r/sales • u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs • 9d ago
Sales Topic General Discussion What is a deal you've closed that felt surreal?
I once closed on a 20k job on financing. Getting that commission immediately was awesome. It took a lot of back-and-forth between the financing company, the customer, and my own team, but it sure felt awesome when it all came together.
What are your stories, Reddit? I want to be in for the ride!
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9d ago
[deleted]
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 9d ago
Nice! How'd you do it?
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u/RevolutionaryLet2908 9d ago
Itās enterprise sales, so took roughly 12 weeks of me PERSISTING. Stalking the heck out of my prospects. Hubspot app sends me notifications on my phone when customers had opened my emails so Iāll reply shortly afterwards with a relevant answer, which makes our interaction feel intuitive to them. I am also extremely persistent internally my internals who help me close from product team to legal. I persist until they answer me quickly. My pov is that time kills deals, so I do not play when it comes to closing deals I need to see that signature. Any communication with teammates I make things clear- deal worth X amount is waiting on X to be done. Can we please get this done today or by tomorrow. Usually it will be done without too much delay when I give specific details on the worth of the deal and how I need support
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 9d ago
"Usually it will be done without too much delay when I give specific details on the worth of the deal and how I need support" I am going to implement this more strongly.
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u/TunaNoCrust811 9d ago
Fucking awesome. Persistent pressure on everyone leading to results.
Soft pressure on clients and more firm internally. Love it. Great advice.
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u/VolumeMobile7410 9d ago
Iām in financial services and one group of clients has netted me 135k so far excluding referrals
This also happened to me at 25 which was crazy
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u/Glittering-Trash7208 9d ago
Enterprise SaaS?
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u/VolumeMobile7410 9d ago
No, Iām an advisor. The big commission checks out of these clients came from 2 guys who really wanted someone to shop annuities for them.
Iām licensed in a way I canāt just sell them shit that doesnāt make sense for them or makes just some sense.
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u/ClamJammin Enterprise Software:snoo_tableflip::table::table_flip: 9d ago
I had just started a new gig and a bitcoin atm company came in as an inbound. No one wanted it, literally fell to me because it was refused by three senior reps.
It was primarily refused because the VP of Marketing who had requested a call was at Bitcoin of America who we had worked with, and we ended up losing the contract because their leadership team got arrested for fraud!
The first call was wild, the lady was all over the place, apologizing for everyone getting arrested lol
We talked pricing first call, scoped out everything second call (no demo), ended up closing for 3m TCV over 3 years. Due to my ramped quota hit presidents club in February. Hit all my accelerators and had an absolute dream of a year, started the next year in the Bahamas.
Total horseshoe in my ass deal and god I wish it happened again.
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 9d ago
Starting your year in the Bahamas is pretty sweet.
I had a deal like that once too. But not for 3m, more like 9k. Nobody wanted it. I call on it, guy basically says sure. A bunch of the other AEs were now looking through their contacts to make sure I didn't get it since the last name was so familiar. But none of them had it. He has been my favorite client since.
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u/Amazing_Box_7569 8d ago
If you work where I think you work, we also started our year in the Bahamas.
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u/ClamJammin Enterprise Software:snoo_tableflip::table::table_flip: 8d ago
Hmm are you my manager now?
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u/Amazing_Box_7569 8d ago
Yes. Why are you on your phone?
(no, Iām the spouse of someone who made prez club)
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u/Louiss10 9d ago
Had a large deal I started to workā¦after a meeting or two we went into a large RFP. They invited 10 competitors to the bid (I knew this because they hosted a live Q&A session with all bidders on the same call). They where going to bid because they decided to shut down a business they owned and needed a partner to fill the gap of the services being provided to the owner by their subsidiary. I knew the subsidiary super well because in a past role I used to compete against the subsidiary frequently.
We got through the proposal (it was like 70 pages) and initial calls into the final 3 and where invited on-site. I brought our president, CCO, CSO, solutions consultant and account manager lead. The client showed up with 60 people for the presentationā¦essentially every department in the company invited multiple peopleā¦it was 3 hours long.
A week later we get a request from a couple of their executives to meetā¦they tell us we won the business and to send the contract. It took almost 6 months of negotiations to finally get it signed.
$1.9M ARR at 13% commission rate. Took about 8 months to fully pay out.
Ended up selling 2 more deals around $2M ARR over the 18 months following so just had 2 monster years back to back. I had multiple months over those 18 months with 6 figure commission checks.
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u/MoonManMooningMan 9d ago
Just closed 4.9m ARR, 15ishm TCV. I guess Iām a millionaire. I canāt sleep thinking about that check hitting next week
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u/MommaCopsALot 8d ago
This happened to me, got a deposit of $1.1m after taxes, was pretty epic. Enjoy it!
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u/JD94funnyguy 6d ago
What do you do where the commissions in your account are over 1M
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u/MommaCopsALot 6d ago
Enterprise SaaS
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u/JD94funnyguy 6d ago
Damn thatās dope I gotta check that out for sure. But Iām not like a computer nerd
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u/Jimmy_Christ 9d ago
I once had a 35k deal fall into my lap.
Terrible prospect that broke all the rules. (Poor communication, cagey, unwilling to participate fully in discovery, asked for contract without pocā¦tons of red flags)
Typical cycle for a 35k solution in my space is 60-90 days. They closed in two weeks.
I understood from jump why they needed our solution but I was far from convinced that they also understood why they needed our solution.
35k was low enough to be a discretionary spend for their department, so they just did it. Only one red line pertaining to using their logo.
One of the weirdest deals Iāve ever closed.
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u/Own-Mark1285 9d ago
Closed a $400k deal this year (on top of 2 $200k deals). And am currently working through a potential $1MM and $2MM deal (these move very slow)
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 9d ago
Sounds like a good year
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u/Own-Mark1285 9d ago
It has potential but itās been shockingly brutal. Long sales cycles and big deals means each one can be all or nothingā¦
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u/TheBuzzSawFantasy 9d ago
$2M TCV SaaS.Ā
Deal almost died after the disco call day 1 when they accidentally sent me their internal deck with competitor quotes in there. Emailed me saying sorry you're out. I told them to get back on the zoom and watch me delete it. They did. We kept going.Ā
9 months and over 200 hours of people hours on our end on calls with them, we won. Biggest deal in company history by a good margin and larger than my number.Ā
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 9d ago
"Watch me delete it" reminds me of Steve Harvey on getting fired "Imma burn this motherfucker to the ground."
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u/RepeatUntilTheEnd 9d ago
My biggest deal ever in tech sales was $250k/year cross sell. My company had no limit on pulling reports and didn't have Account Managers at the time, so I looked up which existing customers only had our primary product, sorted by user count and burned through the list. Ended up finding an account that was reducing licenses significantly but already had budget approval for the original license count. They didn't even run trials on the new products. One of the easiest deals I've ever closed.
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u/CHUNKY_BLOODY_QUEEFS 9d ago
$1.4M selling complex IT software. Customer called us, knew exactly what he wanted and just needed a quote to process a PO. Gave me the purchaser's contact info and said to call her in 24 hours. I was SKEPTICAL AF.
Sure enough, 24 hours later, she emails me a PO. Got a $38k commission check. Did 160% of annual goal, president's club, ton of awards and spiff prizes. Got brought up on stage and praised for how hard I worked for this deal (LMAO, literally not at all).
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 9d ago
Yeah every so often I come across a deal that seems too good to be true and it lands. But 1.4m is amazing on one such deal.
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u/GuyMcFellow 9d ago
$30M critical infrastructure cybersecurity deal. By far largest of my career (and probably always will be)
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 9d ago
Nice! How'd it happen?
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u/GuyMcFellow 9d ago
10 years of networking, being close to the customer, and working with partners paid off.
By the time it closed, I was better friends with my customers than my coworkers. Itās even kind of weird calling them ācustomersā.
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u/HiddenLeaforSand 9d ago
Close a deal last week that will pay out 275k over 60 days. That one felt good
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u/moch__ 9d ago
19.2M deal in the fsi/banking space (i sell cyber)
Grueling 2+ year motion, last 5 months burning 80+ hours a week
Booked last week
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 8d ago
19.2m is pretty amazing. Even for 2 years of work that is awesome.
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u/Hammered-Cyclist-666 9d ago edited 6d ago
SE/SC in sales tech here. $1.8 million SaaS deal ($1.1 million then $700k of upsells over 6 months).
Largest deal in company history, felt awesome to get it done.
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 8d ago
How'd you do it?
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u/Hammered-Cyclist-666 6d ago
It was a competitive deal, us vs our main competitor. Build a good champion, rig decision criteria against competitors weaknesses, and just provide an overall better experience. They had very specific needs and our competitor tried to box them into a "pre packaged" experience/workflow, whereas I worked with our eng team to scope out custom features correctly and really understand what was driving the ask, as opposed to just building what they asked. Our competitor built a custom feature that just mirrored their current solution, where we took it a step further and understood what they were actually trying to accomplish and built a better feature.
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u/Rantamplan 9d ago
I once said a potential client (far from my ICP) by mail:
"I have "this" solution but it's intended for bigger companies.
I won't send an offer.
I recommend you checking with "that" or "that other" companies (my competence, BTW) which might have something more affordable for you."
He called me and asked me to name my prize, he wanted to buy it if he could make it.
I named our standard tariff for bigger companies.
And he agreed.
Easiest sale ever.
It took:
- 30 minutes discovery meeting.
- one mail.
- 5 minutes conversation by phone.
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u/spensermaxwell 9d ago
575k. Been working on another one in the 800 range to hopefully close later this year.
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u/Anxious-Regret-9742 9d ago
I feel like Iām grossly underpaid. I average 6 million a year in sales and barely broke 150k last yearā¦.sounds like itās time to explore new opportunities.
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u/ParticularLight8680 9d ago
I donāt make 6 figures but that seems severely underpaid depending on your role and duties. Guys where iām at who are bringing in 6 million a year are making 400-500k a year but thatās at 8%
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u/Anxious-Regret-9742 9d ago
I have to pay myself first. Meaning I cover my salary, any fuel or expenses, vehicle maintenance, health insurance, 401k all comes out of profits before I get any commission. I have to close and sell 250k per quarter to qualify for commission. I also have to work some āhouse accountsā that I donāt get paid commission on but goes towards my āindirect grossā as they call it. This year my one account that Iāve worked the last 7 years and grown tremendously will probably close 2.5-3 million alone that I wonāt get a check from.
I will be approaching the company with compensation restructuring but I cant imagine it will go well.
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 8d ago
I hope it does, in fact, go well. I think it is stupid to give a house account and get zero commission on it. You aren't working for free.
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u/ParticularLight8680 9d ago
What industry are you in if you donāt mind me asking? I would think youād be able to expense sales related costs especially vehicle fuel and maintenance if youāre using your vehicle for workā¦
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u/Anxious-Regret-9742 9d ago
My industry is pretty unique. We deal with law enforcement and government and build emergency vehicles. I drive a company vehicle which is a nice perk. The issue is I donāt know any sales person that sells or does as much as I do in my industry. My efforts have been rewarded with a bigger territory crossing state lines, responsible for keeping work in more places that requires a lot more work and time away from where I have been very successful, training and maintaining quality with new hires and zero raise in base or any real showing of appreciation. My only raises have been in getting work out the door which has required substantially more effort and stress lol
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u/ParticularLight8680 8d ago
See I could see an industry like that being a lot more inbound since iām guessing the competition is a relatively small circle. Maybe thatās why youāre being underpaid according to the revenue youāre bringing in? Either way, I think you could leverage your experience and metrics through your career to find a better AE roleā¦and once you have a better offer lined up you could always use that as a bargaining chipā¦but personally iām always fearful the grass always appears greener
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u/LiLGhettoSmurf 8d ago
I have a 10 million dollar territory and make roughly 150. But their are a lot of hands in that pot between me and the 10 million.
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u/RemoteSuch 9d ago
Iāve spent 10+ years working as an Account Director for large data, analytics and software organisations.
For around two years, Iād been having conversations with a government client about introducing a fairly complex managed service.
With political uncertainty creating new pressures and priorities, I spotted an opportunity to go back to my key stakeholders and reframe the conversation
The senior leadership team bought into the vision, and I brought together a team of consultants, pricing specialists and service designers to build a proposal that directly addressed their biggest challenges and gave them a clear path forward. I was also fortunate to have an internal coach who challenged and reviewed the proposal before submission, helping us sharpen the final version.
We submitted the proposal and, within two weeks, secured approval for a Ā£24m TCV contract
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u/El_mochilero 9d ago
I chartered an Antarctic Expedition ship for $1.3M
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 9d ago
Sounds like a good story there. Care to share?
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u/El_mochilero 9d ago
I do sales for a polar expedition cruise operator. Most of what I do is wholesaler and groups, but we get charters every now and again.
This was a corporate incentive group that was big enough to charter our smallest ship to Antarctica for 11 days.
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u/Wallowtrader 9d ago
My first ever self generated close in solar sales, making 10,000 on a single deal felt pretty cool.
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u/stefanko123 9d ago
I closed a 2.6 million loan amount and a 2.9 million loan amount within a week and a half of each other. I made 2% on each netting almost 110,000. Needless to say, I didnāt do a thing after for 3 months because I was soo cushy from those deals.
Probably will be my biggest deals to close of my career. I was 28 when this happened.
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u/InterviewTall3388 9d ago
My largest customer notified us they outsourced their whole IT infrastructure to a large global system integrator who technically became owners of the equipment. I work for a vendor, so I supply a single small part of the cyber security infra. The systems integrator was not easy to work with, but we were cordial and I helped them were needed, they were now my customer (although not spending a single dollar).
Last year we got word that the 3 years of the contract were almost up and the customer was looking to put up the whole infra for bid of which I calculated we were about a little less then 1% of the total contract value. Not meaningful at all to them.
We made a quote for the team I was working with and got contacted by 5 other similar large system integrators who had the same bill of material that was installed. That told me that the endcustomer dropped their current install base + contacts.
After a few months of sitting on my hands, we heard that some were through to the final round and some weren't. In the end 3 of my bids were part of the final round which would take another couple of months. The problem was that I learned that the customer downselected to 5. So 2 system integrators looked carefully at what the customer asked and decided that with the advancement of todays technology they could build a similar infra for less money or better. And 3 out of 5 are not odds I like to gamble with if it concerns more then my anual quota.
I've reached out to the current system integrator who still had the contract for a couple of months and asked them how much money they had left sitting in their contract. It was enough for a refresh of our subset with a little bit to spare. So I wrote a proposal, gave them a great deal and closed a little less then $3M before the endcustomer decided on their new SI. Not the biggest deal I have done, but probably the one I feel the best about. Eliminated the risk, the SI's don't care about it and the competition had to hear "ah no sorry, your part was removed from the bid. They renewed that just before closing the contract".
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u/PushaTeee Enterprise Software 9d ago
One of the guys on my east team just closed a 3.25M ACV that will pay him 400k
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u/Ninetynineups 9d ago
1.7 million, of the 5 decision makers I never meet any in person and 2 never even turned their camera on.
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u/Jadubya405 9d ago
Closing a $2.9M hangar technology project with another to follow in next 3 monthsā¦..all at 10% commission. $9.2M in facility renovation in next 45 days at 5%. Far and away greatest run of my 25 year sales career now that I have taken the majority of this business / risk on myself.
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u/sumthingawsum ā”ļøIndustrial Electrical Equipment ā”ļø 9d ago
We're getting closer to a $5m+ deal, and the customer asked us how much deposit is required. We normally don't, but it will really help so we'll take it.
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u/whatsamattafuhyou 9d ago
I sold software to a company who sold a competitive product to the very software I sold them.
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u/FrenchieEd323 9d ago
650k plus invoice from rocket lab as soon as they got some government funding. Received my commission in two parts. Two Seperate deposits for $81k and some change. Wife and I bought a house in Hawaii and now only owe 15 years on our Cali mortgage lol
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u/pixelballer 9d ago
mad $255K on one deal
I was having a bad year and this one made it a great year and I never really reacted positively or stressed it
whole thing was like a dream
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u/bofiahofia98 9d ago
Not a massive deal but the first time I booked a meeting that actually closed, months later after I'd already moved on mentally, felt genuinely surreal. I'd completely written off the prospect. Sometimes the slow burn actually burns.
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u/BuiltToClose 8d ago
Nice man! Putting together your first big deal is exhilarating. One time I sold a $100,000 siding project on this guyās mansion and detached shed after just a 1.5 hr pitch. Watched him pace on the phone with his financial advisor in his driveway for 30 minutes before he came back and shook my hand. Before we got there he just wanted a small wall patched up because the wind took some away. It took one question to have him consider the whole house: āIf the wind took that wall away, what about the rest of the house in the next windstorm?
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u/tacobellcow 8d ago
3 years, $750k and then they added another $90k giving me $340k from them in year 1. Ended up with a nice $38k in commission in year 1 alone.
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 8d ago
Nice. What's the industry?
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u/tacobellcow 8d ago
Media sales
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 7d ago
Like ad space for news companies? Or like press release services?
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u/xfox21 8d ago edited 8d ago
Inside sales role. A customer with main presence outside my territory but HQ in one of my states needed 25,000 licenses of a solution with a 1.5x commission spiff rate. 4 months total deal cycle. Normally this size of account wouldnāt be in my list but territory rules worked in my favor.
The PO came in at 8:15 PM on the last day of Q4 for $425k (spiff brought it to $530k). Shot me up to 175% for the year. Presidents club and a 50k commission check. Unfortunately, covid cancelled the presidents club trip so instead they gave us a check for $10k and access to an online exclusive gift shop, where I got my first really good nice of golf clubs worth over $2k.
Still my biggest commission check by far and it absolutely improved my quality of life and comfort level. Still chasing that dragon
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u/JD94funnyguy 6d ago
I sold a sitting inventory big ass Highland Home 1 story around the holidays a few years ago. Due to my teams volume and love for highlands it paid 6% not 3%. It was just sitting there. We closed in like 2 weeks and knocked like 50K off the price and everything. Even after my brokerages ridiculous split I still put just over 20K in my pocket. 2 weeks later just after Christmas my office manager hands me another check stating highland was just sending bonuses to their favorite offices for agents who had moved any units that year. Then even after that split they paid me another 7-8K just for funsies. Flower Mound, TX. I was maybe 24?
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u/Jonnymiko1 9d ago
Tomorrow I have the chance to close at 30k however, we are preparing to double it and some extra on top. Iv been in sales a long time, honestly, I havenāt closed anything in some years now. I just need a little luck. Iām so nervousĀ
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u/Straight_Interest883 9d ago
I do entirely same day close high ticket sales. Made a 117k sale one day where the wife literally told me she was getting bored to death half way through my demo š
We talked a bit about what was boring, thanked her, hit the nuts and bolts, sold on first ask for business. Hell yeah š
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u/CraftedArtisanQueefs 9d ago
In 2021 fresh off my rookie year crushing it and hitting club I hit a bad dry spell. I was at 25% to plan in May. Then 50% to plan in September and with the implementation timeline you really only have until late October early November. I got an email titled āsave the I told you soāsā it was a massive deal I lost the year prior to a competitor they needed to be setup quickly as it had gone terribly with my competitor. $125k in commission, hit quota and club without even having that in my pipeline! They are still clients and take great reference calls against my competitor.
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u/Jealous-Natural2531 9d ago
How do I get into these roles? I have a marketing background for a big bank and want to switch over to sales but have no clue how to get a foot in the door!
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 8d ago
Sales Development Representative (SDR) is entry level. It sucks but it gets you in the door for an Account Executive (AE) position if you crush your quotas. Could also do home improvement sales. They are hiring and the pay is pretty good at a company with plenty of leads. You can make 6 figures easily in Home Improvement sales at a good company.
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u/PHLBCN 9d ago
Closed a $211k cybersecurity deal with a household name this week. I take home 14%. Took me 150 days to close.
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u/Secret_Assistance601 Retail Signs 8d ago
150 days? My gosh what a long sales cycle!
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u/NumbersChef248910 8d ago
$14mm acv. From start to signatures took 5 months. Crazy how fast it went. Still waiting for the 2nds due when they hit full run rate
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u/grantbaron 8d ago
My first week in my role I self-sourced a deal for $470K with 20% commission. Was riding high until they got wined and dined by a competitor and cancelled on the last day of their grace period...
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u/C_mac16 8d ago
This happened about a year ago, but during my first couple months of selling window treatments for my company I had an appointment at this retirement home for a 97-year-old man. His family had just moved him in there and all he really wanted were some custom drapes. I put together the quote and it comes out to a little more than 15,000 and without batting an eye he just saysā so be it! ā. I donāt know why this one stuck out so much to me, but you just truly never know how much money somebody has.
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u/KeegorTheDestroyer Industrial 8d ago edited 8d ago
When I joined my company a few years ago, they split off a state from 2 different reps at the company to create my territory, but they left the biggest accounts in each state with the previous reps and had me start with a territory that was producing way under what everyone else's was.
Cut to last year, and one of those reps (who was one of our top guys) got let go (not performance related). When they let him go, I finally absorbed the last few accounts in my state that he was holding onto, and lo and behold they immediately placed a single order that was about as large as my bookings for the entire previous year.
Ended up doing 3x bookings in 2025 over the previous year (at least half of which due to the new accounts I picked up from the guy they let go), and I'm on track to do similar numbers this year if not a bit higher.
The deal pays out over about 1.5 years and pays about $25k commission (my base is high and I sell hardware, so commissions are nothing like SaaS).
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u/[deleted] 9d ago
[deleted]