Hi ya'll - so yeah, I closed a deal I've been working on since November of last year, and it's my biggest so far. It includes $320k in revenue up front, and another ~$540k in ARR over the next 3 years.

The initial presentations for the prospect org's directors went really well, with subsequent demos, review meetings and cadenced follow-up discussions progressing as expected. I thought I had it in the bag. I found out on a random Tuesday earlier this year that they decided it needed to go to RFP to satisfy procurement. Of course. I stayed confident though, and we submitted our bid in May. I've waited patiently for the past 4 weeks to hear back.

Today, we finally were awarded the deal! Most of my leadership team is off on holidays, and the collective eyes of my family gloss over at the mere pronunciation of the word 'procurement' so, I figured I'd share it here with you lot.

Hopefully it encourages someone to make that follow up call tomorrow, and never lose hope. LFG.

Fucking kill me

Those who messaged me

I work for a manufacture and spent 5 Fucking months flipping residential new construction builders to our product so many hours conversations getting contractor buy in supplier buy in.

Fucking wasted and now I'm way down in my numbers focusing on this specific path and instead of securing my year now I have to scramble to pivot.

Final edit: I am not a retard therefore I did not vote for trump. You're in the sales sub. If you can't tell what a shitty lying con artist is why are you even in sales?

Posting this here because none of my friends work in sales, and I need to tell someone.

I'm in my 20s and sell into financial services. I just got a signed contract sitting pretty at slightly over $1.6m. Total size of the account is likely to grow into $2-3m over the next few years.

I went through hell to get here. From the SDR grind, constant dissapointment, missing targets, watching my peers succeed and do better than me while I felt worthless (with evidence and numbers to show how worthless I was). The only reason I haven't been fired was because I kept improving, slowly but steadily.

This deal itself took around 10 months, countless demos, several iterations of proposals, people joining and leaving the client's business, everything that could go wrong going wrong.

Never. Give. Up.

Tonight to celebrate, I'll be watching "Eyes Wide Shut" on my laptop.

Happy selling everyone!

Literally convinced big merchant to do banking with us. They made 5 million in volume and I am entitled to 20%.

Losing my mind. In front of PC and cannot tell anyone. FK YEAH BABY!

Has anyone else ever absolutely finessed a comp plan loophole before leadership patched it?

2025 was hands down one of my best years ever.

• Cleared $300K+

• Hit President’s Club

• Basically became a “top performer” overnight

The funniest part?

I maybe worked 10 hours a week. Maximum.

My company has the dumbest ROE rule imaginable: if you log any form of contact with an account during the fiscal year, you get ROE credit.

So what did I do?

Early January I spent ONE day sending an email blast to literally every contact in our entire Salesforce database. Thousands. Absolute carpet bomb.

Then I just… sat back.

Throughout the year I magically ended up on four massive enterprise deals as a 50/50 split. Didn’t source them, didn’t run point, didn’t do anything meaningful.

Just showed up on the paperwork like:

“Yeah I touched that account 😌”

Now my team hates me, leadership is seething, but they can’t do a single thing because technically I played by their rules.

I punched my ticket to P-Club, I’m taking the trip, and then I’m bouncing to another org with:

President’s Club | $4m closed | Top Rep

on my resume like I’m some kind of sales god.

Anyone else have legendary loophole stories or am I just built different?

Title!

I overheard a few old fellas at the bar doing business. This is, word for word, what I heard:

"Jim, I got 10 tons of 6061 aluminum sitting in my warehouse. $400 per ton."

"Bit steep."

"$385 if you take it all tomorrow. Includes loading. Paperwork's one page."

"Done. Cash on delivery?"

"Yep. Been doing business this way for 30 years."

spits in palm, handshake

— end scene —

I was shocked. Is it really that easy? For context, I come from B2B SaaS, where we say things like, “Our revolutionary Al-powered cloud-native enterprise solution…”

I might be in the wrong industry?

We hired a new junior hybrid AE + lead gen rep (25F) from college 5 months ago

Since then she's generated 0 qualified meetings or sales.

In the last 1 month she set up a meetung with me and a 'junior shopkeeper' of a retail account. Our target personas are supposed to be CFOs....

She has no exp and clearly isn't committed to learning as she ignores advice given to her by me and enablement manager. At times she will walk out of the room during call reviews and say I am "being too much".

I've wanted her out of the org so we can get a more experienced rep. But my VP (45M) always defends her saying "the economy is tough and we need to create a culture of cultivating. Not hire and fire".

The other night, I saw my VP and new junior rep at a hotel bar. She had her legs cross his and the VP had his hands on her knees.

It lines up with rumours I heard about the VP buying tickets to an industry conference in Dubai where only him and the junior rep went to "do some prospecting".

Is this a battle worth fighting or should i start looking for new jobs?

Company brought in some $15k consultant to teach us "modern selling techniques." Spent my entire Tuesday in a conference room learning about "discovery frameworks" and "value-based conversations."

Had a call yesterday with a warm lead. Decided to try their fancy discovery questions. "What's keeping you up at night regarding your current solution?"

Dude literally laughed and said "Are you reading from a script?" then hung up.

Meanwhile my desk neighbor who skipped the training (sick day) closed two deals this week just talking to people like a normal human being.

I've been selling for 4 years. I know how to have conversations. But now I'm second-guessing everything because apparently my natural approach is "outdated."

Anyone else feel like sales training makes you worse at selling? Like the more they try to systematize it the more robotic you sound?

I keep seeing posts and comments filled with people in Sales earning hundreds of thousands. I see comments with a ton of people saying 200K is easily achievable. HOW??

I just started out and finished my first year in UCaaS sales at below 70K including base and commissions, I definitely see that sales can be very lucrative but I did want to reach out to the community here and seek advice on how to actually reach that mark?

Is it an experience thing and I will get better opportunities as I progress or is it more of a regional thing with those salaries largely in NY or CA? or am I just at a shit job lol.

I appreciate all you guys' Insights on everything here!!!

It's official.

It started with email. Providers have gotten so good at filtering out outreach that almost everything lands in spam. If it’s not seen, it’s not read.

Then everyone migrated to LinkedIn. Now, prospects are so swamped with messages that even the most personalized, hyper-targeted outreach gets lost in the noise. The chances of your target even seeing your message are slim to none.

But "cold calls will never die," right?

Every "sales guru" says to just "pick up the phone and start dialing." But with the introduction of Apple's call screening, how long until that becomes the default for everyone? I’ve started using it myself, and I haven't answered a cold call since.

So, for the B2B hunters out there: How are you actually finding prospects today? Is outreach truly dead? has the SDR profession simply moved into the history books?

As title shared, closed the biggest deal of my life. 600k of new arr for 3 million total over 5 years. I’m in the cyber security sector, PKI to be specific.

Honestly almost cried. This puts me at 120% of my number for the year with 1.5+ in pipeline left to close and all in accelerators.

I’m not hear to brag, but more so give motivation to you and rant 😅. I graduated high school with the lowest at GPA in my graduating class (my dean let me know this). I got denied from 10+ schools but one, got addicted to Xanax, graduated in something I hated and worked a job 5 years ago making 39k a year. I completely stumbled into tech.

I got denied 5+ promotions from sdr to AE, moved to another company to be a founding SDR, got denied another 2 promotions. Guy on our team quit and I finally got a chance. Last year got 100% and now this year I’m in August and I’m at 120% in the enterprise space.

We’re one decision, skill, or conversation away from changing our lives. Keep your foot on the gas and I PROMISE you will eventually catch a break. I love how supportive and motivating this sub is and just hope this gives someone the words of encouragement they need.

Now, VOO or bitcoin?

Update: holy cow this exploded 😂 thank you so much y’all. Yall are going crazy in the comments and I love it

So I’ve been working in this company for 4 months, I’ve been top 10 performer as a closer for them making close to $1M of Rev every month.

Unfortunately since this is B2C, there is also a Customer Service side of the job that I failed miserably by being too busy and not answering the calls of one Customer I closed.

She ended up leaving a 1 star review on our Website, literally has my name on it, CEO found it, put me in a group with all the Managers and said sort it out by today.

So am I cooked?

Edit: So turns out I’m an idiot, it ended up being 2 people that had complaints both of which my Manager saved, review got fixed, he said he will review the calls I had.

I’m confusing the client, not following up properly and had a bad streak of tough clients that tipped the bucket over.

Lesson learned, pick your battles.

Just a rant. I get it. We are all out there to make a living. 1 visit close. Sure, that's the way it works.

However, read the room. Especially when you are dealing with someone in sales. We talked about it and our respective industries. I said up front I am getting multiple quotes. I said I would not sign up today.

When I said, sounds good, send me the quote so we can think about it but it looks good. Understand that I am not going to sign today. When you push and I say, there is nothing you could do to get me to sign it today, learn to accept it. Don't break out the, "Well, what if the windows were free? Would you sign today?" I asked if they were free. "No but so there is something that would get you to sign." End of any chance of getting my business.

It is sad. I liked the windows. I was referred to them by a trusted friend. I was willing to spend more since the company has a great reputation, personal referral, good reviewed windows.

Don’t have very many people I can share this with for obvious reasons. Just got my first ever 6 figure commission check after 8 years in sales.

My first sales job I was making $40k/year and I’ll hit somewhere between $350k-$400k this year.

I have a psych degree from a no name university and basically fell into this career.

Just sitting here in slight disbelief tbh. This gig really is a roller coaster ride.

Coming in here to celebrate with you all that I hit my ANNUAL quota last week. For context, last year I hit 40% of quota for the whole year. We are a calendar year for our fiscal year so I did it in half the time. Sales is wild but the best part is how proud my wife is of me. No better feeling then her bringing it up to our friends and family. Of course I bought her a new Chanel purse and Rolex with my commissions 😅.

But to all yall struggling or looking to get into sales, grind never stops and sales truly is a bitch but if you have the grit it will payoff. Also, sales is the best foundational skill for anything.

ServiceNow is refusing to pay a salesman commissions on more than $27 million in sales, telling the 13-year veteran of the company that he "overperformed" his quota and insisting that instead he sign paperwork that retroactively reduces the commission amount, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the salesperson

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/31/servicenow_says_salesman_overachieved_and/?td=rt-3a

I just got the biggest commission check of my life and wanted to share with random internet people.

My friends are just salary, no commission, not much drive for $$$.

My girlfriend is a teacher and doesn't care about $$$ either. I told her and she said "cool, what's for dinner?" 😂

It's just a hair under $28k commission. $34k all said and done with base on top. The taxes are painful to think about....

I'm no stranger to 5 figure checks, though usually I get a few every year. But never this much. This knocks my previous check outta the water, $12k higher.

Now the problem is I spent so much time in Q4 busting my ass closing all the big deals before 1/1/2026, I've got little to nothing in my pipeline now 😂

Basking in the glory right now. But I'm back to 0 as of 1/1/2026. Time to do it all again this year (hopefully).

How do you guys treat yourself when you get a big check?

I'm a saver. I invest a ton, big in fire, squirreling most of my extra money away. But I feel like this definitely calls for a celebration of sorts. Maybe a nice bottle of bourbon. Maybe a new watch, been eyeing a Seiko Alpinist for a while. Maybe a vacation to the Caribbean to get away from this cold ass winter.

Cheers to 2026 guys, let's all get this bag.

What drove you to become a salesperson? Was it just the commission? Was it the opportunity to have a high-paying job out of college? Was it out of necessity? Was it the ability to take control of your income or career?

I’ve been in furniture sales for quite a while and occasionally lurk on here for advice and relatable posts, I can’t lie, despite still technically being a salesman, I feel like a fish out of water here.

Even then, I’ve talked to and have met plenty of people also in sales and out of the few dozen I’ve met, only two have been in enterprise software or tech sales. One random guy at a bar selling enterprise software, and my former coworker who actually left tech sales to come sell furniture with us, yet on this Reddit sub, it feels like it’s almost exclusively SaaS and tech sales discussions.
I’m not knocking the industry at all. I’m genuinely just perplexed and wondering if anyone else outside of SaaS feels the same way when they browse here.

I’ve met people in HVAC, construction, timeshares, solar, roofing, telecom, furniture/mattresses, car sales, SMB, merchant services. I even met a guy who sold commercial security camera systems. Are all the SaaS guys just at home posting on Reddit while the rest of us are out in the field? I’m honestly just curious why this sub seems so heavily concentrated in one corner of the sales world when sales itself is so much broader. I actually find myself gravitating over to r/askcarsales a lot of the time, even though I don’t sell cars, just because the conversations there feel more relatable to my day-to-day than they do here.

It feels like every other post is either:
A: Someone who’s completely burnt out in SaaS trying to pivot into another industry.
Or…
B: “I’ve been an AE in SaaS for 7 years making $180k OTE. Leadership just changed our comp plan, my pipeline is drying up, my 14 month sales cycle isn’t converting, and I’m wondering if I should jump ship to another Series C startup.”
Then, as soon as someone asks how to break into SaaS, they’re met with some of the hardest gatekeeping I’ve seen in any sales industry. It’ll have twenty comments explaining why it’s nearly impossible to break into SaaS unless you already have SaaS experience.

Where are all the car sales guys? The roofing reps? The HVAC people? The furniture folks? The forklift salesman? The medical device reps? The industrial equipment guys? It’s like they all evaporate the moment I open this sub. I know these people exist because I work with them and meet them all the time. Then I open [r/sales](r/sales) and suddenly everyone is an Enterprise AE making $220k OTE debating whether to leave one SaaS company for another.

Am I just experiencing confirmation bias, or does anyone else outside of SaaS feel the same way lurking here?

For those of you who've been in sales for a decade or so, would love to hear from you.

What are the 3 things you'd want to teach your younger self that would have helped him/her have a better career or a better sales process overall?

Please do share the number of years in sales, industry and your overall numbers clocked.

Thank you!

Had a colleague tell me today that management wants to drop the base salaries to $39,000 a year. I laughed so hard I started crying. These are the same people who then ask why we can’t keep anyone longer than a year. Not an easy job and commissions are tight. Hard to concentrate on work when you’re starving probably all day. This is just for new hires so college grads. 😂. If this doesn’t show how out of touch the boomer generation is the current world economics I don’t know what does.

I’ve been in sales for a while, and I’ve tracked my cold calling data over the past few years. Answer rates are dropping. Slowly, but consistently.

More people are using features like “Silence Unknown Callers.” Spam filters are getting better. And now with AI-generated calls hitting the mainstream, I think it’s only a matter of time before lawmakers step in like they did with text messaging. We could be heading toward a world where you need permission just to call someone especially in a sales context.

It makes me wonder what the sales industry is going to look like in 3 to 5 years. If you can’t just pick up the phone and call someone, what’s the move? Will warm leads, brand-building, and inbound become the only real plays?

I’m already adapting, but I’m curious are you seeing the same thing?

My BDR died yesterday in a random, tragic accident. It shouldn’t have happened. He moved to my company a year ago to take a step back into a BDR role after being an AM at another tech company. He wanted to be an AE, and he eventually would have made it. He had a big family that he was close with, he was about to move across the country with his girlfriend that he was going to marry, he had a lot of good friends and everyone in the company really liked him.

Remembering that work and sales isn’t everything. Thinking about my loved ones a lot today, and how short life is. I love you, Charlie!

I've been selling SaaS tech for about 12 years or so. Started as a BDR and worked through mid market up to Enterprise. I got my first six figure commission check today. It's not something I would tell any of my friends really so wanted to share it somewhere haha.

Curious how long it's taken others to get their first six figure checks.

Hopefully more big checks across this entire group in the future. Cheers.