This is going to be hard for people to hear, but the last 3 to 5 years have been a very strong employee market... and that has completely flipped.

This is the worst job market for tech in the last 20 years and the tech startup scene is likely going to be 20 to 30 percent smaller than it was at its peak. A lot of people will be pushed out.

Employers really do have the pick of the bunch these days.

If you’ve had 5 jobs in the last 3 years, it will be harder to compete with someone who spent the last 4 years at one company, overachieving their quota. 

The other thing that we don’t talk about enough is that sales compensation has gone up enormously. When I started, a mid-market account executive would get a 130k OTE. Now it's 200K. A huge increase. 

And the thing that happens when you push a sales rep's OTE up is very simple… For every dollar you give the sales rep you add 4 to their quota. 

Let’s say someone has a 100K base with 200K OTE, and an $800K quota. 

Now increase the base to $125K, and OTE to $250K, and their quota now has to be $1M. 

And we wonder why sales performance has fallen off a cliff…

Salespeople have become a lot more expensive.

Mercury did a study on this in 2021 (and these numbers are actually worse today).

For every 330 applicants who applied on their website or LinkedIn, they hired 1 person.

But for every 20 people a recruiter reached out to, 1 was hired.

And for every 10 that were internally referred, 1 was hired.

So your odds are:

Website application: 1 in 330
Through a recruiter: 1 in 20
Internal referral: 1 in 10

In today’s job market, I would actually put a LinkedIn application closer to a 1 in 600 chance.

If you’re thinking about joining a startup, ask yourself: is this company solving a real problem?

Here’s an example…

I was recently talking to a great CRO who’s taken a company from $0 to $30M in ARR, and I wanted his opinion on a new startup. Their tagline is “AI-powered search for all your apps. Never miss what matters.” Basically a productivity tool.

So I asked him: “Put yourself back into your old role. Are you okay with spending $30K/ year on a solution like this?”

The answer is no.

It might be cool to have, but no team really needs it.

So the question most salespeople need to ask is: Are you selling something that people need to have, or are you selling something that would be nice to have?

You want to sell a product that people need to have.

The first thing you need to do is make yourself as marketable as possible.

> Resume in PDF format.
> Professional LinkedIn profile.
> Deal size, performance, big logos you closed, etc.

Put your numbers up on LinkedIn. And if your numbers aren’t put where you were at in the company.

So if you were 64% to quota, but you ranked #2 out of 12 reps, say you were the #2 rep on your team.

Talk about your achievements, but don't give us BS like “I help manage cross functional meetings”. All that tells me is you didn't do anything important at your job.

But if you can say “I brought on Exxon mobile for a $120K contract”, now I've got a selling point that I can use.

Lastly, if you are currently employed, make sure you’re recording your numbers. Put a reminder on your calendar at the end of every month and record your numbers in your own system.

The day you need those numbers is the day you won't have access to your company’s systems, and you'll be thanking yourself for writing them down.

You owe it to yourself.