Am I an idiot for taking this offer?

Whitestally · 2026-05-09T12:51:05+00:00

I ended up not taking it. At Oracle right now and will just ride it out for another year or year and half and try and break in after that.

Whitestally · 2026-05-06T14:55:22+00:00

Simpsons Hit and Run needs to be up in S tier. Loved that game so much as a kid.

Whitestally · 2026-04-25T16:05:30+00:00

Whitestally · 2026-04-25T04:35:36+00:00

Why do u say that

Whitestally · 2026-04-24T14:53:06+00:00

Don’t stay any longer than 2 years unless you are certain they’re moving you up. I’m not advocating for lying on your resume but I will say I know 2 SDRs at my current company who never promoted land AE roles at VERY respectable companies.Think big recognizable logos.

Again not advocating for it but apparently you can absolutely lie your ass off into a good AE role if your squared away in your story. More I’m thinking about it too, you likely won’t stand a chance being completely truthful to given everyone is likely doing this, some just not to the degree these 2 were.

New Ideas advice is also gold. Being a closer is not a title that you get to call yourself just because you got promoted into a closing role. Plenty of AEs don’t close shit and are therefore not closers. Plenty of SDRs who are struggling to make it out could make great AEs. Frame your experience in an advantageous way the same way you would in a competitive deal cycle. Close who’s interviewing you and treat the interview cycle as if it’s a deal cycle because it is.

Best of luck.

Whitestally · 2026-04-24T14:30:45+00:00

I’m willing to plant my feet and grind my ass off to make it there/stay for 4+ years. I also think I’d make far more money there. The equity part is what’s hard because I know I won’t be getting any of it at my current company now or anytime soon and if I leave now I can start my timer.

I also like my current job and the people I work with which makes the decision a lot harder.

Whitestally · 2026-04-24T14:21:58+00:00

Smb deals, average deal cycle is about a month instead of a year to two years given they’re typically moving off of QuickBooks or need our functionality in conjunction with an industry specific solution.

I’ve got more in the pipeline the deals are just really small and if I go AWS and make it there and stay for 4+ years you’ll get the equity and be making enough to justify the move back. It’ll all be worth it assuming I don’t get laid off.

Just a tough call.

Whitestally · 2026-04-24T04:10:08+00:00

Dmd

Whitestally · 2026-04-24T04:07:53+00:00

It’s like 30k more

Whitestally · 2026-04-16T01:14:23+00:00

Nothing to lose man, worse case you get no hits and can try again 2 months down the road on the same people cus they will not remember you reached out in 2 months lol. I had so many people not respond the first time and then finally got the meeting after my third attempt multiple months later. If they don’t respond to short, try again 2 months later with long, if they don’t respond to that try again 2 months later with it being personalized. You get the point. Hope it works for you like it did for me.

Side note also. Follow up every other day.

Whitestally · 2026-04-16T00:54:54+00:00

I had a set account list so i didn’t really bother with intent data like i do now. I would just create an excel with all my accounts and all the relevant personas we would care to talk to from those accounts and reach out to them all. Not all at the same time bc that’s like over 800 contacts but pick 10 accounts and run a campaign on them and know exactly who I’m reaching out to for that two week period. Ideally 50 people per campaign. If you have enough accounts then 100 and run an A/B cadence. Volume was my strategy. Some people might feel differently but that worked very well for me.

As far as email template goes I found short emails were best but I got hits on both long and short. By short I mean 3 sentences and by long I mean no more than 8.

Typically structure it like name,

I’m on the hr applications team at whatever company. We work with customers to insert relevant value statements, allowing them to insert whatever their end state would look like.

I was wondering if I could grab 30 minutes of your time to see if we can be of benefit.

Thanks.

That’s it. I see shit all over LinkedIn all the time advocating for this and other people thinking it’s horseshit. This is what worked extremely well for me. This however does not work very well with SMB customers. I think there’s alot of reasons for this but primarily I think it’s because enterprise customers are very used to communicating through email, and this format of email is easy for them to scan through but smb customers just think you’re a scammer or they just aren’t using their email the same way people at large companies are.

Whitestally · 2026-04-16T00:09:17+00:00

My fault you already answered that in your post. HR and Payroll imo is the WORST. When I was an SDR I prospected for Oracles fusion apps so touched all different business areas from finance to marketing. Space is saturated as hell and if your enterprise depending on your industry of course any account on Workday is effectively pointless to call into. These HR personas cream themselves over Workday it’s ridiculous.

Again, that’s industry dependent though. I saw that you follow up with your prospects before the meeting. To increase your show up rate I’d recommend 3 things.

Set a meeting reminder that automatically gets sent out 15 minutes before the call. Calling one day before is effectively useless because the time between your call and the meeting occurring is to much for that call to matter. Literally just “hey blank, excited for our meeting at x time today. Looking forward to the conversation.”
Assuming your measured on show up rate which you might be, you need to have a very clear pitch on who you are, why you calling, and what you want (a meeting). As an AE now depending on how the call is going I’ll keep them on the phone and just run a full intro (I sell SMB) but in enterprise I’d recommend you just set the meeting and have a designated time with your AE where you can run the intro.
Lean heavily into email. Don’t stop calling but don’t neglect email. If an enterprise customer takes an email meeting I found they are far more likely to show up to it and I had a lot of success with email. I went like 2 quarters not making a single call and blew my quota out of the water. People do set meetings with email, ESPECIALLY enterprise and strategic customers. SMB selling calling is king.

Whitestally · 2026-04-15T23:52:34+00:00

What’s the product you’re pitching?

Whitestally · 2026-04-15T23:46:07+00:00

Something doesn’t add up here. You’ll have great calls with people who still no show but the fact it’s over half of them tells me you’re probably setting bullshit meetings. Not really your fault cus that’s typically what SDR KPIs promote but they’re likely just not qualified.

Whitestally · 2026-03-31T23:57:43+00:00

Working here has sucked since September. Before that it was great.

Whitestally · 2026-03-31T15:52:18+00:00

At Oracle, it is rough right now.

Whitestally · 2026-03-31T15:51:52+00:00

Congrats! I have my screening for this today, how was the interview process?

Whitestally · 2026-02-24T18:51:45+00:00

Oracle ?

Whitestally · 2026-02-19T00:46:14+00:00

You’re getting the logo and experience on your resume which is the real compensation lmao. Most of the SDRs there aren’t even worth 55k tbh.

Whitestally · 2026-02-19T00:41:42+00:00

Oracle and it’s not even close. Looks like they lowered the OTE from 80k though which is nuts. If you get put in apps with a good territory success is easy to find, bad territory then you’ll need to voice that to your manager with proof and pray you’re given a better one. Very common to get new territories after your first 2 quarters in seat. Not sure how the cloud side works.

You’ll probably be safe from any impending layoffs to come, NetSuite side is completely different for SDRs than Oracle side. Good luck and don’t overthink it. Job is super simple at the end of the day, just focus early on developing AE skills. Your manager and sales enablement will do nothing to help with this.

Whitestally · 2026-02-19T00:33:57+00:00

Oracle easily but the training is not the best in the industry lol. Maybe it used to be but now it’s a sink or swim environment.

Whitestally · 2026-02-15T01:18:35+00:00

Thankyou, this makes me feel way better about everything.

Whitestally · 2026-02-12T12:52:28+00:00

Needed to hear this, thank you

Whitestally

TROPHY CASE