Sales Management Podcast
Cory Bray, 8x author and co-founder of CoachCRM, digs into hot sales management topics.
Sales Management Podcast
85. Debate Show - Is sales mentally taxing or a luxury high-paying job? with Matt Firestone
Matt and I butted heads on LinkedIn so I invited him on the show to debate. This is a high energy show and we really get into it.
Welcome to the Sales Management Podcast, your source for actionable sales management strategies and tactics. I'm your host, coach CRM co-founder, corey Gray. No long intros, no long ads. Let's go Debate topic time. It's election season, so we're going to do another one of these fellas. Y'all love them. That's why we do them. I'm here talking with Matt Firestone about some things that we had commented on on the internet around how hard sales jobs really are, and are they something that puts an immense amount of pressure on folks that can really destroy them mentally, or is it one of the highest paying professions in the world? At all things considered, it's a pretty luxury seat to sit in. Matt, how are you?
Speaker 2:how's it going? Thank you again, um, for the invite. I I don't, um, a lot of people try to shy away when they get pushed back on ideas, especially on linkedin, and when folks like you that actually want to engage in conversations. I think is is unique and it's rare and it's amazing because I learned a little bit from it. Hopefully the people that are following you know the common thread of this conversation learn a little bit from it. So I sincerely appreciate sort of the pushback on my post and I'm happy to talk about it today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. Well, I think if people don't discuss things, then people get into their camps and you divide. I mean, you look at what's happened to the news media, corporate news, over the last 20 years. You used to have debate shows. You'd have somebody on this side, somebody on that side. They talk about it and then they'd agree to part ways. Now you just have one person yelling at the TV and that's the way the world's changed and that's the way most things are, and I don't like it.
Speaker 2:Yep, that sounds like LinkedIn every day a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:So here's here's my take. Sure, if you're, if you're in a sales job, you're in a sales development job. If you're in a customer success job, you sit inside in the air conditioning during daylight hours. You make more money than almost anybody in the world and within your age group. You make more money than almost anybody within the general American or whatever country you're in population. You make more money than most people and at the same time, you've got fairly tight math around what to expect based on certain types of input, yield, certain types of activity. And yeah, there's variables, there's variants, but that's it. So I don't. I don't see where this doom and gloom around mental health is coming from. Help me out.
Speaker 2:OK. So I think there's a couple of things I want to break down. First is the assumption that everyone in sales is making a million dollars, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1:I didn't say a million dollars.
Speaker 2:That's not what I said. No, I'm not saying I'm not using that specific number, but I'm saying that, saying everyone in sales necessarily necessarily making so much more than everyone else around sort of their, their social circles or whatever it might be. I think the statistics show that we're good earners. I specifically happen to be based in Israel, so it's a bit of a different scale. So I admit that it's different and you're probably talking from your experience in the States. So once again, I admit that there could be a disparity there from your experience in the States. So I once again I admit that there could be a disparity there.
Speaker 2:I don't believe that everyone in sales is is making a hundred K plus from at least in tech sales, in the sales development space. I certainly know that's not the case, at least right now, for folks that are that are starting out or even in their first couple of years. So that's one one thing in general. I do agree the there's a high potential of growth. You have a high potential to be a high earner. I do agree with that.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's mutually exclusive. I do think you can have a comfortable job, a comfy job that also has a lot of mentally taxing, if you will, and I think that a lot of folks are afraid or have a stigma around talking about the toll that it does take. I'm very happy with how much I earn. I personally also. I do go to counseling. I seek help for myself. I know a lot of folks that do.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's anything wrong with that and I think that we almost have to push back a little more because there's so much negative speak about you know, talking about that sort of thing. So I agree it's comfortable, I agree that we can make a lot of money. But I don't think that negates the fact that there is that whole that idea that this KPR, this quote, is constantly sitting over my head and in a way, apr, this quote, is constantly sitting over my head and in a way I see that might be the price you pay for the comfort of the job I get that. That doesn't take away the fact that it's sort of creeping up on me even when I'm not at work and my computer's closed. I'm trying to be with my kids. It's there all the time and I think it's okay to talk about that.
Speaker 1:Well, I think there's a couple of things. So there's the goal, there's the is it okay to talk about it? And then there's the actual financial side of it. So I think you quoted some things around what the average person makes. So clarify to us, sure for a specific and you can throw out a specific role, from sales development to enterprise sales, like what's the thing that you're most familiar with or that's in your world, and then what's what's average person making that role?
Speaker 2:So I believe, in the posts I referenced, repview, which has, I think, the most up-to-date and comprehensive job statistics, income statistics for tech sales. The world I'm in is sales development. So, yeah, so sales development, sdr work I don't have the numbers in front of me. I believe the average, I believe the median income for SDRs in the United States is around the 70, 80 mark. If you're um OTE, if you're, if you're on target, that's median, not average. And I, once again, I don't have the numbers in front of me I believe the high, that sort of the, the, the average for the higher earners is going to hit um, maybe around 110, 115 K. Um, obviously I'm talking to a national average, I'm not talking about per state, and that could yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1:And how does that translate to to places like israel? Because I don't know. Are y'all paid about the same or do do the? Does the pay go up? Does it go down?
Speaker 2:it's it's different just because we have a lot of um things like, like health care, which we we have, everyone in israel has. It's a public health care system. So there there are certain things that are a little different. In general, high tech tends to pay, on average, less than it does in the States, but more than other sectors in Israel. So by Israeli standards, it's considered very well. Obviously, the standard of living is different and the cost of living is different in Israel. So I would say those numbers are probably, for all these external factors, probably a bit lower in Israel. So I would say those numbers are probably, for all these external factors, probably a bit lower in Israel. But it is a respectable salary in Israel as well, for sure.
Speaker 1:And for a sales development job. These days, you don't even have to have a college education. People hire folks without a college degree, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as a manager, I've hired plenty of folks without college degrees 100%.
Speaker 1:So I'm looking at the numbers here. Sure, according to Google, average US median no median, so we're working in medians. Median household income in the US $74,580 a year, which puts it right in the middle of that range of $70,000 to $80,000 that you'd mentioned. So you're able to take somebody who doesn't have a college degree in an entry-level job and make as a single person what the median household makes in the US and over. In Israel, median household income is $41,000 per year, and so this is the jackpot. It's not one of those things where you had to work your way up for all these years and all these decades to get to the median place. As a single person, you're making as much as a married couple the median married couple in the country. That seems like such an amazing opportunity You're winning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my intention was never to scare people away from the industry. I am a huge advocate. I'm one of the biggest SDR evangelists out there and I speak to folk all the time about what a great foot in the door, especially into the tech world. Like I said, in Israel that happens to be a very high pay compared to other industries, but even in the States it is a great foot in the door. For someone that wants to break into tech but might not be mathematics or a coder or no computer as well, it's a great foot in the door and there's huge earning potential.
Speaker 2:That's not exclusive, with the fact that it takes a certain toll. It's not a role that's based that's like project-based which has its own stresses. It's something that you're constantly proving yourself. You're constantly going back to zero at the end of the month, the end of the quarter, and it's heavy. For myself. One of the pluses is the flexibility. I'm speaking to you right now from New York. I'm able to come here for two months with my family. I live in Israel, but most roles wouldn't allow me the flexibility to just spend two months in another country. That's amazing. It's wonderful. On the other hand, at the end of the day I'm going to turn off my computer and I'm still going to be thinking about those conversations that I had and you know I'm still trying to book this meeting and how close I am to quota and that is constantly sitting on me and it's that's less about the industry and more about how us individually interact and handle stress. I get that, but I think it's important to bring that to light.
Speaker 1:I think the interesting thing is, in this world the activity leads to outcome. Yes, if you're in a company that's in a market at a time and in place, so 2024 company X, market Y, it's fairly predictable. If I do X activity, I'm going to see an outcome that's in the range of Y to Z. The variance isn't wild. Is that fair?
Speaker 2:Yes, I would say, not the caveat, but one thing that I should mention based on my experience and I'm curious sort of where your experience crosses over with this my experience is with founder-led and early stage startups where the predictability is still. We're sort of still building that engine and start trying to figure out that predictability and finding that success. So when you're building something from scratch and you can't rely on those numbers right out of the gate and you're still finding to figure out that process that will give you the data to rely on to be able to have those repeatable sales. That's the role that I live in in the day-to-day at my current role and also in my consulting job, because I'm usually referring to folks that don't have a sales engine so they can't say let's get an SDR. We already know that if they make X amount of calls and send X amount of emails that they'll likely hit that number, you know they're. They're building up that engine from scratch, so there's a lot of unknowns there.
Speaker 1:In in terms of if you're making phone calls, if you're sending emails, if you're getting referrals. The activity to conversation rate should still be fairly constant, though. Is that fair?
Speaker 1:Yes, so you're still getting the conversation. So then the question is, what do you do with those conversations? Because your point is well, if you're in a nascent market or if the company's new and you don't have a brand and maybe the product doesn't work yet, then the opportunity to just say, well, I'm going to convert this because we're we're writing that wave of brand equity. That doesn't necessarily happen in early days. You've got to rely on your conversational skills or something else that you're doing to convert it, or there's just going to be a higher variance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say that's fair. Yeah, that's a fair way to put it.
Speaker 1:So you're going in knowing the variance is high.
Speaker 2:It's, it's, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:It's like when you go into a casino.
Speaker 2:You want to play roulette? Right, are we playing the numbers?
Speaker 1:interesting colors, right? So I'm playing the colors. If I'm betting black and I lose eight times in a row, I'm blown, my mind's blown, like how do I lose eight times now if I'm playing 20 black and it doesn't hit 20 for eight rolls in a row?
Speaker 1:that's kind of what's supposed to happen, yeah and I think that when when in the audience here is folks in sales management, sales leadership and people that are in management. You gotta know what game you're playing. Yes, I agree what game you're then you got to be able to prepare yourself mentally for what that looks like. If you walk in with $800 up to the roulette table and you want to put $100 on black and then you're going to bet $100 the next minute and then $100 the next minute, you're probably going to have some fun, have a good time.
Speaker 1:Long-term you're going to lose, because that's just how it works, but you're going to have some wins and you're going to have some losses. You're going to play the game. Now. If you go and put $100 on 20, the number 20 every time, double green you got a 38 to 1 chance of winning that Not good odds. Eight rolls later you're probably going to be out of money. And if you know what the game you're playing is before you start playing the game, you can set yourself up mentally for what those results are going to be, what that variance is going to look like. And that's where it really it's really hard for me to empathize with folks that get upset and frustrated about the results of a game when they know what game they're playing.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So a few points on that, and I love the analogies that really bring it to life.
Speaker 2:I'm not a gambler myself, um, but I'm sure I am there's not many opportunities in Tel Aviv but um, when I, when I, when I'm in a conference in Vegas, I'll. I'll keep this in mind. Maybe I'll reach out to you for some tips. You talk about sort of mental readiness and you talk about sort of the predictability in that. So I think being mentally ready and even having that predictability still doesn't mean that there doesn't negate the stress involved.
Speaker 2:I personally am a very consistent performer. I tend to overperform on my KPIs, even though I know the past three months I've overperformed or I've hit 100% of my quota. I might be the exception here. I don't think I am based on my conversations with other sales folk but even though I'm consistently hitting my quota, I still start the month when I'm back to zero with anxiety and stress, even though I know I've done it every single month since I started this position. I don't think that's a rare thing to say and it's not.
Speaker 2:You mentioned feeling upset. It's not a feeling. Even if I don't hit quota, it's not a feeling of being upset. I'm more referring to the anxiety of having to build that up again from scratch, even though I have the history to rely on. So me personally, consistent KPI hitter, but I still have that anxiety at the beginning of the month. I still have that pit in my stomach of how am I going to do this? And it might not be logical because I can look back at the last couple of quarters and see that I've always made it through. But I still start off that first day of the month saying, wow, look at this mountain I have to climb ahead of me.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you this question. Imagine that you're not in sales anymore. Now you're in product management. Okay, the CEO says hey, matt, we're going to have you lead the launch of a new feature. We're going to go build a widget feature in our product and we've got some ideas about what it could be, but it's a blank piece of paper. Okay, paper, okay. How does that change in a project, in a product management role? It seems like you're dealing with the exact same scenario you just laid out for me in a sales role.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're right, it could I assume that there's a lot of stress and anxiety in that as well?
Speaker 1:Because you're starting with a blank piece of paper and you or let's say that you get promoted to general manager of APAC and they say hey, we want you to take us to Singapore and open an office, hire regional managers in a bunch of different countries across Korea and China and Indonesia, and we want you to grow that business. You start with blank piece of paper and I think that does it happen every month. No, but if you got a job like that, the magnitude of the consequences are substantially bigger. It's a much bigger thing than converting outreach into conversations. I think, well, this is just life, and I think that's one of the things that I pull it back to, which is if a person's in a sales role and they think that it's a uniquely stressful, hard, mentally challenging position, I don't believe that would change if they went into a different role.
Speaker 2:So that's an interesting point. I instinctively disagree with you. I think that, once again, my experience is specifically in sales development. My experience is specifically in cold outbound outreach, where you're dealing with constant rejection.
Speaker 1:You're dealing with a lot of unknowns, especially as you're building up a new product with a lot of unknowns, especially as you're building up a new product or sort of planned rejection, planned unknowns. You know you're going to get rejected. That's the plan, it's not. It's not like it's a surprise, it's like I'm going to get rejected by nine people out of 10 that I talked to and that's just table stakes.
Speaker 2:I still. So I once again this could be me personally but I still don't think the fact that it's planned and the fact that I I also it planned and the fact that I I also it's the morning here in New York I haven't started my calls today. I'll eventually get to you know my 80, whatever calls it is today, and I know there's going to be mostly rejections and that's fine, yeah, but me knowing that going that, going into it, doesn't mean that I start that I pick up the phone and have that anxiety every time or I start the month with that anxiety, even though I know that's the plan. I don't think I, I know that's the plan, I don't think. I think knowing the plan and understanding that it's part of the process is super important and it's something that I work through constantly.
Speaker 2:I don't think that necessarily. I don't think me knowing that that's going to happen and knowing that that's part of the process takes away that anxiety, takes away from that stress, takes away from that toll. It helps, and it could be there are folks out there that you know that's sort of all they need for the mindset and doesn't affect them, and you know. But I think it's a good sort of mental exercise to go into the calls and go into your outreach, knowing that that's the case. But I don't think that necessarily removes that that anxiety behind it.
Speaker 1:One of the exercises I've seen people do that works really well is they say look, my goal for the day is to get four people to tell me no.
Speaker 2:I love that. I've heard that before and I love it.
Speaker 1:And so four people tell you, no, you hit your goal. And oh, by the way, along the way, a couple of people told you, yes too, and you're in great shape. So you're just reframing things because, look, baseball, if you hit 300, you're in the hall of fame. 30, 20, 32% of the time you get a hit, 68% of the time you don't get a hit Actually, it's more than that. Cause, walks don't count your batting average. But we're not going to get in the weeds on baseball, here we go. But that's the thing, right. So you, you're planned rejection. You're going to fail more than half of the time. What Michael Jordan did? He shoot from three point land. I don't have the numbers in front of me. He probably shot 36, 37, 38, something like that. Probably shot high 40s from on two pointers. That means he missed most of his shots, yeah best player 30, 38.3.
Speaker 2:There you go no, I'm just kidding. I don't know if that's true. Yeah, best player, there you go and that's.
Speaker 1:That's what it is. So I think you'd be really hard pressed to find a job, even if you're I was watching Suits last night Sure, if you're an administrative assistant whose job is to do assistant things, well, your boss has variability, and variability exists in the world and so I think the thing that I would caution sales leaders and sales managers about is, if the team is coming to you and showing that they're special, that they're different, that their job is stressful, I would argue to open the aperture, because I always see these comments and posts about things like sales development's the hardest job in business, and they're always made by people whose only job has ever been sales development or by people who are getting paid by sponsors to push something that has to do with that type of stuff. For sure, the hardest job is to create something out of nothing. That's the hardest job, and then it flows downhill from there. That's my take.
Speaker 2:That's interesting, um, I, I, so I, I think I think it's easy to agree that. You know there there are certain stresses with every job. I do think there's unique stresses, um, in sales, for the reasons that we mentioned. I do think that there are ways to um to to negate that, and there's exercises and there's sort of like we talked about. I think there's a lot of things you can do to understand what you're getting into and you really should understand what you're getting into when you know the nature of the role and some of the unknowns that come along with someone who's you know, built on cold outreach or whatever. Sales development. Um, I agree with that. I I still think that there is a unique anxiety that comes around quota carrying positions. I don't think that I that doesn't mean I'm not sensitive to the fact that every, even project-based roles have their own sort of stress factors and anxiety. Is it fair to say that one is heavier than the other? Maybe not.
Speaker 1:And I don't think, I don't think we should have the oppression Olympics over here.
Speaker 2:No, Right, right, right, right, right right. Anti-oppression Olympics. I'll put that out there right now. Um, so I, I think I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I, I just I, I think it's it's worth talking about for the fact that that it's it's sort of taboo, and I think there's a lot of help people can get, whether it it's exercises, whether it's understanding, learning more about mindset, sort of like we talked about, whether it's getting external help. So, even if it might not be the most stressful job in the world and even if there's a lot you know that it's comfy and I get it I still think it should be talked about. I still think that I still think there's sort of what to say on that, on that plane, about it.
Speaker 1:Here's what I'd push people on, and I don't know if people can do whatever they want so they can do all those things that you just mentioned. The first thing that I would say is take a blank piece of paper maybe maybe a notebook, maybe notebook and not on that first page, right target market at the top of it, and draw out. If you, leading a sales team, have everybody on the team do this, draw out your target market. Just give them that command, see what they come up with and then say, all right, next page, let's list out our personas. For each persona, tell us what they do, what pain they have that's relevant to us how we win with them. Third page, competitors tell us each one of the competitors how we win, how we battle, how we use we're working off blank pieces of paper here. People, we're not referencing some document that we get this illusion of mastery. We look at and we like, oh, I've seen that before, so I know you don't know it. Just because you recognize something doesn't mean you know it. And then here's the kicker, here's the one that really gets people. Take out the next piece of paper and write down all the customers that you can think of that, have had successful working relationships with our company. What what they come to us with? What was it? What was the pain challenge that they came to us with? What did they buy from us and what were their results?
Speaker 1:Have people do this exercise on blank piece of paper. I guarantee you it's going to probably be an utter failure. They are are. They might cry. I've had people cry doing this. They'll be really. And you tie this back.
Speaker 1:And here's the fun thing to do before you even start this exercise, you ask them a couple of questions. Before we start this exercise, we say what is mitochondria? And some, if not all of them will be like oh, it's in biology, it's the powerhouse of the cell, okay, cool. And then you say what is photosynthesis? And they're going to say, oh, that's the process by which plants turn sunlight into energy. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
Speaker 1:So 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, you learn this thing from a thousand page book. You've never made a dollar off of it yet. You know these things. A blank piece of paper, five pages, in this example we just gave and outline our target market, our personas, our competition, customer stories. I think I just did four and you can't do it, but you know mitochondria and photosynthesis, so why don't we take some of that energy that we put into biology and chemistry and physics and all these things that you'll never make a dollar off of in high school and put it into our freaking job instead of worrying about stress and other things. Worry about that after you've achieved mastery. If you do all the things that I just outlined and you're still stressed out, cool, go talk to a therapist. That's fine, but don't start creating problems that don't exist because you took shortcuts and you didn't get yourself up to speed in the job, where it's the one place you've got the opportunity to literally make more money than the median household as a single individual in your first job ever.
Speaker 2:I love that exercise. I love that exercise. I'd actually do something similar with workshops that I run for startups. Putting things on paper out of all the things we talked about, I think is the biggest for myself anxiety and stress reliever. You have all these ideas that are running in your head, sort of like you mentioned. You might not know what you know and you certainly don't know what you don't know until you put it to paper. So I think that's sort of a great actionable item to leave off on. I think it's great for SDR teams. I think it's great for individual contributors. I think it's also great for managers to sort of, you know, even if you want to test yourself and you know, I think that's a great place to leave off there. I'm happy you mentioned that. It's a great breakdown.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everybody should do it. If you want to see some templates and frameworks for it my fourth book Sales Playbooks Builder's Toolkit I'll send you a free PDF copy. Shoot me a note. Freestuffatcoachcrmcom. Freestuffatcoachcrmcom. Freestuffatcoachcrmcom. I'll get that over to you. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing, man. It's not rocket science. The lack of effort that a lot of people put into mastering their job, mastering their craft, is, I'd say, interesting, because it's so low. And then you can't come into a role and say my role's hard, it's stressful, I'm freaked out and at the same time, not have the basic fundamentals about what you actually do. It doesn't make any sense. It's like complaining that you suck at baseball when you can't even. You've never been to the batting cages before. Okay, cry me a river, go to the batting cages. Report back.
Speaker 2:So I think we could both agree that there's a lot of weight and responsibility that, besides the individual contributor has to take, that the sales manager has to take in terms of enablement, that exercises like this should be regularly thought of and implemented, and I think we need our sales managers in my case, you know, sdr manager to be more cognizant of these types of things, because without that enablement, without understanding what we're getting ourselves into and being prepped for it. Yeah, you know not to take away the responsibility of the individual contributor, the SDR, but I do think we need better enablement and we need better leadership for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. Well, I want to close up with this. You don't need a sales enablement team to do sales enablement If you're a manager out there an hour a week and we've actually got to do one hour a week manager-led enablement program. It doesn't cost anything. Shoot me a note freestuffatcoachcrmcom. Freestuffatcoachcrmcom and I'll flip it out to you. Matt, thanks so much for the conversation today. I really enjoyed it and wish you the best man. Appreciate it, man.
Speaker 2:I'm happy this all started from back and forth on LinkedIn Great conversation.
Speaker 1:Well, you got to get your. You got to find your people to talk to from somewhere, and that's a decent place to go. Yeah, alrighty, everybody, we'll see you next time. All the best.