 What's happening guys it's Shane here welcome to the channel again and today I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite careers which is sales development representative also known as tech sales software sales and business development representative I'm just going to go ahead and refer to it as tech sales from now on. So tech sales is one of about only 12 careers that in my opinion after doing an extensive amount of research are really good have really solid statistics but you can also get into them without a college degree or without any experience so if you're in a career that you really don't enjoy right now but you don't have any experience you can shift over into tech sales relatively easily. Now there are not very many careers that fall under this category the way that I look at careers is extremely stringent and it is not easy to get on this list of about 12 careers or so but tech sales is one of them. Now in doing research on tech sales I came across a bunch of different content online and one story that popped up was Abdul so Abdul is a very young guy and he was able to get into tech sales without a college degree or any background experience so I reached out to the person who posted the video and I was able to get them to come on the channel and I asked them a bunch of key questions that is stuff that you really want to know like how much can you expect to make how long it takes to get into this how much can you make right away and then how much can you expect to make mid-career how flexible is it can you do it remotely etc so without further ado you're not going to want to miss out on this one make sure to watch it all the way through we are going to jump into it right now. What's happening guys welcome back to the channel it's Shane here and I am extremely excited to welcome onto the channel another special guest today I'm welcoming Abdul onto the channel Abdul is a sales development representative basically what that means is he is in tech sales so thank you so much Abdul for coming on to the channel no problem no problem all right so let's go ahead and start at the beginning first of all I think people kind of want to know what exactly is tech sales and sales development representative can you kind of just give like a layman's term like explain like I'm five is just somebody who's never heard of it before explanation of what that is right so basically what tech sales is the role I'm in basically we sell software to you know businesses so you know business to business and what I do is I you know I'm on the phones prospecting businesses that would be a great fit for the product that we're selling and I'm just calling them up you know sending emails to them and my job is to book as many meetings as possible and get them you know sold sold on the product and you know make sure they're fit so and I think that a lot of people because I've done sales before and there's kind of this perception that people have of salesmen is like oh it's like a used car salesman type of thing and that can be true in some like B to C type roles when you're like a business selling to customers it does you know you can't have some situations like that but B to B sales is a little bit different can you would you would you agree with me yeah it is it is vastly different like especially when you said like you know the whole notion of like car you know sit car salesman it's not like that in B to B so what it is the approaches is like very consultative we really focus on making sure that there's a fit we we're not we're not jamming products in people's faces like hey buy this buy this no we don't do that we we do something called discovery and what discovery is is basically you're asking them questions to see if there's their fit like oh um what are you doing for your business what are your goals really taking time to really understand and assess whether or not what whatever we're selling to them could be something that you know would benefit them and help them so it really is more so a consultative uh you know doctor approach rather than a straight up you know stereotypical uh use carsman uh sales got it all right and um let's go ahead and kind of just start at the beginning because you have a really cool story so let's start at the beginning and talk about before you became a sales development representative like before you you were kind of in a situation you're trying to decide what career you want to go into and all that sort of thing can you kind of start at the beginning and just tell us that part of the story yeah so let's go back in the past so all righty so first of all i did not go to college because in the back of my head since i was 15 i was like i want to be entrepreneurial i want to i want to do stuff that's you know kind of outside of you know society like you know something that goes against conventional thinking i'm like let me let me try something different so right after high school i actually you know worked in retail sales at the mall i was just working at this you know sales job well not really a sales job but like you know you're talking with people uh retail i guess that you could say that's like my introduction to sales because you know we're really focused on selling you know clothes shoes and whatnot um and then it was i didn't get enough hours at that role so i had to get another role and it's funny that the next role i got was i was working the warehouse job temporary warehouse job and it it you know it wasn't the best um that job wasn't fun but you know it made me save some money but there was something that really dawned on my head like man i need to i need to you know do something different what what is available to me without having a college degree so you know i was working this warehouse job uh covid happened you know covid happened i got laid off you know got the benefits that was a good thing about it but so because of this happening i was like okay this is a perfect opportunity for me to you know try something different um so i searched up how to get a sales role without a college degree because what's funny was a friend of mine well not a friend but a co-worker of mine when i was working this warehouse job say hey you should go into sales um you're pretty charismatic you know how to talk to people well i'm like okay let me explore this let's see what sales uh could do so during covid i was just searching up you know how to get a sales role without a college degree and you know the rest was history so before sales i was working warehouse jobs i was working retail jobs just kind of all over the place really trying to find myself and really get into that you know transition okay awesome so you were in this situation where you didn't want to go to college because you knew that you wanted to go kind of an entrepreneurial route and you didn't think college is going to help you accomplish that so you were kind of on the job search you were looking for different jobs and job opportunities which was kind of hard especially at that time and then what happened that led you to sales development representative what was the discovery that led you to become uh get into this career well the discovery that you know led me to this career was it started with my what what i wanted my life to look like in the next 10 years or so so for me my long term goal is to eventually you know have my own business and a lot of business owners what a common denominator is that you have to be good at sales you have to know you know you have to know how to sell you need to know you know business business stuff like one one author that i really respect well brian tracy actually had a similar path he didn't go to college he worked these funny jobs and then he got into sales so that was like okay sales could possibly be like college for entrepreneurship for me so i was like okay let's get a sales role perfect so it aligns very well with my long term goals so i'm like yes this is what this is what i need to do i need to go into sales this is just going to be perfect so that's really what kind of you know motivated me to get into sales i was searching i'm okay how to get a sales role without you know a college degree and troyes website popped up on the search query his blog and the blog titled how to you know obviously when i searched up how to get into sales without a college degree so i read the blog and i'm like wow this is very informative this is very very informative so after reading that blog post there was another blog post that said okay how college is kind of obsolete there was another blog post and then his book was there and then i read his book and i'm like whoa this really reaffirmed my thoughts on why college is kind of unnecessary and then i was like is there a way for me to kind of get in contact with troye to help me get a sales job without a college degree and what and what popped up on the website was yeah book a one-on-one um consultation i'm like okay let's let's get this started let's let's get it going so that's how i found troye that's how i found course careers was just a simple you know search query got it and yeah i really love how you brought that point up uh one thing that i stressed over and over again on my channel is only go to college guys if it helps you achieve your goals okay don't go to college if you're just you know confused about what you want to do in your life and you do if you want to like try different things out that is an incredibly expensive way of figuring out what you want to do with your life and you're probably going to end up going to college and regretting the degree that you get so only go to college after you have a plan and you determine that college is the way that it's a way that's going to help you achieve your goals and uh one thing you mentioned uh troye's book and i i read his book as well and one uh statistic that was in his book and i thought that i knew all the stats but actually i didn't know this one until i read his book and i looked it up and confirmed it in switzerland college is actually free and only about 20 to 25 of people choose to go to free college in switzerland contrast that to the united states where college is super expensive it costs you an arm and a leg and about 70 percent of people choose to go to college in the u.s so we're the weird ones we're the ones that are in the bubble uh we have this weird obsession with college and higher education that for some reason people think it's necessary it's the only way you can get educated when in switzerland there's many other ways that people get educated they do apprenticeships internships they learn on their own sometimes they just go into an entry-level role and work their way up from there so yeah i'm really glad you brought that up because i wanted to kind of talk about that as well what would you say the pay was like at that first entry-level role that you were at actually sorry i don't want to assume you're comfortable sharing that so if you're not just kind of let me know like generally speaking what people in the same situation would expect to be paid at kind of like an entry-level role right no worries i'll just i'll spill the beans and give you the the meat and potatoes so the pay what it looks like is basically you know a base commit the base is 50 000 so i'm in canada actually so that's 50 000 and on tract right now it is like 75 000 so basically that's the potential let's say i hit all my quota i'm on pace to you know hit 75 000 a year wow that is incredible for an entry-level job that is right that is just insanely good for an entry-level job yeah and there's actually there's another youtuber i'm trying to get him on my channel we're kind of going back and forth on emails right now and he is a little bit further on in his career and he's actually making over 500 000 a year in tech sales so he's about 10 years into his career but yeah i mean the sky is the limit when it comes to sales and especially tech sales because sales is such a valuable skill in and of itself that's one another thing i've kind of talked about on the channel and you're spot on when you say it's going to help you when you're starting you know a business later on in your life as well it's definitely going to help you with that i talk about like there's kind of five or so skills but sales marketing and coding are skills that have extreme leverage you can basically leverage them to reach like hundreds of thousands or millions of people which is extremely rare to have in a skill and then another thing i talk about is how the technology industry has the most opportunity out of any industry out there you can sort of argue finance is pretty good as well especially at the upper levels but i think when you combine salary as well as quality of life technology is just it's the best for sure right um health is also pretty good when it comes to job stability but yeah technology it's definitely the top one uh if you just look at the full picture and so when you combine that that super valuable skills sales and probably what is the best industry in the world to work in that's just a killer combination for sure it is indeed it is indeed you be raking in that paper so it's beautiful it's it's great position to be in especially again as i said where i'm coming from so it's just like wow this first of all i was shocked i'm like wow this this this is out here like i can just go on google train myself get health and boom land of role like this which would probably require for your degree from for people who aren't really familiar with this like it's just insane and i'm still shocked that i've made it this far and i'm actually closing in on one year at the role so it's just it's just amazing yeah that's really awesome and and troi actually has been kind of he just told me that he's been partnering with more companies as well so at this point he basically kind of has a partnership with these companies and he can help people to kind of get roles and a lot of these companies as well so get their first like entry level role and some of the companies will actually drop their college degree requirement because a lot of companies unfortunately still have that that box that you need a tick of the college degree requirement but they actually drop it for people who go through course careers because of the fact that they just think that he's really good at teaching people like solid fundamentals of tech sales and yeah it's kind of one of those things where in college marketing and sales and just business in general i mean i guess there's some corporate stuff you can learn in college but business in general is something where the only way you can learn it is to just do it like it's kind of like riding a bike you can read all the books in the world about riding a bike you can watch like you know really good high quality training and stuff like that about riding a bike you could even hire like lance arms strong to teach you how to ride a bike but until you actually jump on the bike and try to ride it you're just you're really not going to know how to ride a bike so you know that's kind of one of the the flaws of college in my opinion when they try to teach people like marketing or sales is is your it's very theoretical and abstract and and eclectic and you just you're you're teaching people things that maybe they worked 30 years ago or 20 years ago but marketing and sales are fluid they they change all the time things change in the environment it's like the meta changes like a video game right you know if you're not learning what the newest stuff is if you're not in the trenches learning that you're just not going to know you're not going to be really good at that skill exactly so yeah work work experience is king especially when it comes to business related stuff like marketing sales uh entrepreneurship and that sort of thing there there's no substitution for work experience just generally speaking like how long would you say it takes people to kind of get into this uh with uh Troy's help and by the way guys Troy has like a free training i'll put that like down in the description and maybe in the pinned comment you can you can check that out there's like a free training down below uh that's kind of going to help you determine whether tech sales is a good choice for you or not um but yeah like generally speaking how long would you say it would take like the average person to kind of get into a tech sales position really it really depends it really depends i would have to say it comes down to one thing and one thing only like motivation like how motivated are you to break into sales i think the more motivated you are the sooner you can get into sales so it if you're really motivated it can probably take you a month to two months um so anywhere from like two to six months you can break through but i think it really comes down to like motivation and just like how excited you are and how how how just like pumped you are to to break through into sales i think that's a very huge huge thing got it and let's say i guess this is another good question another thing i really like talking about on my channel is flexibility and let's say god forbid you decide tech sales isn't for you like a year from now or something you're just like you know what i just i don't really want to do tech sales for the rest of my life would you say that the skill of learning sales is going to help you in other areas of your life like if you decide to go into a different career path or something along those lines oh yes indeed yes indeed listen when you're in sales you're basically in a position where you're talking to people and you're basically understanding how people work and you're communicating what motivates people and that skill alone is just transcends in my opinion transcends sales and is just a basic life skill if you know how to communicate well if you know how to persuade people and you know kind of mode and kind of help them see something that they have a pain point in or try and help them that is going to do you wonders in life just the confidence you have knowing that let's say in sales you're speaking to like a CEO of like i don't know like a 500 person company that's going to give you a certain type of feeling that you can carry on with you for the rest of your life so yes i think sales is a tremendous role that will just you know affect all areas of your life and even if technology sales isn't something that you want to do for the rest of your life whatever you choose to do wherever you choose whatever career path you choose you choose and want to go through it's just going to help tremendously so i would say yes yes indeed yes yes i 100% agree with you and sales was actually i would have to say when i think back on all the different jobs i tried because i tried all kinds of different stuff sales was actually my favorite job that i ever had like i i didn't necessarily make the most money at it i made good money but it was you know i made more as a pharmacist for instance but sales was definitely my favorite job i ever had i mean it is just so much fun going out there talking to people and even if like i consider myself to be an introvert and even if you're an introvert um it just helps you come out of your shell quite a bit um if you do a sales job and i did a video on this but the job that the most like millionaires and billionaires have in common and their background is sales like almost all of them did a sales job at some point in their life it's not marketing even though marketing is great it's not coding even though coding is great it's actually sales so there are many different career options for you to go into after sales if you decide that you don't want to be under that kind of like you know commission type lifestyle first of all you can rise up in the sales ranks you can become like a sales manager a lot of people do like vp of sales that that's an option for you that there's vp of sales out there that make like 10 million dollars a year you can become a ceo or you can do the route that a lot of people do and they eventually start their own company at some point so they're they're working in this industry they get a lot of industry specific knowledge they see a gap in the market they see a problem that hasn't been solved by anybody else and then they're like you know what i'm going to start a company that solves this problem and your chances of success are going to be much higher with that skill set that you have of sales for sure for sure i would love to add this um what i would love to say is um just know to to all to everyone watching just know that you know what you've been taught is not everything and that there's more to what's being taught in school especially that now that we have the internet so really use the power of the internet to really find what you truly want to do and know that there's we live in an age where there's alternative ways in doing whatever you want to do so in this instance you know tech sales doesn't require a college degree and as i've said earlier it's all really about motivation everything's about motivation everything's about how much you really desire something so if you have that desire if you have that motivation and if you kind of think outside of the box on what's been taught to you then you can make anything happen that's that's all i want to say like where where i'm coming from if i told myself i would be in this position i wouldn't believe myself i'm like what i'm working in in vancouver downtown in in from warehouse to to work in downtown in vancouver that's what so it it's it's possible the world is yours to that cliche but scarface but yeah just just wanted to throw that out there i love that last part and i i actually used to live right next to vancouver i used to live on the border of canada so i'd go to vancouver all the time before covid yeah i would go up all the time beautiful city awesome so thank you again for coming on to the channel abdule i really appreciate you sharing your story again there is a free training i will put that down below and if you do decide to use uh course careers choice uh company to try to get into tech sales i do have a $50 off coupon code which i will put down there as well so thanks again for coming on the channel i really appreciate it it was my pleasure shame it was it was great speaking with you i hope uh someone really got inspired by this and just know that you know anything's possible and you can change the trajectory of your career path just like that