Remove your daunting confusions and make a career switch to a SaaS sales job from your current role with strategic planning.
The first 2 years are the hardest.
Does it sound familiar?
Lol !! I am not talking about marriage, even scary-career switch.
Adulting is incomplete without switching your career at least once in your early 30s or late 20s.
I am sure before you landed up on this page, 80% would have blamed you for making a transition to a sales job, while the 20% manipulates you from not taking action towards it.
Nevertheless, your intuition is not swaying and pondering upon the SaaS product sales job, then, you got what it takes to be a SaaS sales rep.
Despite the lucrative side, a career switch to SaaS sales jobs has its own blocks. Only for the first couple of years.
If you are here on how to maneuver them, then let’s start right away.
Where do you stand?
Time to face the truth. An unplanned career switch is a homicide.
Foremost, understand your position on par with the SaaS sales industry. The below picture infers if you are anywhere close to SaaS or sales.
Find your quadrant to know how much effort is required because changing careers at 30 needs to have a mature road map.
Mind Shift In Career Switching: SaaS Sales Jobs
I am not gonna lie
It is hitting rock bottom, struggling to identify a path, building everything from zero. You can’t overcome these by grooming only your technical side.
When you move to a new career, more than anything, the shift in mental paradigm promotes a lot of inner peace. This also elevates your self-confidence.
The ultimate way is to take a leap of faith and keep moving forward.
And this is crucial because switching the career into SaaS sales is a battle you have to win, and you can too.
The two interpersonal components I suggest for smooth transition, survival, and success of your SaaS sales job is,
- Accept Less Pay: It makes no sense to expect landing on the 300th step without being ready to climb the first step. While you move to a new career, job, company, the reality is you will be paid lesser than what you made with your current job.
- Tone Down The Ego: Yes, you must learn to suck it up. When you move to a new career, especially into a totally new industry, you will see younger kids leading a senior role. Sporadically it does not sit well with your conscience because of the age difference. Wear your humility shirt every day to work, at least for the first couple of years.
How to get through?
- Build a network of new friends from the SaaS industry. They will be your load bearer. Their presence in your life might cope up with your uncertain moments in the job transition. It shoots your career growth during the novice period of your career switch.
- Volunteer for free. Do some meaningful task to push yourself out of the box to feel a sense of achievement. You grunt works like generating cold leads, cold calls, outreach works, sending cold-messages, gathering data through SaaS online communities or groups. Get on these initiatives to make yourself feel achieved.
Step By Step: Career Switch To SaaS Sales Job (Grunt Work)
1. Assess You & Your Skills
This step is similar to turning on the car engine. Figuring out where to put the key and which button to press. When you work for a while, you develop some hidden skills and talents.
Find if any of your assets match with the SaaS sales skills checklist. If it doesn’t, have no worries, there is always room for improvement.
2. Identify the domain
The SaaS industry is an ocean. You have products for everything and anything.
So, get on your feet and look for your favorite, comfortable domains. There are plenty to choose from, to name a few, banking, healthcare, fintech, educational sector, accounting, e-commerce, retailing, supply chain management, and marketing. You can granulate even further with a microscopic vision of each domain.
3. Online or Offline Course
This is a cliché step that everybody does, yet it has its own way of value. Register, study, and complete value-based online certified SaaS sales courses, provided they cover SaaS skills like prospecting, outreaching, cold emailing, outbound methodology, inside sales.
If you don’t want to be just a bookworm, choose the course wisely after going through their curriculum. Join the one that teaches hands-on, real-time problem-solving cases.
You can check for them on Coursera, pitch camp, HubSpot academy, Udemy.
RELATED: How to pick the right online course?
4. Internships
Doing internships provides you the knowledge about the SaaS sales operational reality. It also enables the experience section of your resume. Meanwhile don’t quit your current role. Apply for internships that are part-time.
Good news: People love to hire interns who have certifications. (your 2nd step)
Great news: Tech founders love to hire those who have done internships. AKA, your job hunting is sorted.
This is similar to shadowing work. You necessarily need not be a sales intern if it is BINGO! The idea is to figuratively hang around the person whose JD you are aiming for. It teaches all the necessary knowledge, part, and parcel, programming yourself to be a SaaS sales rep.
Unlike online academy, shadow work is an excellent learning source since it uncovers the operational constraints.
5. Cover Letter
Finally, frame a good cover letter in your application. Include your current job experience, mention your interpersonal skills, internships, and certifications. If you happen to work in non-sales but in the same industry as your recruiter, highlight what you can bring to the table that others can’t.
RELATED : Writing a Cover Letter as a Career Changer (With Samples!)
Conclusion
An Indian mindset on sales is door-to-door selling. Although nothing wrong with that job, it is not the only thing in sales.
As per the Gartner forecast, the SaaS industry in India is about to grow x%, and silicon valley’s investment into our country has boosted the whole process.
If you are here in this post at 2021 -2022, you are right on time and did not miss the train.
Take the leap of faith and move forward.
All the best for your new career, reach out to us if need help or have questions on your next switch!