.
I'll keep this short.
I'm 25, based in India, SDR for almost 2 years at a NASDAQ-listed SaaS company. I cover the Middle East market, C-suite outreach, sold against Braze and Salesforce. I know how to prospect, I know how to build pipeline, I know how to get a no from a CMO politely.
I want to move into cybersecurity sales. Specifically CrowdStrike or Palo Alto Networks. SDR or AE, I don't care about the title as much as I care about getting in the door at a company that actually means something in this space.
Both companies have India offices. CrowdStrike has Pune and Bangalore. Palo Alto has Bangalore. So it's not impossible from where I'm sitting.
But here's what I actually want to know from people who've done it or hired for it:
Was it a referral, a cold LinkedIn message, a recruiter, or just applying on the website like everyone else? What actually worked?
I've heard mixed things. Some people say CrowdStrike promotes fast if you perform. Others say you're stuck doing outbound forever. What's the reality?
I don't have a security cert. I know what EDR, XDR and Zero Trust mean but I'm not a technical guy. Is that a dealbreaker or do they care more about sales fundamentals?
I've been doing this at other companies and getting responses. Wondering if it works differently at bigger orgs.
Culture, quota attainment, realistic OTE, management quality — anything honest would help.
Not here for motivation or a pep talk. Just want real answers from people who've actually been inside these companies or hired for them.
If you work there or have hired there — drop whatever you're comfortable sharing. Even a DM is fine
We've been debating this internally for months so wanted to hear from people who've actually done it. Our situation: high inbound volume, fairly repetitive qualification questions, and a senior closer who's spending too much time on leads that aren't ready. Classic SDR problem. We ended up going the AI route instead of hiring and have been running it for about six months now. A few honest observations: The consistency is the biggest win. Same quality conversation every time, no off days, no leads falling through the cracks. Our inbound conversion improved noticeably just from speed of first response alone. Objection handling surprised us. We expected it to fall apart under pressure but it holds up better than we thought on standard objections. Complex enterprise deals still need a human — we haven't pretended otherwise. The failure mode is when leads want to go off script. Anything outside the trained scenarios and you can feel it struggling. Curious if others have gone down this road. What worked, what didn't, would you do it again?
TL;DR: I've been a top 5% SDR at a high growth SaaS unicorn. I’m crushing my numbers, but I hate how my quota resets to 0 every month and quarter. I'm considering a pivot to B2B Commercial Insurance to build a compounding book of business and long term autonomy. Is the 3 years of hell for 30 years of freedom trade off real, or am I over glorifying it?
Longer version for more context on me:
I’m in my early 20s and currently an SDR at a very hot SaaS company. On paper, I feel like I'm killing it. I am consistently top of the leaderboard hitting 150%+ of quota monthly, and tracking for an AE promotion.
The problem: I’ve realized I hate the SaaS sales model. I seriously hate that my value to the company resets to zero every single month. I’m tired of the what have you done for me lately culture, the constant micromanagement of activity metrics (dials, emails, LinkedIn, etc.), and the chronic anxiety of a resetting quota. I look at the AEs above me and they make great money ($200-300k+), but their role seems so volatile and I have worked with a few that have been fired since my tenure started.
I want a career that compounds. I’ve been researching the B2B Commercial Insurance route and it seems very interesting to me but I know I am young and naive and would love your advice.
The logic that’s pulling me in:
My biggest concerns:
My question:
Should I stick with the high prestige tech world and climb the AE ladder, or pivot to commercial insurance
We’re working on a sales-related product and I think we made a mistake by thinking too horizontally at first.
Now we’re trying to narrow down where the pain is actually strong enough.
If you had to pick one niche where sales reps struggle the most during live calls because of complexity, technical questions, trust, compliance, or internal approvals, where would you start?
Would really appreciate honest input from people who’ve sold into hard markets.
You don’t need more than 2 touch points per channel.
Call twice. If they don’t pick up either time - they likely never will. I can't tell you how many people I've called 6-10 times & never got one pickup.
Email twice. If they don’t respond to either - they likely never will. Sure, if it is a very important prospect... email them more.
But, think how many more people you could reach it you spent less time on each prospect….
I know this is a very broad question, but I’m genuinely curious to see how other SDRs are using AI in their day-to-day.
My company is big on the use it to make you efficient not make you blast people. Really heavy on the smart research piece.
Hi, 25F doing appointment setting here. I’m working at a company and so I will book meetings for many accounts.
Ever since joining, i have been booking for 5-6 accounts. And most of them lasted 3 months😹.
Just wondering what is happening and if you have experience, can you share ways, mindset to get through?
My commission based on working with the accounts too 💀
Hey guys,
Just starting out freelance setting appointments for the UK B2B SaaS space (aiming for founders/ceos at smaller 11-50 headcount companies).
I built my lists in Apollo, but obviously because of GDPR, the second I click the 'mobile' or 'direct number' filter, my list of 8,000 drops to literally zero.
For the UK guys in here grinding the phones right now:
What are you actually using for UK mobile data that isn't crazy expensive? I know Cognism is the goat but I can't afford that right now. Hearing mixed things about Kaspr and Lusha.
Or should I just suck it up, pull the corporate/HQ numbers from Apollo, and just battle the gatekeeper to get put through?
Cheers for any advice.
Just landed an SDR role for a SaaS company selling an operations system to a target market in the SMB market, local biz. Keeping it vague as I don’t want to give away the company.
The quota/KPIs go as follows:
100-130 calls per day
12 SQL executed / month
2 Closed per month
50% quota attainment rate across SDR team of 5
Company cares more about closed deals/revenue than SQL. For example, book 6 meetings, 4 close and you basically hit/surpassed quota.
Sales cycle is 1-3 weeks I’d say but can be shorter or slightly longer
Based off those numbers, does that sound like a realistic setup? The leads are given by the GTM team and the company has been in business for a few years now. Small SDR team (under 10 including outbound and inbound sdrs ) and well over 200+ employees in the company.
Hi! My husband is graduating college and starting a tech sales job in July.
Do you have any grad gift ideas I get him going into his first sales role? I was thinking a few nice things for his new desk situation, but any other ideas? He will be in office 5 days a week.
Budget is about $400 give or take.
Throwaway because some of these companies are ones I'm actively reaching out to.
Quick background — I'm 25, based in India, currently an SDR at a MarTech SaaS company covering the Middle East market. Close to 2 years of enterprise C-suite outreach, sold against Braze and Salesforce, US company experience. Before this I did US market lead gen at another SaaS startup.
I want to move into cybersecurity sales. Either Senior SDR with a fast track to AE, or directly AE at an early stage startup. I only want US market — night shift from India is fine, I genuinely don't mind it.
Here's what I've been doing the last few days:
— Cold WhatsApp to hiring managers and SDR leaders at target companies (India and US based both)
— Actively messaging VPs and Directors at few companies I'm targeting — would love feedback on whether this list makes sense or if I'm missing anyone obvious:
Big companies:
CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, SentinelOne, Cloudflare, Fortinet, Cisco, Rapid7, Darktrace, Check Point
Funded startups:
Cyera, Chainguard, Axonius, Abnormal Security, Claroty, Armis, Vanta, Island, Hunters.ai, Orca Security, Pentera, Torq, Cymulate, Saviynt
My questions for anyone who's been through this:
1-Is cold WhatsApp to US based VPs actually insane or does it sometimes work? Mixed results so far but a few have replied.
2-For someone with 2 years SDR experience, is going for AE directly at an early stage startup realistic or am I setting myself up to fail?
3-Any companies on my list I should deprioritise? Any I'm missing that are actually great for someone trying to break in from a non-cyber background?
How important is a cert like Security+ actually — I keep seeing conflicting opinions. Some people say hiring managers don't care at all at the SDR/AE level.
Anyone made this transition from SaaS SDR to cybersecurity sales — what actually moved the needle for you?
Not looking for motivation, looking for honest takes. What am I missing or doing wrong?
I recently came across a discussion claiming that there are basically no systems for getting sales online without paid ads, even if you publish blog posts, create content consistently, or try different organic methods.
The argument was that organic strategies are too slow, unpredictable, and inconsistent to count as a system.
Is this true?
For those of you who run online programs or similar online offerings, is it really true that there’s no repeatable way to attract clients organically?
I’d love to hear from people who have actually built traction without:
- paid ads
- relying on friends/family
- or using their personal network as the main source
-or offering a freebie and building an email list
What worked for you?
How long did it take before you saw consistent results?
And do you think a real system is possible, or is everything organic just trial‑and‑error?
Not looking for pitches or DMs just genuinely trying to understand what’s realistic.
Got an offer letter from a company that expires in 2 days. It’s pretty good but there are 2 more companies I’m in the middle of interviewing with that could possibly be better opportunities. I don’t want to let the offer expire. Can I accept the offer and keep interviewing? (excuse my naivety, this is my first time getting into sales)