"Get This Work" Book: The Unofficial Guide to Breaking into Tech Sales

By Shelton Banks

Are you interested in a career in tech sales?

Well, you’re in good company.

Business development roles are growing at an incredible rate, and the demand for people with the right skills continues to increase. In fact, the number of available positions is projected to keep growing at a rate of more than 10% over the next decade. The question is—how can you make sure you are one of those people with the right skills?

In “Get This Work” Book, we will break down how the tech sales field works, what it takes to make an impression, and how to position yourself for success. From how to handle failure and rejection to why mindset is king, we will cover topics such as:

• The modern sales process and how to ditch the old one
• Interview skills and how to stand out from the crowd
• Industry lingo about pipelines, software, and tools
• Staying positive and developing a winning mindset

“Get This Work” Book is your ticket to success in a competitive field. As long as you have the motivation and grit to stick it out, you can rest assured that you will get this work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Oct 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662930805

Book preview

1

GETTING YOUR MIND RIGHT

I’ve learned that mindset is everything. Before we dive in, there are a few things I want you to keep in mind:

1. Check Your Ego Not Your Confidence

Most sales managers and recruiters want to see traditional industry experience on your resume, which you don’t have.

So, while I want you to keep your confidence from all your previous experience, I want you to leave your ego.

This is all about the long-term reality, not the short-term career fantasy. Breaking in will probably mean you’ll have to start at the bottom, even if you have experience in other fields. The good part is that the bottom usually pays a base salary of $55,000.*

(Average Base Salary of re:WORK TRAINING candidate in 2021)

2. When you break-in, you break the rules.

Some people have the luxury of patiently waiting in line with their resumes to be let in through the front door.

Others think getting a certificate or degree means they will automatically be in demand or get hired.

No shade to those folks, but that line is long and people like me usually end up at the back. #BlackattheBack

I couldn’t afford to be back there, and I am assuming neither can you. While your resume is important and applying to open roles is necessary, sometimes having the janitor let you in thru the back door is more effective.

We will talk about strategy on how to do that in chapter 6.

3. This is about Slingshotting Your Career

The Business Development / Sales Development Role (BDR/SDR) is usually the role at the bottom of the revenue-generating organization chart. (See Org Chart)

In a Harvard Business Review video, Carrie Householder, explains how a less-than-perfect job can propel your career forward.

Let me Google that for you: Slingshot your career

I highly recommend you stop and watch this 2-minute and 27-second video.

The BDR/SDR is 1000% less than perfect, however, the average BDR gets promoted in less than a year and 30% more base salary.

And as you climb the corporate ladder in S.a.a.S. you will quickly realize that you will never stop being a BDR, even as CEO.

More factually, you already are a BDR and didn’t even know it.

In the next few chapters, we will break down a few foundational terms.

THIS IS WHAT I WOULD ADD ABOUT (TOPIC):

GETTING YOUR MIND RIGHT

Featuring: John Barrows

Sales is one of the greatest professions in the world when done right but one of the worst when done wrong. Starting off your career in Sales with the right mentality is everything. If you got a job in Sales just to make money then you’re not starting with the right mentality in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, money is a big part of it but it can’t be the only reason if you really want to build a successful long term career.

Ultimately Sales is about helping people solve problems or achieve goals. You need to believe that what you’re selling can really make a positive impact for the right type of customers. If you don’t believe in what you’re selling and you’re just trying to get a commission check then you’re the type of sales rep who gives the rest of us a bad name. I was told early in my career that Sales is the transfer of enthusiasm. When you truly believe in what you do Sales is a lot more fun and you will be much more successful in the long term.

ABOUT JOHN BARROWS

John Barrows, Boston, MA. I grew up in a small town middle class household with two awesome parents and a sister who was 9 years older than me. I was average at school but liked playing basketball and painting more than going to class. I went to University of Maryland because they didn’t force me to declare my major until my junior year and the school was 3x larger than my home town. I went from majoring in Art, to Engineering, to Biology and finally landed on Business/Marketing. After graduating I didn’t like any of the job opportunities in Marketing so i got into Sales with selling DeWalt Power tools to construction workers. From there I went to Xerox where I got my real Sales education selling copiers to State and Local Government accounts. After that I joined a start-up company my friend from high school started and the rest is history.

2

WHAT IS BIZDEV?

What is business development? Or BizDev for short.

LMGTFY.

This is probably the best acronym I have ever heard in my journey to the top, and it won’t be the last time you see it. We live in an era where information is available more than ever. Yet, most people are too lazy to dig and search for answers. You aren’t most people.

But if you haven’t already, Let me Google that for you.

Per my Google search:

In the simplest terms, business development can be summarized as the ideas, initiatives, and activities that help make a business better. - Investopedia.com

And in the era of innovation, companies are looking for people to do just that, help make their business better.

Does this definition sound pretty broad and unrestricted?

Business development is one of those business terms that can either be very technical or confusing to many people. Still, the actual act of business development is actually not hard to understand.

In its simplest form, business development is the activity of building business relationships.

It asks the question, how can you identify opportunities to position yourself or your organization for growth?

And guess what?

There is an indefinite number of ideas, initiatives, and strategies that, when applied strategically, can be used to help make a business better. It is an exchange of value between individuals and businesses that goes far beyond leads, sales, or contracts.

Some companies use the term to refer to sales.

Others use it to refer to crucial individuals tasked with creating strategic partnerships. Yet, for others, early-stage companies and startups, it is the process through which the initial product or offering is validated on the market and can find its footing.

What do all these things have in common?

They can create long-term value for a company.

The how, though, can evolve and change as a business grows.

The Real Question

With over 1.5 million jobs available, which include the high-paying, revenue-generating title of business development, why haven’t most people heard about it, and why is it overlooked by so many people of color.

(Search business development on any major job board in any location and watch what you find.)

The reason is that this career path is highly associated with the taboo field of sales.

And because so many people associate sales with words like:

Pushy

Annoying

Sleazy

Manipulative

Lier

And either they have had a bad experience or know of a bad experience in consumer, retail, or any other B2C type sales role, and that bias about sales keeps them away.

But the reality is that we are all in sales, whether we want to believe it or not, and the sooner we accept that reality, the better we will be at interviewing and the more money we will make.

3

WHAT IS SALES?

We are all in sales. Yes, even if your knee-jerk reaction is to say you hate it.

From your personal life to your professional life and from dating to cold calling, sales is a fact of life and an activity we engage with daily, often without realizing it.

Behind the hate of sales, there is another underlying emotion: fear.

But make friends with it, and you will not fail in life.

As with everything else, there are rules and ways that work better than others.

The issue for most people arises when they have convinced themselves they are either:

A: I’m not good at sales

B: I’m not interested in sales

But if we take it as a given that sales is a fact of life, not learning about sales can have a negative effect on your professional and personal success.

It is a challenge worth embracing and a fear worth conquering, for it has the potential to change your life in a multitude of ways.

Take a moment to do this simple exercise.

Write down the products and services that you bought this month.

You most likely had to buy groceries, pay for your car insurance, make a donation to a charity, or purchase toys for your kids or a new pair of pants.

These are the things that were sold to you. Often without you realizing the underlying forces at play that pushed you towards that decision.

Now write down the things that you sold.

If you are struggling, let me suggest some things that you may not have considered selling.

• An idea that you suggested during a meeting at work.

• The movie you wanted to see at the cinema and had to convince your friends to join you.

• A promise you made to your kid to buy them an item they wanted if they cleaned their room or got good grades.

• The interview you did with a company where you were asked to list your accomplishments.

• A date you went on with someone new that you wanted to impress.

• Asking friends for donations for a charity run you will do.

• A product you like and suggest to a friend.

One could say that from the moment we are born and learn how to communicate with others and use language, we are either being sold to or actively selling.

I think it is pretty clear by now that even though only 1 in 8 employed adults in the U.S. are employed in actual sales positions, we are all actively practicing that skill daily.

And if you agree with that, then learning how to get better at a skill that you already have to do should be a pretty simple and straightforward decision.

"Sales and non-sales selling are ultimately about service. But ‘service’ isn’t just smiling at customers when they enter your boutique or delivering a pizza in thirty minutes or less, though both are important in the commercial realm. Instead, it’s a broader, deeper, and more transcendent definition of service—improving others’ lives and, in turn, improving the world.—Daniel H. Pink

4

WHY AND WHAT IS S.A.A.S.?

Here is a fun fact: 70% of the business apps companies use are SaaS-based.

What does that mean?

What is SaaS, and why should that matter to you?

In the not-so-distant past, the World Wide Web as we know it today was only just starting to come into its own.

Before we could develop a cost-effective and convenient way to access cloud-based solutions, mainframe computers, large processors, and in-house machines used only for individual businesses were the standard.

Most large companies required in-house IT departments and staff to manage the data and system updates through a local area network (LAN), which was limited to a small area or network.

By 2000, the World Wide Web had entered our lives, and the idea of storing information offsite became a