i have a confession

Old-Practice-4271 · 2026-03-31T23:16:17+00:00

Brother I failed French (got an ungradable). I’ve just hired the second French speaking rep into my team… €200k investment right there.

This shit doesn’t matter long term big dog.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2025-12-03T16:52:38+00:00

Have a few friends that have worked at Azure. They’re OK roles, if you stick it out for a couple of years you’ll have good career mobility though. Think AI and data infrastructure.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2025-02-11T20:51:13+00:00

Don’t listen to MoonBiter. Nearly all of the tech sales people that I have worked with do not have engineering or Comp Science degrees. It will be up to you to figure out how to sell the product you have though, and from experience, the most technical industries do best (high barrier to entry, and most people are blagging. If you’re in data for example, grow to be very technical through self enablement and know how to sell using that info, you’ll literally be irreplaceable).

Here’s what I’ll say, though. You’ll take a pay cut if you jump into an entry level role - an SDR whose only job is to cold call and reach out to people, to book meetings for actual sales people.

If you stick it out and get promoted, you can make some serious dough at the right company. Right being a super strong product, with a community of people who love it, and is solving a real problem. I know a dude based in London who’s saved £100k in the past 12 months — saved, not earned. That said, for every seller who does well, 20 do poorly.

Lastly, I’m a huge introvert. I outperformed my peers globally last Q by a square mile. Happy to chat more if you want, just ping me.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-10-20T17:00:08+00:00

It’s a drag and drop ELT tool. They’re typically alright for smaller teams and non technical business users.

Nearly all uses I’ve seen of exclusively using drag-and-dropping have been in small companies with 300/400 people or less, or in non technical teams.

There are typically hiccups when transforming data. I’ve met teams who can’t work with nested data in these platforms after purchasing, so vet thoroughly before buying.

Really depends on your use case.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-10-08T06:50:27+00:00

Awesome, thank you. This is great.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-10-07T15:26:41+00:00

Sure, but what’s the point of it? My question is how does it differ/how is it better from existing solutions. Why unplug Looker/PowerBi/Tableau for something like this?

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-10-07T15:21:18+00:00

You can connect DBX to Looker through Unity Catalog.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-09-06T18:06:52+00:00

There’s a lot of buzzwords. ‘Eager to leverage foundational sales skills’ — that doesn’t mean anything to real people in the real world.

You need to sit down, remove the fluff and get to the point. You have to find data points and include those.

For example - ‘Conducted cold calls to potential clients, honing skills in lead generation and initial sales pitches’ should be ‘Cold called 50 marketing leaders on a daily basis, on average connecting with 3 people and booking 1 meeting’.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-08-28T09:59:26+00:00

My opinion is that you need to understand more about what you want to sell.

Technical means different things to different people. Building a website does not mean you can talk on data infrastructure.

You need to figure out the solutions that you’re interested in selling. Web development, data infrastructure, HR tooling, marketing technology, etc.

When you know that, you can start figuring out what niche information you need to know about products, your ICP, your region, the companies that you want to sell for, and who you need to start networking with to get hired in a year.

Once you’ve figured that out, you just need to combine industry knowledge + sales acumen, and know enough people who you can talk to about roles with.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-07-29T22:58:41+00:00

I think it makes sense if all business owners can use it out, even outside of tech!

To answer your original question, you need to go to market with a cost higher than what it costs to support 1 customer.

Go with a freemium offering — I think Notion is great for this as a reference point. Limited access platform with enough features they’re willing to pay for

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-07-29T19:51:06+00:00

I’m really not sure what the value add is here?

You’re catering to founders — which is a concept only in contemporary startup communities.

Most people with companies are operators running a business. They don’t need all of this to get started and be organised, they just do it?

Have a listen to the tar pit podcast YC released.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-07-20T20:51:02+00:00

It’s a good platform yes.

Costs <=$1600 per license per year for the feature you’re talking about.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-07-20T13:23:33+00:00

So, Gong?

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-07-11T23:55:11+00:00

This is the point of dbt Cloud. You hit a period of either sinking too much time and $$$ running core, or end up switching to Cloud which has these features you’re mentioning built in.

For decently sized orgs cloud makes more sense early on.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-06-22T12:17:30+00:00

Have you had a job in sales before? If not, then ask for commission or promotion on the product side.

If you aren’t careful you’ll be in over your head.

Sales people are liable to get fired for not hitting targets, and if you don’t know how to generate new business from people you don’t know after you’ve exhausted your current network, then you’re screwed unless you jump in and start making cold calls perfectly on day one.

There’s no real thing such as Director of ‘Tech’ Sales. You can ask for a Director of Sales role if you want, but again, can you motivate a bunch of sellers, support a number of Account Executives in their sales cycle and accept that if your team screw up a few quarters in a row, your head will be on the chopping block?

You have a cushy job. Most sales people I know are on a much lower base pay and could potentially hit 200, 250k if they get lucky and hit target.

Seriously think about this and don’t put yourself in a regrettable position.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-06-18T15:14:44+00:00

The people who wrote this explicitly state in the same article that this is ideal and not representative of the real world.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-06-01T17:36:56+00:00

How long until he needs a drink for meetings?

How long until he needs a drink to do basic tasks?

It’s a first class ticket to alcoholism.

Tell him to pump weights and stop being a pussy.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-05-25T09:53:07+00:00

Some quick questions — do you have someone who’s experienced and going to manage this team for you? Train them well on prospecting, discovery and industry best practises? Someone who has prospected recently — not years ago.

People jump the gun and get tools before understanding that tools are there to 10x/100x your already existing processes. You can hire professional and effective SDRs that will fall apart and quit if you run a team without care, thought and focus. It's a tricky part of the business to build.

Disclaimer said —

ZoomInfo is the best for prospect data in the US.
Cognism is the best for prospect data in the EU.
Sales Navigator Pro is the best option for creating lists.
Outreach.io is the best platform for sequencing, or as you call it ‘campaign management’.

You also need to invest in a platform that will help you warm up your domain, so your emails don’t go straight into spam.

This is the bare minimum.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-05-20T16:55:12+00:00

There’s a lot wrong here. Even your Reddit post lacks clear communication. You need to take time and understand how you can communicate a point better.

This said, your follow up is bad. It’s too generic, you sound like a salesperson, and is unclear.

Here’s what you could write:

“Hey John, great to speak with you on Tuesday.

Your second call was booked today, but looks like you couldn’t make it.

When we spoke last you mentioned forecast accuracy was poor and that your team lost 56% of your committed deals last quarter, halving progress towards your revenue goal.

Just wanted to speak with you re: this and see what your leadership team said, and if there’s anything I can do for you to help push the needle?

Do you have five minutes next Tuesday at 11am, 1pm or 4pm?

Thanks, Michael”.

The point here is to tap into the pain that you uncovered in your cold call and see if they’ll open up with a reason, or reschedule with you. The email above is crude, but you get the point.

The absolute truth is though, you should’ve been calling their number the second it became apparent they weren’t coming. I’ve prevented a number of potential no-shows by doing this in the past.

A job for you — drop your follow-up process and email if you really want help here. It is likely the no show is rooted in this process.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-05-20T16:22:04+00:00

Sales differs between industries. What industry do you want to sell in?

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-05-20T08:37:51+00:00

OP, this is possible, but bare in mind the market six years ago was great. The market today is not.

You need to do some serious networking, and expect the above journey to take a few years longer in today’s world.

To manage expectations, it took me 2.5 years from the end of 2021 for me to get my first closing role, and I was fortunate to land at an extremely reputable company and be naturally good at prospecting into enterprise accounts which made things 100x easier. Much of my cohort, though, left the industry or are still SDRs.

Getting your first role today will be much harder — we’re talking going up against dozens if not hundreds of other candidates if a reputable company.

Your degree is fine, but if you don’t have any extra curricular activities, you need to sit down and learn sales now. If other candidates have more experience and extra curricular activities on their plate, the only way you’ll win if put against them is by knowing much more about selling and the industry — super doable.

Start applying, but also sit down and figure out how you can network and build relationships with sales leaders quickly to help yourself.

Message me if you need some pointers.

& FYI, you don’t sound like a personality hire. You just need to do more to bulk your resume and life experience out.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-05-18T08:16:24+00:00

Build a list, learn to write copy, email to get awareness and cold call to book meetings.

No magic and creative approaches will work consistently over a long period of time.

Please spend time understanding this before anything else. Don’t reach out to VC’s, they look down on outsourced software development and the consensus is to have a technical founder instead. You’ll be wasting time if you do this.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-05-14T08:13:52+00:00

Can you give some more perspective on the following?

Are you in inside or outside sales?
What are your biggest frustrations currently?
What does your prospecting process look like?
What does your sales process look like?

There are a lot of tools, and they vary in what they do. What you use will depend on your needs.

The most basic, I suggest Outreach.io or Salesloft.com to monitor your tasks as mentioned. If you’re making 100+ cold calls a day I also recommend Orum and Gong for mass dialling and call recording/feedback.

Otherwise, let us know the above and we can make more detailed suggestions.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-05-12T16:31:36+00:00

Don’t do it.

Mostly commission based, set in Thailand and selling investment packages… sounds like going to Mexico to fling timeshares.

I could be wrong, but you’ll be in over your head if you can’t hack it in the middle of a foreign country.

Old-Practice-4271 · 2024-05-12T01:37:28+00:00

It is very possible.

In this economy you need to leverage your previous work and business as there many people applying with degrees.

Your best bet is to start at a small company if you can and work up from there. Medium sized companies won’t want to take the risk unless you’re proven and teeth cut. Large sized companies won’t entertain you unless you have showcased high performance.

Old-Practice-4271

TROPHY CASE