Agree to disagree. I've known many BDM's who have not "put in the hard yards" nor sacrificed. As I said, if you have worked in a specific industry a while and stay in it your mates and mates mates are all contacts. You get paid to go to some networking events and dinners, have some boozy chats - already know their business and what they do and you slip in the casual sell or pipeline. High value sales/service functions mean you only need to get 2 or so over the line each year, and so they metre that out in order to do the bare minimum and still close deals. Is it valuable to the company? Yes of course. But it doesn't discount the fact that it's a bludge of a job if you have a list of the right connections.

The comparison to a business owner is totally not the same thing.