Step 1: What's Tech Sales All About?
Example: Tech Sales Presentation
Overview: For complex, expensive products, a Sales team can close deals that wouldn’t be feasible online. This includes both B2B (e.g., Salesforce sells a $10MM package to IBM) and B2C businesses (e.g., Facebook sells a seven-figure ad deal to Ford).
Example project: Sell $2MM in Salesforce subscriptions by the end of the fiscal year.
What you do all day: Research opportunities, talk with prospects or customers, give demos, and close deals
Roles: Sales Development/Inside Sales (generating new opportunities by emailing and calling), Account Executive/Field Sales (closing deals, often at the customer’s site), Account Manager (upselling existing clients)
What they look for: Candidates with a track record of results and incredible powers of persuasion
Sample job: Account Executive, Salesforce
Step 2: Would You Be a Good Fit for Tech Sales?
Ask yourself if you'd love doing these kinds of things all day:
Leveraging market data to identify potential customers
Cold-calling/emailing these prospects
Making persuasive presentations
Negotiating and finalizing deals
Managing relationships and upselling
If your answer is "Yes" to the majority of activities, you'd likely be a good fit for sales.
Step 3: What Skills Do You Need for Tech Sales?
For each major activity, I've listed the most common keywords from across dozens of job descriptions, as well as a sample resume bullet:
· Leveraging market data to identify potential customers
o Keywords: CRM, Salesforce, account strategy, sales plan, territory planning, uncover opportunities
o Sample Bullet: Devised a new sales plan to target the SMB segment, generating $2M in incremental sales within the first year
· Cold-calling/emailing these prospects
o Keywords: lead generation, lead pipeline, prospecting, cold call, inbound leads
o Sample Bullet: Implemented sales development processes that doubled pipeline value in six months
· Making persuasive presentations
o Keywords: value-based sales, product demos, events, unmet customer needs
o Sample Bullet: Managed presence at all industry events, producing $5M in sales through that channel alone
· Negotiating and finalizing deals
o Keywords: contract generation, closing, sales goals, quota, revenue targets
o Sample Bullet: Outperformed quota 24 months in a row, earning two consecutive invites to the President's Club
· Managing relationships and upselling
o Keywords: account success, training, enablement, strategic business plans, consultative sales, customer relationships, onboard new customers
o Sample Bullet: Leveraged relationships with existing clients to drive $300K in pure upsell business
Step 4: What Tech Sales Training Do You Recommend?
If you want to brush up on any of these skills, check out Patrick Dang’s Business Development & B2B Sales for Startups course on Udemy. I like two things about this course in particular:
It's comprehensive. It covers everything from prospecting and lead generation all the way to negotiation and deal closure.
And it's also inclusive. Because Patrick has done sales everywhere from Oracle to Y Combinator-backed startups, he can give you a full sense of the tech sales experience.
Disclosure: I’m an affiliate for some of the 3rd party courses listed on the site, which means I may earn a small fee if you choose to enroll (which I use to keep Break into Tech running).
Step 5: How Do You Actually Get a Tech Sales Job?
To help you convert your passion and skills into an actual job, I've put together a step-by-step course that covers how to:
Design a resume that will mark you as an insider to tech recruiters
Make sure you find every single great tech job across multiple sites
Get a referral at just about any tech company - even if you don't know anyone directly
Prepare for every kind of tech interview question with point-by-point formulas