Cam Wright
@thecamjwright
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AE @Grafana | I help people land career-changing tech sales roles
Joined June 2023
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Three reps at my company have been in tech sales for <5 years and already W2’ed over $1,000,000 in a single year.
Here’s how they did it,
Step-by-step:
Month 0-12: Land any SDR role and survive for 8-12 months.
That’s it. Just survive.
Month 8-12: Transition to a SDR role at
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A VP at Snowflake spoke at the latest Grafana Labs sales summit.
He was asked ‘how can a rep get your attention with cold outreach?’
His answer had the crowd laughing:
‘You can’t’
He waited until we composed ourselves, then went on to add:
‘The best way to get my attention
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Sales is a hilarious real-world application of psychology/status.
A BDR I recently helped land a job texted me:
‘I’m at my best when I’m on the phone with a prospect and don’t give a f***’
(Yes, if he’s extremely nervous otherwise, loosening up would fix his problems),
But,
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We just had another commercial rep close a $3.8m ACV deal.
🤯
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I was recently nominated to start interviewing AEs.
While going through interview training,
Our lead Recruiter said ‘if candidates don't have a strong ‘why’ for wanting to work here we won’t move them forward’
This stuck with me,
Because most candidates answer this question
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Grafana Labs is an insane place.
One of our Commercial reps (who is 6-months into the role)
Has already cleared $1M this year
And it's only Q2.
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A sales job at a hot tech company will get 5,000+ applicants.
Yes – 5,000+.
Because of this, many job postings are closed after 48-72 hours. No more applicants can be reviewed.
If it wasn't already clear, applying is dead.
Insane stat
@ryan_c_walsh
shared on LinkedIn 🤯
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@randomrecruiter
Another piece of advice - begin to (visibly) take on responsibilities of the role you’d like to get promoted into.
For example, if you were a sales rep and wanted to become a sales manager you could start coaching new hires, leading team meetings, etc.
This goes a long way.
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@thebeautyofsaas
Life as a dude starts to go downhill at ~23-24 if you haven't started to figure it out.
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@buccocapital
Chief of Staff: Tell me you do absolutely nothing without telling me you do absolutely nothing
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Most of the ‘selling’ you do in SaaS sales isn’t your product.
You’ll ‘sell’ prospects on why their boss should join the next call.
You’ll ‘sell’ why budget should be allocated to the problem you solve.
You’ll ‘sell’ the benefit of conducting user interviews before a POC.
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Michael Dell invented signal-based outbound selling in 1983.
Yes… that’s 41 years ago.
Outbound is not changing.
Most people just suck at it.
P.S. - photo credits go to
@HenryLSchuck
from LinkedIn.
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@spacemansells
The craziest part,
I’ve met some exceptionally smart people in tech sales
Making a killing (high 6 - 7 figures)
That had extremely unimpressive backgrounds (i.e., community college)
Goes to show decisions made at 18-19 aren’t that critical
No hate on community colleges 😂
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@jjen_abel
This was one of my biggest surprises coming into an open-source company:
It’s much harder to get an open-source user to pay than it is to get someone to pay right away.
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You can’t master ‘selling’ before mastering your product and/or industry.
Because of this,
You need stints that are at least 2-3 years long for a chance at mastering sales.
When you're constantly worrying about questions, terminology, or discussing your product, it's hard to
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As a seller, you're much better to have a forecast that is
Low, but accurate
Than high, but inaccurate
Everyone has bad quarters.
If you're at least accurate with your forecast, you'll make up for it with earned respect.
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My favourite way to qualify early-stage deals:
Whenever a new customer stakeholder joins a call,
Have your potential champion introduce the ‘why’ for the session.
🐲: ‘Champion, to ensure Jim has context, could you share a brief overview of why we have this demo today and the
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Three things your resume MUST have:
According
@KyleAsay_
(VP of Sales)
Bookmark this if you're trying to break into tech sales.
1. Trajectory
It’s critical to show positive momentum throughout your career.
This could be breaking into a higher-caliber company or earning
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Interview hack:
Asking your interviewer questions ‘at their level’.
This means asking questions based on your interviewer’s role, tenure and experience.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say you were speaking with a VP Sales.
This is a bad question:
❌ ‘What is the onboarding process
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Your job as a seller is to make it easy to buy.
Similarly, your job as a candidate is to make it easy to hire you.
A great way to make choosing you 'easy',
Is to proactively highlight the skills and traits the hiring team is evaluating you on (i.e., bring a territory or
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The degree to which you can influence a buyer
equals the degree to which your domain knowledge exceeds theirs.
Easy in B2C,
not so easy when selling to sophisticated tech execs in B2B.
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Being a seller is risky.
But it's WAY riskier to be a buyer.
No sales rep has ever been fired for losing a single deal.
But countless buyers have been fired for making a bad purchase and screwing up a critical corporate initiative.
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Is the golden era of SaaS over?
US tech IPOs are at historic lows,
Less than ‘02 (dot-com crash) and ‘08-09 (great recession).
This is primarily due to software valuation multiples being at their lowest in two decades.
Companies are trying to determine if this is a short-term
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When your manager has actually sold your product / has domain expertise >
The deal support is unmatched.
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@Humanheadhunter
I once had a recruiting firm tell my existing boss I was looking elsewhere (I guess they were well-connected). Insane.
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It’s counterintuitive, but outbound leads should be higher quality than inbound leads.
There are tons of tools that tell reps when their top accounts are exploring tools.
Going after these accounts should lead to high-quality outbound meetings.
It’s the crappy, non-ICP
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@ronjonbSaaS
I sell a competitive solution - DDOG is an amazing product but industry wide consensus is that their pricing is way too high & unpredictable. Lots of churn strictly due to price.
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Crush your cold call role plays to land an SDR role (5 steps that work):
The mock cold call is one of the most feared parts of the SDR interview process.
Most candidates get nervous, overthink and don’t perform their best.
Here’s how to ace your next cold call:
A 🧵.
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SaaS sellers:
Instead of scrambling to lock down next steps,
Focus on objectives.
This frames the next steps as beneficial to your buyer,
and enables you to lock down 2-3 next steps at once.
Instead of this:
🤡 “At this point we typically schedule a product demo. Does next
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@sammarelich
Would not recommend joining a small startup UNLESS:
A) You are an industry/product expert and can vet the product yourself
B) You know the founding team is world class
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I've reviewed hundreds of Resumes over the last four years.
From executives to recent graduates, one thing is done poorly across 99% of the Resumes I see:
The copywriting.
Here are 6 rules for writing executive-level bullet points:
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51% to my annual number at the end of Q2.
So far so good – we're on track.
Unfortunately, Q3 is looking pretty bad.
A couple whales in play for Q4 (two 7-figure deals), but it's way too early to tell if either has legs.
Let's go get em!
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@TechSalesGuy3
Best to treat this like an outbound sales role.
Doesn’t hurt to sprinkle in creativity to stand out:
- LinkedIn voice notes
- Video recordings
- Digital sales rooms
The market is tough.
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@ronjonbSaaS
@amitisinvesting
The biggest difference IMO is Snowflake provides the ‘tools’ for AI (Data warehouse) and end users are meant to create their own IP.
Whereas Palantir actually creates the AI models / IP and its customers use it.
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‘The only way to get a job in tech sales is through connections’
I hear this often,
And it's a poor excuse.
With a bit of work,
Anyone can make connections right now with basic cold outreach.
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@thaAdamLittle
Unrelated to investing, but the same concept applies when considering joining a new sales org.
Repvue is a game changer for this
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@thedealdirector
You’re not a true SaaS sales bro unless you have a 7-month Lacework stint on your LinkedIn.
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@WillAllred117
You're much better off sending a prospect 2-3 touches every 2-3 months than 7-10 touches every 4-5 months.
They likely won't remember you reached out a few months earlier.
Even if they do, a couple touches every few months isn't as annoying as 7-10 touches in a row.
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If you took away ALL a seller's 'sales' abilities
But made them:
1) Extremely helpful
2) An industry/product expert
I think they'd still outperform 90% of reps.
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@TechSalesTitan
Nowhere close to that - $115k.
Commercial lucked out because almost all of the ‘household’ AI/LLM companies fall into our patch.
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@sammarelich
Reps usually don’t like to admit it, but product and territory are huge in tech sales.
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@spacemansells
@thaAdamLittle
@BrianLaManna_
It can work out this way.
Also, remember that 20% of reps 'hitting' quota doesn't mean average rep attainment is 20%.
20% of reps could hit quota with the top 10% overachieving by so much that average rep attainment is well over 100%.
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@noahkagan
Sometimes it's better to guarantee high-quality training, professional connections and pay if you're early in your career.
Most start-ups will give you none of that. They are lottery tickets.
Once you have a strong network, industry expertise and business acumen, then picking a
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@Chris_Orlob
This also changes over time.
I like to dial up the work hours in winter so I can work less during the summer.
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@thedealdirector
What are your thoughts on the ‘shift left’ platform play to own more of code development?
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@ankurnagpal
In my experience it's common for tech workers to step out during the day to go to conferences/events
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@ConnorLibutti
I think the best way to think of it is multiple categories of ‘fit’:
1. Skill fit (can you do the job)
2. Career fit (does the role align with your career goals)
3. Culture fit (do you fit in socially)
Nail all three and you’ll fall into the ‘must hire’ category!
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Job search pro tip:
Reach out to reps at your target companies after you've secured the first interview.
They will be 10x more likely to respond.
And if you're chill, they will tell you exactly how to ace the interview.
P.S. this guy was a beauty
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The best way to get your prospect to say ‘yes’?
Ensure they’re comfortable saying ‘no’.
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Heard one of our top reps use this phrase word-for-word the other day.
Ask your champion "How are you positioning this internally?" to determine how your champion is "selling" on your behalf.
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How to break into tech sales with no experience:
(These strategies apply for SDRs too)
In a saturated market, here’s how an AE recently stood out and quickly earned an offer to join my organization:
1) Strong initial outreach
Reached out directly to me with a message that addressed:
- Why LaunchDarkly was a fit for him (showed relevant research)
- Why he was a
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When your forecast goes from:
50,000% attainment…
To 0%.
There is an Oracle sales rep out there who is currently updating a $10 billion TCV deal to Closed-Lost.
Thoughts and prayers in this difficult time.
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Job search pro tip:
Just like any sales process, you will come across different people in your job search that will care about various things.
The best sellers (and job seekers) understand and satisfy the needs of each individual they meet.
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Don’t submit your resume unless it checks these three boxes:
1) It’s Tailored
Review the job postings you’ve been applying for.
Does your resume include the keywords, experiences, and skills that have been highlighted?
2) It’s Outcome-Oriented
The average resume is full of
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Underrated way to gauge potential champions:
Check their LinkedIn profiles.
If you see promotions, posts and lists of accomplishments, they want to get shit done.
Try to build a relationship with that person.
They might be champion material.
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@thedealdirector
Curious to see this one!
From my perspective, the opportunity at leaders like DataDog is dwindling.. companies are fed up with insanely high costs.
There’s opportunities for companies to win on cost (i.e., Coralogix, Grafana) but I don’t think these orgs will ever be $40-50B
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@spacemansells
@BowTiedCocoon
@salesxsaas
My VP (he’s a legend) slacked me today saying he saw one of my tweets 😅
Could be wrong, but I think as long as you’re clearly working hard and doing your job well you’re fine.
I do agree it’s a negative if you aren’t carrying your weight.
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@GetATechSalesJ
SDR hell is a dark place.
*Hat tip*
Jokes aside –
It's so important to work for a good company that is growing and can support the move from SDR > SMB AE
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The best answers to ‘tell me about yourself’ answer three critical questions:
Why you, why now, and why this company.
A foolproof way to ensure your interviewers walk away knowing these three things is to craft your answer using this simple 3-part framework:
Your background >
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It’s critical to have decision-makers on your side.
But they won’t get you a deal if their teams are pushing for another option.
Influencers may not be able to say ‘yes’ -
But they can definitely say ‘no’.
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@robbiefoston
@thedealdirector
Value Prop:
For context - ‘cheaper’ in observability isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Telemetry data is growing 40% YoY and organizations aren’t getting 40% incremental value each year. Companies are trying to optimize their spend-to-value ratio and Grafana gives them tools to do
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@blackhatwizardd
You can make money with a bad product and good distribution.
You can’t make money with a good product and bad distribution.
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@FlorinTatulea
Works like a charm.
People would much rather speak to equal/higher ‘status’ business peers (I.e., leadership) than SDRs/AEs.
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The top mistake job seekers are makin in 2024:
Not properly defining their target positions.
Without properly defined targets, you're setting your job search up for failure from the very beginning.
Here's how to avoid this mistake (a 🧵):
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Hey all 👋,
I’m the founder of Search Academy, where I help people land career-changing jobs.
I’ll be sharing my top job search strategies that are working in the modern, highly-competitive job market.
If you want to level-up your career, hit the 'follow’ button & tag along.
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@FlorinTatulea
Doesn’t sound like an awful idea…
Until you imagine being on the receiving end of that 😂
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The best sellers know when to transition from selling to enabling.
‘Sell’ until you have a strong committed champion(s).
After that, your job transitions to ‘enabling’ their internal selling.
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Considering selling for a start-up?
Here are a few ways to ‘vet’ the company (don’t skip this!):
1. Product Reviews (ranked high on sites such as G2, etc.)
2. Investors (backed by top VCs, i.e., Sequoia, Lightspeed)
3. Founders/Employees (founding team track record, previous
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Hot take:
Internal promotion sales leadership hires aren’t always the ‘safe’ bet.
Sometimes bringing in someone external that has a proven track record is the better option.
Especially in a fast-growing start-up.
Here's why:
Most sellers that have climbed the ladder in a
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@TechSalesTitan
Blows my mind when SDRs get credit for inbounds at accounts they haven’t touched.
I get it if they’ve touched the account prior to the hand raise.
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@jenwiderberg
Companies only hire for one reason:
To solve a problem(s).
If you aren’t positioning yourself as the solution to their problems you will struggle in today’s competitive market.
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@dontbefooled321
@thebeautyofsaas
Not saying you need to have it figured out by then. You have plenty of time.
I’m just saying that your qualify of life/dating starts to decline after college if you have no money.
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@randomrecruiter
@TechSalesGuy3
And the interview process is analogous to the sales process - the company is effectively the ‘buyer’ and the candidates are evaluated just like vendors are.
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This applies most strongly to sales.
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@jjen_abel
It's very unfortunate when CEO/founders expect a VP of sales to find product market fit.
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This was yesterday.
Lake Joseph, Muskoka.
No better way to clear the mind ahead of a massive work week.
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Never respond to prospects with more than necessary or less than needed.
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@randomrecruiter
If you're not first, you're last.
Literally.
Interviewing is one of the rare situations where this actually applies...
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Executive buyers don't give a s*** about your product.
They care about the expertise and outcomes you can deliver.
And let’s be real...
You, as a seller, aren’t going to deliver the expertise and outcomes yourself.
You need to sell cross-functionally.
Product, engineering,
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@BowTiedCocoon
Closing is an ‘outcome’ not an ‘action’.
If you feel the need to ‘close’ you haven’t run the cycle properly.
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@BrianLaManna_
I hear you on this! Insanely difficult..
The sales leader route is arguably best pursued at an early-stage startup (i.e., Gong 3-4 years ago).
Much easier to go from manager > VP in a short amount of time and stack the resume while you’re at it.
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@OnlyCFO
Identifying the right people to reach out to and writing compelling cold outreach has also never been more important.
You’re setting yourself up to fail if you are only applying through job portals.
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@MarketingMax
It’s the highest form of leverage even someone with money can have!
It’s why the Kardashians are worth billions.
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@BowTiedSalesGuy
100% – the most important sales skill in 2024 is being an expert in what you sell.
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@WillAllred117
@FlorinTatulea
Are you guys still seeing the vague / internal-looking written in lower case subject lines working best?
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@KyleAsay_
@thedealdirector
Execs are considering moving to consumption at my org.
Incentive would also be my main concern.
What happens if you land a 7-figure strategic new logo deal only to have territories shift and miss out on most of the reward?
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The most important sale of a seller's career
Is selling themselves to a top company
Especially in SaaS
The company you sell for has a massive impact on your career
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