Hola Savages!
Just reopened my Bravado account, after a year off. How ya'll doin'?
Background:
A year ago I quit sales. As I faced a major burnout when I celebrated my 25th birthday. I started a tech sales gig (SDR back then) at 21 which led me to SDR-AE-SAE-EAE (Closed $3M ARR throughout my AE tenure). The golden days of tech sales (2018-2022). Crushed quota straight out the gate (which I owe to some great managers) when I started.
However, through every fundraising A, B, and C the management started sucking more more. I experienced first-hand what poor mngmnt leadership feels like, SHIT.
Extremely high turnover in Sales leadership (C-suites,VPs, Head of Sales) reality was new leaders every 6-8 months, and the people coming in only got worse. Constant restructuring, retargeting segments, industries, geographies, changing who owns what account etc.. (I was still on fire though; as my first manager told me not to pay too much attention to what was going on at the top)
Towards the end, my current manager was so incompetent that I got fed up one day and left comms(about 30% of my annual income, Yikes..) on the table and left. My manager was fired a month later but anyway, I despised the culture already so no going back there.
Present day:
(I reopened my bravado account)
and I'm in Banking.
yep..
My current manager (at the bank, duh) reached out to me and it took a couple of dinners for me to say yes. So here I am, in a non-customer-facing role. Telling a bunch of 35+ yr olds what to do and what we should be focused on. Mostly leading new features and implementations while juggling internal projects for new products etc.
PS! I don't even have my bachelor's (working on it) but I know how to get shit done(thanks Sales!)anyway, that was not an issue for working in Corporate banking :))
+banking pays ok
+relatively stress-free
-no upside in contribution
-boring af
-boring people
Future:
that's where I need some savage advice:
I'm in EU so no option to go for big US sales org that hires in some specific EU countries.
I'm interviewing for a few local SaaS companies that sell worldwide. two companies on the radar where I've reached final stages: both under 20 ppl, where I would be the first or third sales/acc mngmnt/generalist/wear multiple hats type of person. Both have great mngmnt and founders and are close to break-even + runway is not an issue. Options to expand internally etc.
I guess I'm not sure where I want to lead with this but I'm finding myself unsure whether to jump from the cozy relaxed environment into a startup again?
I feel like I know better how to look out for myself now, but this would only be my 2nd sales job and 3rd job in total.
Also, seeing sales posts on Linkedin paints a pretty grim picture of the market.
What should I expect if I come back?
-Mclovin
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