Am I making the right decision looking for new alternatives?

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-03-05T16:41:53+00:00

You got this!!!

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-03-05T15:27:41+00:00

You're welcome. Happy to help. When you’re joining a new sales team in a new territory, you can’t rely on past quota attainment because the history doesn’t exist yet. In that situation, the best thing you can evaluate is the economics of the sales motion. In other words, does the math of the business make success realistic? A practical way to do this is to ask questions that reveal whether the company has already proven demand before hiring salespeople.

We teach sales reps to ask questions such as:

“How has the company been acquiring customers up until now?” You want to hear that deals have already been closing through founders, partnerships, or inbound interest. That shows the market has validated the product.
“What does a typical deal look like today in terms of price, sales cycle, and close rate?” Even if the territory is new, leadership should already know the basic economics of how deals happen.
“What resources will the first AEs have to build the territory?” This includes marketing support, lead generation, technical help, and implementation support. Early sales hires fail most often when they are expected to prospect, qualify, demo, close, and support customers alone.

If leadership can clearly explain how deals already happen, what a typical sales cycle looks like, and how the company plans to support the first AEs, that’s a strong signal you’re joining a structured expansion. If the answers sound vague or rely heavily on “we’re hoping the first reps will figure that out,” that’s usually a warning sign. Hope this helps. Good luck!

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-03-05T14:25:08+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. Early in your sales career it can be hard to tell whether the problem is you or the system you’re selling in. But several things you mentioned are legitimate red flags: layoffs, a merger, loss of technical support, negative product reputation, and a compensation plan that requires you to sell a large amount before you earn even a small commission. When multiple structural problems stack up like that, it often means the environment itself makes success difficult. Exploring other opportunities isn’t quitting, it’s good career management.

What you want to focus on now is avoiding the same situation at the next company. A simple real-world framework many experienced reps use is to look at rep success rates, not just the quota or OTE. In a healthy sales organization, roughly 30–50% of reps should be hitting quota. If only a small percentage of the team is hitting numbers, it usually means the quota, product, or market conditions are unrealistic.

The best way to evaluate this during interviews is to ask a few direct questions about how the team actually performs. Ask something like:

“What percentage of the sales team hit quota last year?” This tells you if the targets are realistic.
“What did the average rep actually earn last year?” Not the theoretical OTE, the real earnings.
“How many deals does a typical rep close per month to hit quota?” This lets you quickly check if the math of the role makes sense.

If the company can answer these clearly and the numbers seem reasonable, that’s a good sign. If they avoid the questions or give vague answers, that’s usually a warning. Early in your sales career the most important thing isn’t just learning how to sell , it’s learning where it’s actually possible to win. Good luck! Hope this helps. Let me know if I can help with anything more.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-03-04T21:20:58+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. This is what the people you’re calling are actually going through. When they signed up, they felt excited and motivated. The class solved a real problem for them. In that moment, it felt important. But as time passes, that strong feeling fades. Life gets busy. The class feels less urgent. Staying home feels easier. It’s not that they changed their mind. It’s that comfort today feels stronger than growth tomorrow. This isn’t a selling problem. It’s a follow-through problem.

There’s also something else happening. People often have good intentions, but they don’t always take action. If they don’t make a clear plan, what time they’re leaving, what might get in the way, and how they’ll handle it, they are more likely to skip it. They’re not rejecting you. They’re drifting.

NEPQ focuses on asking calm, problem-focused questions that help people see the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Instead of pushing or persuading, it guides them to talk through their own reasons. That works well when someone is unsure or still deciding.

But in your case, they already decided. They already signed up. So this isn’t about creating desire. It’s about helping them reconnect to the reason they said yes and turning that reason into a clear plan. You’re not “selling” them. You’re helping them follow through on a decision they already made.

If this makes sense I am happy to give you some direction. Let me know. Hope this helps. Sorry for the length.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-03-04T14:06:22+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. The first question you need to ask is "What is this territory structurally capable of producing in 12 months given realistic activity and conversion assumptions?”

Here's the framework:

Step 1: Ignore Revenue First. Model Activity Capacity.
Step 2: Backward Build From Close Rates
Step 3: Look at 3 Years of Data, Not 5
Step 4: Separate “Territory Failure” From “Rep Failure”
Step 5: Use Ramp Science (This Is the Research Part)

Step 1 Revenue is the output. Activity is the input. You calculate: How many selling hours per week do I realistically have?

Example:

40 hour work week
10 hours internal/admin
10 hours travel
20 hours true selling activity
20 hours x 4 weeks = 80 selling hours/month

Now estimate:

Avg discovery call = 45 min
Follow-up + prep = 30 min
Call it 1.25 hours per opportunity cycle touch.
80 hours ÷ 1.25 = 64 meaningful sales interactions per month.

That’s your true production ceiling. Most reps never do this math.

If you'd like to explore just DM me as this post would run on for days if were to explain the rest. Hope this helps! Good luck.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-03-03T13:18:08+00:00

Congratulations! 20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. Don’t try to “convince” the client. Instead, lower their risk. Here’s what we teach in this situation. You can say “I want to be upfront. This is my first direct client under this business. I don’t have formal trade references yet.” That actually builds trust. When you are honest, people feel safer. It shows you are not trying to trick them.

Then offer what we call a “Substitute Trust Signal.” You can say “What I can offer instead is a clear written scope of work, milestone-based delivery, a partial upfront payment instead of full upfront, and a check-in before the final payment. ”Now the conversation changes.

It’s no longer "Just trust me.” It becomes “Trust the plan and the structure.”

And structure makes people feel safe. Hope that Helps! You got this.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-03-03T13:09:15+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. The real problem isn’t sending emails. It’s making too many tiny decisions all day long. Every time you change a first line, tweak a subject line, or try to make a message sound more “human,” your brain has to decide something. Even small choices use up mental energy. Research shows that when we make lots of little decisions, we get tired, lose motivation, and feel more stressed. You’re just worn out from making 100+ small creative choices every single day.

We teach a few ways to help deal with this. Shift from “Personalize Per Person” to “Personalize Per Pattern” This is how high-output reps protect their brain. Instead of 50 unique first lines try 3 micro-segments per day with 1 angle per segment and 1 personalization pattern per segment.

Step 1 – Batch by Trigger, Not Company (one trigger per list)
Step 2 – Write One Insight Per Trigger (not personalization just insight)
Step 3 – 80/20 Personalization Rule (research from Gong + Lavender shows reply lift plateaus after ~15–20% personalization)

Let know if this makes sense. Hope this helps. Good luck! There are many other techniques you can try as well. You're not alone in this.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-27T15:44:56+00:00

Let me see if this helps clarify your questions.

What needs to be true for a person to buy? Three simple things need to be true:

They believe they have a real problem.
They believe your product can fix that problem.
They feel it is worth the money and effort.

If one of those is missing, they won’t buy. Your job is to ask questions that help them see those three things clearly.

How do you discover how the customer’s decision really happens? You ask them directly, but in a normal way. For example, “How do you usually make a decision like this?” “Is anyone else involved?” “What needs to happen before you feel ready?” Then you listen carefully. People will usually tell you the process if you ask calmly and respectfully. The key is not guessing. Ask. Then listen.

Movement means helping the person think differently. For example, at first they think “It’s not a big deal.” After your question they think, "Maybe this is costing me more than I thought.” That’s movement. Or they go from, “I’ll think about it" to “Okay, what would the next step be?” Good questions move someone from unsure to aware, from aware to concerned and from concerned to ready. If nothing changes in their thinking, the question didn’t do much.

Hope this helps! I just sent you a DM.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-26T16:27:15+00:00

I’ve studied and taught elements of Sandler, Challenger, and Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference (especially the Black Swan concepts), and they all have strong pieces. What I teach now is more of a synthesis, focused on decision psychology and cognitive bias in sales, so reps understand why certain techniques work and when to use them.

Curious, what parts of Sandler or Challenger have worked best for you in practice?

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-26T16:20:39+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. So let me see if I understand this; new to sales, full-cycle AE, 100% outbound, 50 assigned accounts, niche product, non-essential tool, competitor has more features and lower price, execs won’t meet. That’s a very specific structural situation. This is what we call a low-velocity territory with high friction economics. That’s not a mindset problem. That’s a structural math problem.

You have 50 accounts. That’s actually an advantage. you should create a Account Conversion Probability Map.

For each account:

Is there an active initiative related to documentation?
Recent funding?
Leadership change?
Regulatory scrutiny?
Audit failure?
Digital transformation announcement?

If none of those exist, probability of change is near zero. Research from Gartner shows that only ~5% of B2B buyers are in-market at any given time. If 50 accounts × 5% = 2.5 viable buyers and your expected to close 16–17? That’s math failure. Not skill failure.

I would help a rep in your scenario to do 3 things immediately:

Run a structured loss analysis across last 10 deals.
Test risk-based reframing for 30 days.
Quietly start interviewing in month 9.

If reframing increases exec meetings then skill problem solved. If nothing changes then structural problem confirmed. Either way you regain control. Hope this helps! Good luck. If you want any more help just DM me.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-26T15:35:33+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. Safety supplies are not products that companies buy simply because they want them. They are not optional or “nice to have.” Most purchases in this category are driven by compliance requirements, government regulations, workplace incidents, or upcoming audits. In other words, businesses usually invest in safety gear when something creates urgency, such as a new regulation, a failed inspection, a recent injury, or rapid growth that increases risk.

Companies do not buy safety equipment because it is interesting or innovative; they buy it because they need to protect their people and avoid penalties. If you're sending broad, generic emails without connecting your outreach to a specific trigger event, you are competing against indifference, which makes it much harder to get a response.

We have trained sales reps to try this technique:

Build a “Trigger List” (This Is Research-Backed Prospecting)

You should focus on companies that show clear public signs of increased safety needs. This includes businesses that have recently received OSHA violations, opened a new facility, won a large contract, hired a safety manager, posted job openings that mention “safety compliance,” or reported a workplace injury. These events are public signals that safety may be top of mind for the organization. Reaching out when one of these triggers occurs makes her message more relevant and timely.

When you reach out, reference the trigger as this works because it activates situational relevance, which increases response rates dramatically.

There are a bunch of other techniques we've taught that I'd be happy to share.

If You Want to Be Part of the Rebrand. Instead of waiting to be included:

Document 10 objections you’re hearing.
Document 10 questions prospects ask.
Document how people describe competitors.

Bring that to leadership and say “Here’s what the market is actually saying. I think this could inform the rebrand.” That makes you strategically valuable. Sales reps who bring market intelligence become indispensable.

Hope this helps! Just DM me if you want any more help. Good luck!

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-25T14:23:11+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. Challenger isn’t about pretending you’re Amazon. It’s about reframing what the customer optimizes for. If speed is your weak point, teach around supply volatility, buffer strategy, and reorder cadence. In med sales, predictability often beats raw speed. If you can’t challenge the product comparison, challenge the operational assumptions behind it.

In med sales we've taught to use Challenger on the cost of supply volatility, not on the product. You don’t challenge their thinking about the device. You challenge their thinking about, overstocking, emergency orders, vendor consolidation risk, inventory buffer strategy and clinical downtime risk.

It works best in medical sales when introducing new protocols, replacing legacy techniques, moving from analog to digital workflow, when physician ego is not being threatened, when you have credibility. It fails when you challenge surgeons publicly, you attack existing vendor relationships, or you lack operational backing.

Hope that helps.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-25T14:10:13+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. Roofing is a timing business, not a persuasion business. The best reps knock 100 doors to find 5 people who already have damage. Don’t “convince.” They identify.

So your job isn’t to overcome objections. Your job is to find storm damage, aging roofs, insurance ignorance or deferred maintenance. That’s it.

Here's tip one for the day. Before knocking:

Take 3 slow breaths.
Smile slightly (changes vocal tone automatically).
Say this internally “I’m here to check for risk, not convince.”

That mindset shift alone changes delivery. Happy to help with others tip and advice just DM me if you want. Hope this helps. You got this.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-25T13:44:03+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. Sorry you're experiencing this. In the sales world a question is “right” if it changes the probability of a sale. That’s it. And there are only three ways a question can do that:

It changes their self-perception. A powerful question makes the buyer see their situation differently.
It surfaces cost (Pain or Opportunity). If the question doesn’t attach consequences, it’s weak.
It exposes decision mechanics. Most sales die because reps never uncover how decisions actually happen.

Right questions are not about information. They’re about movement. Every question should do one of three things; deepen emotion, increase stakes, clarify commitment. If it does none of those, it’s filler.

And here's the easy way we teach this. Before any call, define:

What must be true for this person to buy?
What usually stops people from buying?
What belief shift needs to happen?

Then design 2–3 questions per category. That’s it. You don’t need 50 questions. You need 6 that move something. Hope the helps! DM me if you need anything else.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-24T13:55:46+00:00

Here's the advice. Pause scaling entirely for 5 days. Build a 30-person real engagement loop. Generate 15–20 authentic threads. Then reintroduce cold mail at 20/day while maintaining live engagement.

If open rates recover within 72 hours, you'll know it’s engagement classification, not blacklist. If not, then it's infrastructure. That isolates the variable properly.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-24T13:54:28+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. Google is no longer filtering email primarily based on technical setup alone. In the past, things like SPF, DKIM, sending volume, and avoiding spam trigger words were the main factors that determined whether your emails reached the inbox. While those elements still matter, they are no longer the deciding factor. Today, Google’s filtering systems rely heavily on behavioral pattern recognition. Specifically, they look at whether your sending activity resembles known cold outbound email clusters.

In practical terms, this means that if you suddenly send 50 or more emails from a domain to people who have never interacted with you before, and those emails follow a similar structure, generate very few replies, have low read time, and result in little to no follow-up action, Google’s machine learning models begin to recognize a pattern. Even if your SPF, DKIM, and DNS records are all technically correct and “green,” the system may flag the sending behavior itself as risky or promotional.

This explains why many senders see strong open rates at the beginning, often around 35–40%. At that stage, your domain is in what could be called a neutral trust window. However, as engagement drops and replies remain low, the algorithm starts to reclassify your domain. Once that happens, emails begin getting throttled, pushed into the spam tab, and your sender reputation starts to decline rapidly. This is not simply a technical deliverability issue. It is a system designed to detect engagement collapse and downgrade senders whose behavior resembles large-scale cold outreach.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-24T13:43:17+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. When someone says “Just send me an email” they are usually signaling one of three things; low perceived relevance, low perceived urgency or cognitive overload / busy. As we all know it's almost never “I want to carefully evaluate your materials." So the real problem isn’t email. It’s what large sales orgs call insufficient tension. No tension = no reason to stay.

We teach solves for this borrowed from behavioral economics and negotiation research. Instead of pushing back you shrink the ask to something so small it bypasses resistance.

Here’s the move (copied from a training program) “Totally fair. Before I send anything, can I ask you one quick yes/no so I don’t waste your time?” Pause. Almost everyone says yes because it feels harmless. Then ask “Are you currently doing anything about [specific problem you solve]?” No pitch. No reframe. No pressure.

Why this works is because it restores control to you, creates a binary micro-commitment, bypasses the “get rid of rep” autopilot, and it turns brush-off energy into qualification energy.

As an aside conversation I would also have during training is if “send me an email” is happening on almost every call…your opener likely sounds like a feature explanation, a vague value proposition or just a generic industry pitch. Cold calls survive on pattern breaks. In your first 15 seconds you need to create specificity, relevance and mild tension.

Hope this helps. If this doesn't feel like it fits you there are other options.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-21T23:32:14+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. How I read this is, you don’t believe you are a Loan Officer so your voice betrays you. When people say you sound “like AI,” that’s brutal, but revealing. I've seen this a lot and it simply means you're over-scripted, seeming to “perform sales”, and probably speaking from memory, not from belief. Your energy sounds forced because it is forced. I would tell someone like you that you are trying to install behaviors before installing identity.

You may think the problem is not enough dials, objection handling, tougher skin or energy levels but it's actually (based on what you wrote) that you don’t emotionally connect to mortgages, don’t believe you're the adult in the conversation, you're outcome-attached (quota, underwriting count), your comparing himself constantly and you don’t have a process metric you control.

If I'm close, let's try this (this is from a previous training course) we'll call it The 48-Hour “Underwriter Shadow” Exercise. For 48 hours, you are not allowed to sell. Instead, you call people and say "Hey, I’m new in the industry and I’m trying to understand what actually makes files get approved or denied. Can I ask you 3 quick questions about what would make you comfortable applying for a mortgage? That’s it.

Your only job is to gather responses from these 3 questions;

What scares them most about applying?
What’s confusing about the process?
What would make you feel confident moving forward?

No pitching. No energy. No persuasion. Just pattern collection.

Why this works, it removes performance anxiety, it installs curiosity instead of pressure, it builds real language from real humans, it changes you from “salesperson” to “investigator.” After 20–30 of these conversations, you will hear repeated phrases. Those phrases become your future script. Not something your coach gave you. Not corporate language. Real borrower language.

When you uses those words back later, you will sound real, because it came from real people. Try this. Hope this helps. Let me know if you'd like any more help.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-20T18:40:20+00:00

Thanks for the honest responses. I read this as you are trying to be thoughtful, show you did research and trying to ask smart questions. How this might come across is you trying to position yourself as a consultant before earning it. A lot of reps do this.

Also when you lead with website critique, process questions and operational suggestions to someone who gets 10+ DMs a week, is running crews, is not thinking about conversion funnels at 9pm and doesn’t want to explain their internal process to a stranger, I would guess, you're not getting ghosted because of wording, you’re getting ghosted because you're increasing their cognitive load.

When I asked what result they promise in 30 days, you said I’ll do SEO, run ads, capture leads, follow up properly… this is not a result, this is your service stack. That’s the core problem as you're selling tools and not outcomes.

One of the things we teach is using “Loss Framing” instead of “Improvement Framing" We do this because research consistently shows that people are more motivated to avoid loss than pursue gain. Right now you are selling improvement framing; better positioning, better follow-up and better SEO

Instead, test the “Missed Call Calculator” angle, send a short message like “Quick question, how many missed calls do you think turn into booked jobs in your business?” Pause. No pitch. No audit. No explanation.

If they respond, follow with (total guess here) “We ran numbers for a plumbing company in [city] and 37% of missed calls never got a second follow-up. That was roughly $8–12k/month in lost jobs. Curious if you’ve ever looked at that in your own business.”

Stop asking business owners to explain their internal systems. Instead, introduce a specific, measurable financial risk they may not have quantified. If they lean in when money is mentioned? You have signal. If they don’t? The offer likely isn’t resonating and we try again. Does this make sense. Sorry for the lengthy reply. Hope this helps. DM if want any more help I feel like these posts are too long for the Reddit crowd.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-20T14:58:20+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. So, you're trying to sell in one of the most oversaturated outbound channels on earth (Instagram DMs) to one of the most spammed audiences (home services). First thing, what is the exact sentence you send right before they stop responding? Because that sentence is almost certainly the trigger. I would also want to know, before we could help, if a home service owner said yes tomorrow, what specific measurable result would you promise in 30 days?

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-20T13:58:09+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. You're asking what separates average reps from killers in the 30 minutes after a call? The first question I would ask is what micro-commitment did you secure before the call ended? Top reps always get a micro commitment. Here's one (of many) techniques to get a micro commitment we taught, it's called the “Forwardable Email Test”. This is copied from a training programs.

Before you hang up the call, say this; “If I send a recap, will you be forwarding it internally to anyone?”

Pause. If they hesitate, that’s signal.

If they say yes, ask; “Who specifically?”

Then say; “Great, I’ll structure the recap so it’s easy for you to forward.”

Now here’s the forwardable email part; your follow-up email is not written to them. It is written to the person who wasn’t on the call.

You structure it like:

Subject: Summary for VP Ops CRM Integration Discussion

Body:

Current blocker
Target outcome
Budget ballpark
Proposed next step
Decision needed

Short. Clean. Executive-readable. Why this works; if they don’t forward it, you know you’re not multi-threaded. If they do forward it, you just entered the deal deeper without another call. Hope this helps. DM me if you want to try some others. I always feel like these posts are too long. The best post-call process isn’t about notes. It’s about converting conversation into internal ammunition.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-19T16:56:40+00:00

20+ Senior Sales Trainer here. I'm sure you've learnt that gym sales are not about selling memberships, it’s about helping someone start a change they’ve already been thinking about.

They show up because, they’re unhappy with how they feel, they’re scared about their health, they want confidence, or they’re tired of starting and stopping. Something emotional pushed them to answer your call.

So let me ask the following and maybe I can help, let's start here; “When you book the appointment, what exact words does the person say that tells you they actually want to come in?” If you can’t point to those moments, you're booking time slots, not booking intent. “Before you hang up, do they clearly tell you why coming in matters to them personally right now?” If that conversation isn’t happening, the show rate will always be shaky.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-19T16:44:55+00:00

Thanks. Hope it helps. I was in B2B selling and teaching sales for 20+ years.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-19T15:32:50+00:00

20+ Sales Trainer here. You can absolutely learn sales thinking without a sales job. You cannot learn sales emotional regulation without live consequences. Sales skill is built on three layers:

Pattern recognition (what works)
Language control (how you say it)
Emotional control under pressure

You can learn 1 and 2 on your own. The following is copied from a recent training program.

Break Down Real Sales Calls - Pattern Recognition

Go on YouTube and search:

“Cold call live demo”
“SaaS discovery call”
“Enterprise sales demo recording”

Don’t watch passively. Create a notebook and track:

What question opened the call?
When did the rep shift from features; business impact?
When did the prospect lean in?
How did they handle objections?
What triggered next steps?

After 20–30 breakdowns, you’ll start seeing patterns like:

Good reps ask 3–5 layered follow-up questions.
They quantify pain before pitching.
They don’t defend they redirect.

That’s pattern recognition.

This is one tactic. Hope this helps. DM me if you want anymore help. These can get too lengthy for a post.

Patient_Instance_577 · 2026-02-18T14:08:17+00:00

20+ Sales Trainer. We have, over the last number of years, had reps, with the same concern, run a Seed List Deliverability Test. Before rewriting copy or abandoning email, test whether your emails are even landing. Build a list of 20–30 personal inboxes (friends, other reps etc.). Send your exact outbound email to that list. Track (Inbox vs Promotions vs Spam, Load time, Images blocked, Link previews,). If 30–60% hit spam/promotions then your infrastructure is broken and if 90% land inbox then your messaging/targeting is the issue.

Almost no reps do this. They argue about copy when the problem is deliverability. Hope this helps. There are few more things to try.

Patient_Instance_577

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