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How to pick your sales career path as told by a VP of Sales at a company for salespeople 🤯

Breaking into sales can be overwhelming. It’s competitive to break into, its career paths are manyfold, and it can be difficult to even determine what elements you should take into consideration when choosing a path.

Fear, not.

We’ve weaned some wisdom from THE Margaret Clark, Bravado’s VP of Sales (yes…VP of Sales at a company for salespeople…trippy), to give you the DL on what you need to know to pick the sales career track that’s a fit for you.

Check it out on Bravado Academy 📚 →

https://bravado.co/academy/entry-level-career-paths

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12 comments

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Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

I think there is an overall fallacy in the article that one MUST start out as an SDR. Each of the career paths prescribe being an SDR first then moving either up the ladder in sales, management, or customer service.

Being an SDR is a great place to learn the ropes and *maybe* get your foot in the door, but not necessary IMO.

In fact, the way many tech/SaaS companies have the SDR / AE / Manager career path segmented out, it is VERY difficult to rise up the ladder - at least in the same company. SDRs get burnt out doing 100% cold calls with little likelihood of actually moving up (churn & burn!). AEs get lazy by expecting SDRs to feed them leads and forget how to make cold call themselves &/or its actually their responsibility to fill their own sales funnel. Each of them grasping for that next level up which they feel is the promised land.

The rest of the article is good, but the may vary from person to person as to their exact experience in large companies, start ups, etc. Its also rather tech-centric and there are plenty of non-tech sales career paths out there which are VERY lucrative.

Jbeans

Opinionated

Director of Sales

Agree - how long does a good BDR/SDR last?

I don’t know.

Ours all end up quitting like you said …because it’s too hard and makes such little impact to the leads imo. The movement happens more from Ae level to management or diff departments (other solutions).

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

In a previous job I had 5 SDRs over 2+years. Worked with each one to help them learn the industry, etc. A couple moved up and the others moved out. Most the AEs the company hired came from the outside and ALL the Sales Directors.

FoodForSales

Politicker

I keep seeing all this talk about SDR's here. In my industry there are no SDRs, so this makes sense to me.

Pachacuti

Politicker

-2

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

SDRs are big in the tech industry - especially software. You don't find them many other places. They are basically well paid Telemarketers.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Considering the bias towards tech and the plethora of “how do I get into SaaS” posts here…the paths and tone of the article fit the community it is written for.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Had to do it

LearnToPivot

Contributor

Like the Name says.. I Pivot for a living

In my experience- Coming from 5 years of closing experience in addition to account management with land/expand motions.. I sold myself short by excepting and SDR role to break into tech. (Came from Marketing solutions/tech sales)

Although the experience in the SDR seat has been invaluable, if you are going into tech from an outside industry it is an important decision to either take your time to get hired as an AE and make a lateral move, or take an SDR role and prepare for the paycut and stress that will lead to vertical movement either with your incumbent or another company. My experience was having companies offering above pay ceiling to get me, but once I performed, they kept dangling the carrot to keep me bringing in leads while minimizing my prior experience as an AE. I ended up finding an incredible AE role in tech after 2.5 years with my choice from multiple companies. I declined 7 offers until I reached one that I was happy with, at a company that I knew would be a good fit with a healthy future.

TLDR- Leverage is everything. Either you can take your time and interview with dozens of companies until 1 makes an offer, or go through the SDR/BDR ranks and perform well until you either get promoted, or (after atleast 1 year tenure) are passively interviewing and applying with other companies without the NEED to move on.

mdrncole

Sales & Design Consultant

Thanks for sharing - whenever my friends ask me about what they need to do to break into sales, they are also confused by acronym-overload (BDR, AE, SR AE, etc.), inbound vs. outbound, and all the other shorthand that we use on a regular basis. The academy post does a great job of showing breaking down the positions while also laying out the common growth path.

Samsamoon

Opinionated

Associate

Hello yea thank you so very much for the info on the new business idea. I am of course will follow most excellent advice for assistance. I have a question about how to make a good job? I have telephon assistance is a good thing? Thanks so much for helping.

peachykeen

Politicker

sae e-commerce

Yeah I had never heard of a SDR till I came here. And found out all my experience as a BDR sounds absurd if you’re in tech. So when I’ve applied to tech roles, I *have* to specify that all my experience has been full sales cycle.

goldenlazard

Politicker

Senior SDR

Very useful! Would love more information on the sales management/leadership route though

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