Sales niches to avoid at all costs

Published: Wed, 06/05/24

Updated: Wed, 06/05/24

June 5, 2024

TOGETHER WITH

Welcome back to The Quota, where we work as hard on this newsletter as you do avoiding your manager on company outings. In this week’s issue, we’ll take a look at Salesforce’s disappointing earnings and what they might mean for the sales world, share a Sales Fail about selling season tickets, and give some advice to an exotic car sales rep who's considering making a switch. Let’s go.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

37% of salespeople closed deals of $500,000 or more without meeting the customer in person.

Source: LeadSquared

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week:

A futon salesman developed a rare condition after being robbed and beaten, making him an “accidental genius” according to a recent article in The Mirror. Jason Padgett, a salesman from Alaska, was robbed by two men outside a karaoke bar in 2002, with one man smashing him in the back of his head. The attack caused him to develop OCD, acquired savant syndrome, and a form of synaesthesia that allows him to see complex mathematics formulas (which he probably needs to figure out his comp plan). You can read the crazy story here.
Google has conducted sweeping layoffs in its Cloud unit, primarily affecting their go-to-market teams, according to a recent report in Business Insider. One employee said it was rumored that close to 100 employees in Cloud's GTM group in the Asia-Pacific region were cut. A Google spokesperson said that number was lower. Some recent hires were reportedly laid off, including at least one new recruit who had yet to complete their onboarding process. Some affected employees have been offered time to find new roles within the company. You can read more about the cuts here.

FEATURE

JHVEPhoto/shutterstock.com

Salesforce stock struggles, along with its sales team

Last week, Salesforce Inc. experienced its largest share price drop in nearly two decades, primarily due to projections of the slowest quarterly sales growth in the company’s history. This alarming trend has reignited concerns that Salesforce, the CRM giant, might be losing its edge.

The company announced that revenue for the quarter ending in July is expected to increase by only 8% to $9.25 billion. This marks Salesforce’s first quarter of single-digit sales growth since it went public nearly 20 years ago. Following this announcement, Salesforce’s stock plummeted by 20% to $218.01, the steepest single-day decline since July 2004. The stock closed yesterday at $234.86.

Analysts had anticipated revenue to hit $9.35 billion, according to Bloomberg data. Salesforce’s projected profit is about $2.35 per share, also falling short of expectations. This outlook has intensified investor concerns over the company’s declining sales growth over the past year, despite its shift in focus towards enhancing profitability.

Salesforce’s management has been promoting the potential of AI software and features to drive future revenue growth. However, this optimism has yet to reflect in the financials. To appease Wall Street, the company has also ramped up stock buybacks and initiated a dividend. Despite these efforts, Salesforce’s stock had only seen a modest 3.2% increase this year before the latest drop.

The broader software sector also felt the impact of Salesforce’s outlook, with shares of companies like Oracle Corp., ServiceNow Inc., and SAP SE declining. In contrast, C3.ai Inc. saw a rally due to a stronger-than-expected sales forecast. The disparity highlights the current trend where the AI frenzy has predominantly boosted hardware and chip companies such as Nvidia Corp. and Dell Technologies Inc.

CEO Marc Benioff remains optimistic about the company’s future. He emphasized the long-term potential of AI and the company’s strategic position to help businesses harness AI’s benefits over the next decade. However, most analysts do not expect Salesforce’s generative AI features to significantly boost revenue until at least 2025 or 2026.

After last week’s earnings call, Ryan Walsh, CEO of RepVue, was quick to point out that Salesforce’s sales team has been struggling. The headcount on the sales team has remained mostly flat over the last three years, while the percentage of Account Executives hitting quota has dropped from the mid-high 40s to the high 30s in that same period.

While much of the conversation was around Salesforce’s slow adoption and rollout of trendy AI services, Walsh believes the woes of Salesforce’s sales force (see what we did there) is a driving factor behind the company missing its growth projections. If Salesforce wants to get back on track to double-digit quarterly growth, their sales team will need to get back to the mid-40s in terms of percentage of quota attainment across the company. And, hopefully, Salesforce’s quarterly “miss” does not foretell a slowdown in the broader market/economy.

TRACK BUYER ENGAGEMENT ACROSS YOUR SALES MATERIALS

As a salesperson, understanding your buyers – and their behavior – is central to your success. This applies at each point of the sales cycle, including the proposal stage. But once your proposal has been sent off, you’re typically left in the dark with no idea who’s viewed it or how it’s been received. That’s where Qwilr comes in.

With Qwilr, you can stand out from the competition with beautiful, interactive proposals that are sent as engaging webpages. And, you get access to information that you’d otherwise never see!

With their new analytics, you’ll be able to see which sections of your proposal buyers are spending the most time on, what they’ve clicked on and more! You can even set up notifications to better time your outreach. For example, if your buyer comes back to view a proposal weeks, or even months, after you sent it – you can get notified!

Try for free!

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

How many homes did America’s top real estate agent sell in his best year?

A. 6,438
B. 5,801
C. 47,959
D. 4,006

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Love this column. I've got a funny one that happened to me a few years back. I worked for a pro sports team doing ticket sales. I sold season ticket packages, so I was often selling to the same people who buy tickets every year so I got to know some of the diehards who were long-time season ticket holders.

I was having a good year, we were pretty much sold out before the season started. One morning I got a push notification to my phone from ESPN - our star player got traded in a deal for some supporting cast type players and draft picks. I could feel the impending doom floating over me as I read the article. Then the emails started flowing in. People who had already paid for season tickets started complaining and some were even asking to cancel. One big time corporate guy who had a company box suite for the last 4 years called me up and started ranting about how he wasn't going to take his clients to see "a bunch of bums have a losing season." I tried to talk him down but he was pretty adamant. He said he would keep the box, but wanted a 50% discount.

We were in full crisis mode. I talked to our GM and he let me do a 10% discount for the guy and my other unhappy clients. Some of them stayed but the corporate guy stuck to his guns and didn't renew his box. As the season started, the box was still empty. My boss ended up giving me clearance to sell the box at a 40% discount as it was just sitting there making no money. I called the corporate guy to let him know, but he didn't want it because the team started the season with a pretty bad losing record. I did end up selling the box to another company, at the 40% discount, but they didn't renew it for the next season. I ended up struggling to sell box suites for the next few seasons and eventually left and got out of the ticket selling game.

Anonymous Location withheld

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- May 2024

WORTH A PEEK

What are some sales niches to avoid? It’s an important point to consider when looking for a (new) sales job. A recent thread on reddit covered the issue exhaustively, with some good examples of industries to put on your block list. Check it out here.

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team

I currently sell exotic cars. It's a pretty cool job, I get to drive them occasionally and I've always been into cars so I do enjoy it. I'm 24 and for someone as young as me to have a job like this, I am grateful. I make about $100K/yr.

The thing is: I read your newsletter every week and often find myself wondering if I'm in the right industry. Software sales execs seem to get paid a lot more than what I'm currently making (in my head, double my current income or more). I do enjoy being around a product that gets me excited (the cars) and the perks are cool, but I am open to other options, especially if it means a substantial increase in pay. I want to own one of these cars one day, not just sell them.

Should I explore it further? Is the grass greener on the other side or is it just an illusion? If not software sales, what other industry might be worth looking at?

Contemplating in Location Withheld

Dear Contemplating

While $100k a year is a great income, especially for somebody your age, you can absolutely make more in other sales roles, whether it’s software, hardware, medical device, business services, or any number of other B2B roles.

Is the grass greener on the other side? The grass is greener where you water it. Are you the type of person who will do whatever it takes to make a lot of money, and would be willing to work hard selling any product or service as long as the potential income was there, or do you need passion for the product and role to perform at your best?

Granted, you might be too young and (this isn’t a dig) inexperienced to know the answer, but it comes down to personal values. Some people want the high six and seven-figure checks and are endlessly driven by that chase. Others will only come alive if they care about what they’re selling. Sometimes, the only way to figure out the right answer is to try something else.

To sum it up: you can absolutely make a ton of money in other sales roles, this is not an illusion. But as to whether you’ll be happier here or there, only you can figure that out for yourself. Good luck!

Quiz Answer: A. Ben Caballero sold 6,438 homes in 2020 (you can read the source article here)

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Erica Furgiuele, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

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