 What's happening guys? It's Shane here and this is one of my most exciting interviews that I've ever done. I was able to get Antoine from the channel Black Heights on YouTube onto the channel. Now Antoine has over 10 years of experience in tech and he has about five years or so of experience in tech sales. Now tech sales is one of those rare careers that you can get into without any experience and without a college degree and it has a lot of really positive things going for it. There's a lot of vertical and horizontal growth. You can make a lot of money right off the bat and you can make even more money down the line. It's also very flexible. You can do it remotely and most importantly there is a ton of demand and not to spoil the video but Antoine is about five years into his career in tech sales and he's making over $500,000 a year. So this video is going to showcase what's possible if you go into tech sales and you get really really good at it. And Antoine is just a wholesome, really awesome guy in general and I think you're going to enjoy his story. So definitely watch this one all the way through. Let's go ahead, gently tap that like button. Let's try to get this one to 1,000 likes and we're going to jump in right now. Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. It's Shane here and today I'm extremely excited to bring on a guest. This is a very special guest. I've been trying to get him on the channel for a little bit. Very busy guy. I was also busy but I finally got him to come on. This is going to be Antoine from Black Heights. Thank you so much for coming on the channel, Antoine. I appreciate you having me here, Shane. You've been an instrumental person in the Black Heights journey. So the fact that you and I are on this interview right now and this discussion just brightens my day and I was looking forward to this day for many years. So thank you so much for having me on, sir. Well, I really appreciate that and I'm happy I could make that come true for you but it's all you and you make awesome content and just to give a little bit of an introduction for Antoine, basically he has a channel Black Heights. He talks about a lot of different things on the channel but a lot of careers in tech, how to break into tech, tech sales and he is somebody who is extremely experienced in many different areas of tech but specifically tech sales and we're going to get into that a little bit later. We're going to kind of talk about some of the numbers and stuff but he really, really knows his stuff when it comes to tech sales. So this is an interview where people actually commented on my channel. They wanted me to get you on so I'm super happy we're able to do this but let's jump right into it right now. Let's start at the very beginning, the beginning of your career and technology. You first got into technology. You were working in several different verticals and then you discovered kind of tech sales and can you kind of just walk us through that a little bit and how that happened? Yeah, absolutely. So Shane, let me tell you this. I spent about 15 years of my career doing everything besides tech sales. What I mean by that, I started my career off as a software engineer and kind of climbed the ladder from a software engineer to a senior software engineer to a master software engineer and then decided I wanted to be a tech lead, a project lead and so forth in the supply chain SaaS tech industry. So all the industries, the only industry that I've actually ever been in is the supply chain software space. So needless to say, as I continue to climb the ladder, I made the dive into tech sales, given the opportunity and the company that I've been at for over seven years. And a lot of that opportunity came from me just being a stand up employee, somebody who's always gotten results, a leader and so forth. So unlike a lot of people when they enter into tech sales, they go through the route of a software development, a business development rep, which are your entry level sales roles. Well, since I've already had a good amount of experience across the entire company, they put me directly in a outside slash inside sales role with a quota of about 1.2 million that I had to find a way how I can bring that revenue into the company. And within the first three months, I sold about 600,000. And by the end of the fiscal year, I was over that 1.2 million making presidents club. So my journey to tech sales is unique because I've had a lot of experience across many parts of the business. But I think with my experience, it allows me to have a lot more success than many people who have gone directly in the sales without a lot of the experiences that I've shared as well, or without the experiences that I've been through within my space and so forth. Okay. So you had all that experience and you kind of made a horizontal shift into tech sales from other technology related roles. But how long have you been working in tech sales at this point? Yes. So Shane, I've been in tech sales for about four years now. So I started off as what one could consider as an area sales director, having both hunter and farmer experience. Many of you may not know what that is, but if you think about a hunter, hunter goes out there and brings in business to the company. They're the ones who are really knocking on doors and pounding the pavement and so forth. And a farmer is one that already has an existing book of business and tries to grow that book of business by planting additional seeds. Got it. Let's get into kind of the really important points here and we'll kind of just briefly go over them. The things I always talk about is demand is probably the most important thing. And then another thing I talk about is job satisfaction. And that kind of ties into flexibility, in my opinion, because the truth is like a lot of the time people will go into a job, it's not their favorite job in the world. But as long as it's a flexible career where if you get tired of it after a few years, you can switch, typically your job satisfaction is going to be pretty good because everybody's different. Not everyone is built to be in tech sales. But having that experience, getting that skill, it might help you later on down the line in something else. And then the third thing I like to talk about is, of course, pay. We got to talk about pay. That's what everyone wants to hear. So if you're comfortable talking about that, you can also bring that up as well. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about demand. So if you think about it, every company needs people in sales. Why? Well, they need to grow their revenue. They need to bring in revenue so that they can actually support the business. So sales in general is the lifeblood of every single company. And sales is nothing other than turning a prospective customer into a paying customer. So if you think about the demand of raw and sales rows, you're going to constantly see if you're going to LinkedIn or Glassdoor or any of these searches, you're going to see hundreds of thousands of opportunities open every single year. I think the last search that I did back in April, there was over 400,000 sales rows that exist out there. So you already know that the man is high from a job satisfaction standpoint, right? Job satisfaction in sales. Let me just tell you this. Some people handle stress a little bit better than others. Sales in my career have been probably the most stressful of the rows that I've also had. Now, also what I would say is that sales have been the most flexible in my career as well. So again, I've had rows in software engineering on the consulting side as well as on the development side. I've had rows into project management, project leads. I've had rows into leadership where I was leading a customer support organization, a customer success organization in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia out of this country. And overall, I would say it's the most stressful, but also the most flexible. What I mean by the most flexible is that if you are making your number, if you are exceeding your expectations or even meeting your expectations and you balance your data correct way, you can have a lot more time with your family. I'm a husband. I'm a father to two beautiful kids and a wonderful wife. And on a Monday or Tuesday, in my previous row, we would probably be at the vineyard. I'll probably be working at the vineyard, either working for my boat, right? So the satisfaction is certainly there, but don't get me wrong. When you're working on a big deal, it can be very stressful. Why? Because senior leaders are looking for you to close the deal so that they can report numbers to Wall Street or report numbers to the board of the company if the company is private and so forth. So there's a lot more pressure on you. Therefore, people will say that it's a very stressful job. Now, let's talk about the money aspect of a shame because that's where the rubber meets the road, right? I made a good amount of money within my career, sir. I've made a good amount of money. Let me just say this, right? So living out in the country, being a GM of a division in my company and so forth, it's making anywhere around like $250,000. With a good bonus, I was probably making close to $300,000, okay? $300,000 USD. My first year in sales meeting the quota, I made $378,000, okay? More money than I ever had in my life, right? And it was my first year, right? And let me, something that I didn't say was that I was only in the road nine months, not a full fiscal year, not a full 12 months. So I was only in the road nine months and still made the $1.2 million out quota. So I made $378,000. The next year, the next year, I made $394,000. Well, all of a sudden, the pandemic happened, right? The pandemic happened and I built those relationships with my customers. They love me at this point in time. Well, they have a huge spending budget and they don't want to take their IT operations to other RFP or to other supply team vendors or other vendors that they don't know. So of course, it makes it easy for them to purchase from somebody that they already know, especially if your software or your solutions can solve their problems. So Shane, I was sitting back like you are right now doing some wonderful things, just collecting paychecks, right? Just collecting paychecks because customers will come to me, Antoine, I need this. Antoine, I need this. Antoine, I need this. Antoine, I need this. And let's just pull it like this, Shane. My last year, my W2 shows that I've made $540,000. A little bit over, but let's just say $540,000, right? So that's the type of money that you can make in tech sales. Now, all tech sales aren't equal. I'm in an industry that most of you guys probably have heard of to supply chain now because it's all since the pandemic happened. It's been in the news constantly, right? So people are always talking about demand, supply and all this other stuff. I've been in this industry for 17 years. So it's a huge focus now into most executives' vision for their companies. So of course, they're investing a lot more money into it, which therefore means that they're buying more solutions and software from me. So this year, I'm probably going to pace to probably do a little bit bigger than $540, probably close around 600 or something around those lines. We'll see how it works out. But right now, I'm on pace after this first quarter of closing a good $1.3 million deal to exceed my expectations by a lot more. So the money is there, Shane. It's absolutely fantastic. And I would encourage more people to consider this path. You don't have to necessarily be the person that is the one that's selling. You can be somebody who is a solution consultant or sales engineer, because you like the technical parts of it. You want to remain technical, but you can still be in sales, still making a good amount of money. And that's the money that you can make. You can make hundreds of thousands of dollars. I know people who actually made more than our CEO when we were a private company, and that's like close to $1 million or over a million dollars, Shane. So the money is out here to get, sir. Wow. That's all I can say. I mean, wow. That is incredible. So somebody who maybe just discovered tech sales or they're looking to maybe get into it, what resource would you recommend that is probably the easiest way to get into tech sales for somebody who either has no experience, no college degree, or maybe they do have a college degree, but it's not related, or they're in a job that they kind of want to switch out of and get into tech sales. Yeah. So most recently, I partnered with a company called Course Careers, right? And they do a fantastic job of getting people into sales. And Shane, you probably know this company as well, too. And the gentleman who owns the company, his name is Troy. I had an opportunity to meet him, a fantastic individual. And basically his goal is to help individuals get into sales with or without a degree. And he starts you off at the entry level roles, which is an SDR sales development rep or a business development rep. That is a very good course and a very good bootcamp that you should consider in order for you to get into sales. It's tried and true. And there are a lot of people who are getting results. Now, outside of things like course careers and stuff like that, right? The way they get into tech sales is really to research it, understand if it's a good place for you, understand what your requirements of the job is. And once you know that you are pretty much a good fit for tech sales, you're probably going to want to look at a couple of YouTube videos and understand exactly what the sales development reps do, business development reps do, account executives, account managers, and so forth. And then what you can do from there is either you can go to other boot camps that exist out there, sales boot camps or sales training courses. One of the ones that exists out there that I did when I was going through training inside my company is Miller Hyman's. They exist out there. The Challenger Sales, they exist out there. They have books behind this as well too. You can read a whole bunch of books. But that's the other way that you can take to get into sales as well too. But I recommend, after coming across Course Career Shane and what Troy's mission is, I definitely recommend Course Careers. And I've had a number of my mentors and students that I've coached to enter that program, and they're getting really good results. Got it. And I will put Course Careers Troy made a free training. I will put that down in the description as well as the pinned comment. And also definitely don't forget to check out Antoine's channel, Black Heights. I will also put that down in the description and the pinned comment as well. And I'm not sure. Sometimes they let me link stuff. Sometimes they don't. So if they let me link it, I'll put it somewhere up here as well, either in the cards or on the end screen. Yeah, really in like Course Careers, what they're doing is phenomenal. And I will just say, is there any other advice that you would give to people who are potentially looking to get into tech sales? Absolutely. I think one of my favorite books that I was recommended before actually took on the role itself, Shane, was a book called How to Be a Rainmaker. And of course, many of you know what a rainmaker is. They make it rain, right? It's a fantastic book, a short read, but it really gives you a good understanding of the fundamental sales that it's an art, you know, and it's something that you all can learn. And it's something that most people have to do. And it's a lifelong skill that's going to benefit you for the rest of your life. So if you get some experience in tech sales, you can help to influence your career and get promotions and to communicate effectively and so forth that will benefit you in your personal and your professional career. So I recommend that book. I recommend somebody, most of us, to gain some experience in some sort of sale, whether you're going to become an entrepreneur in your life or not, sales will always be pivotal in your life and in your journey. So that's what I got to say on that, Shane, from a sales perspective. And I think that book will give some people a good introduction in what sales really is about and just the art behind it. Got it. I have not read that book, but I'll have to check it out. So I appreciate the recommendation and I appreciate you coming on the channel as well. Thank you so much for doing this interview, Antoine. What you're doing is awesome, teaching people how to get into tech, teaching people how to get into tech sales and these roles that are just, they're changing people's lives. You know, in some cases you can actually just skip college, you don't have to go to college, because that can really set you back. In some cases, depending on the career that you're going for, college is not necessary. So really love what you're doing. Again, everyone go check out Black Heights. I'll link that down in the description as well as the pinned comments. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on the channel, Antoine. Appreciate it. Thank you, Shane. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Continue to do the fantastic work that you're doing, sharing your personal experiences, but also sharing that, you know, college is not needed for everything, right? And, you know, I think it's waking people to make better career decisions and better life decisions that's going to stop them from going in its endless circle of debt and allow for them to come out of the starting blocks, sprinting versus crawling, as a lot of people are doing today.