Jewcan_Sam81

Account Executive

Valued Contributor

Am I trapped in SaaS sales forever?

Hey hey to all my people, been a while!

So, lately I'm just legit dying to get the heck out of my company. It's not what it was, and I've been trying to psych myself up about moving to another SaaS company and for some reason none of the opportunities are working (hiring in tech is a total sh!tshow right now as all of you know).

As this is happening I'm starting to wonder if SaaS is my long term, but I just have no idea how to translate my experience to other industries. Advertising is something I've always thought sounded interesting, selling IT infrastructure sounds awesome, but none of those companies are gonna hire someone with only Cloud ERP experience and a smattering of telecom from years ago.

I'm struggling, feel like this is gonna eat me alive, and I don't know who else to ask about this.

Anyone have any advice?

Love you all.

🎈 Mentorship

11

10 comments

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oldcloser

Arsonist

5

💀

Don't know if this perspective helps, but my niche of choice has always been advertising and its AdTech, MarTech tentacles. I've been looking around and the only things I see are Cloud ERP and Telecom. Ain't one of them gonna bring me in from where I am either.

Trust me when I tell you, the grass ain't greener.IT infrastructure still gonna structure. Clouds still gonna cloud. Ads still gonna ad. It's the macro right now.

Stability is key ATM. Think long game. We've all been through exactly 100% of the challenges we've faced. Sell it and get paid. That usually fixes it.

CPTAmerica

Opinionated

2

President/CRO

Sounds like you're working on a self fulfilling prophecy.

You can 100% move into IT, hardware, Advertising, Financial services, or whatever other industry you want with your background.

I'd advise trying to really think about what made you excited about your current role/company in the early days. What has changed now. Are you sure moving industries will get you back to where you want to be? Maybe yes, maybe no, but that'll take some personal discovery.

FoodForSales

Politicker

2

AE

I don't understand why you can't leverage your soft sales skills and transition to another company.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Hey there! Long time no see!

Sorry you are struggling in your current space. You're right, it is a tough time to find something, but it's possible. It will just take a LOT more patience and continued perseverance.

I'm going to challenge you a bit, and advise you to step away from focusing on "SaaS" sales. There's a broad swath of software companies out there selling a wide range of solutions that happen to be deployed in the cloud. If you don't like what you sell, it may just be that you're really not feeling what you're selling resonates. Maybe focus on the kind of technology you enjoy and not so much the delivery model. Feel like selling to FSI? Fintech. Feel like being a generalist? Maybe a platform sale, WCM or the like. Enjoy retail? PIM. Just a thought.

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

1

Burn Towns, Get Money

I think this is a severely underrated comment.

SaaS is a delivery model, not a product or a use-case.

What kind of SaaS are you selling? What problem does it solve?

Is that problem interesting to you? Would you rather solve other problems?

There is certainly a way to transfer your knowledge of the problem set into another company or industry, not to mention the soft skills learned along the way.

I started selling people (recruiting for IT), used my IT knowledge to transition into a SaaS sales role focused on Supply Chain, and took the understanding of Enterprise Architecture that you have to gain to succeed in Supply Chain to Cybersecurity. Today's gig sells SaaS, Hosted, and On-Prem solutions.

The path is there, it's all about how you tell your story and what types of problem you find most interesting to help customers solve.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Bingo! Focusing on the delivery model is like focusing on the plate your dinner is served on. Some are nicer than others, but if you want a roast chicken dinner, you’re far more interested in what’s on the plate and if the gravy is good than you are in the color of the dish.

Justatitle

Big Shot

1

Account Executive

Man, I feel very similar to you. I do to well in SAAS sales that if I ever wanted to do something else the financials would be a joke.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

1

🦊

What are you passionate about?

Maximas

Tycoon

0

Senior Sales Executive

I understand how you feel.
What I definitely recommend is whenever you're free in your offs and casual vacations to utilize that time learning something new for the most sales/non sales fields you're passionate about.
And never quit applying or broadening your network, as referral is the best way to me to land a new role way easier than others.
Much of luck!

umokfine

Fire Starter

0

Account Executive

I’m going through something similar as I CAN NOT seem to land a SaaS role even after coming from a big F500 med device role. They won’t even look at me and when I network my way in I get to the offer stage and then they reject me. It’s so so so hard rn. I’m sorry dude

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