Veterans Day 2014, about 1:30am PT
I was sitting in my room at my computer thinking about the sales training business and how interesting it is at the moment.
- There are bloated companies out there that have no plan, no strategy, and very little technology, that are trying to sell. They’re creating reps with bad habits because they’re not arming them properly.
- There are very few colleges in the US with even a single class on sales. Yet, it’s in almost everything we do.
- There are what feels like hundreds sales trainers getting $10,000+ per day. Some of them haven’t sold anything in over a decade. And they’re booked out for months in advance.
- Companies need and are hiring SDRs more now than ever before.
There’s clearly a market, a need, and yet I had no passion to take Sales Hacker Inc in that direction. It seemed boring to me. It just wasn’t BIG enough. We’re here to make a real f*%^ing difference in the community. How does this achieve that goal? And then Sportscenter cut to commercial, and the first one was about veterans employment. Then it all made so much sense.
Every year hundreds of thousands of veterans are coming home from overseas looking for jobs. If you look on LinkedIn and search the term Sales Development, you’ll get thousands of job ads just in San Francisco alone. And some of those companies put up one advertisement to hire multiple reps! Supply, meet demand.
But that’s just one piece. Would vets actually make good salespeople? Let’s dissect that. When I think of a veteran’s core character traits I think:
- Team oriented but a leader
- Focused and disciplined
- Follows orders/directions
- Not easily shaken or thrown off
- Polite
- Hardworking
Hmmm, seems like traits that lineup pretty well with someone in sales, right?
Well what if we took these unemployed veterans that had great basic sales traits and gave them the ultimate training in sales development? I think we’d end up creating the model SDR.
So we did it. With the help of Jorge Soto (Former Head of Sales at Mopub, now at Dashtab), Ralph Barsi (VP of Sales Dev and Ops, Achievers), and Jason Vargas (Director of Inside Sales, Datanyze), we created the ultimate, 16 hour Sales Development training.
Better yet, we’re making introductions for our veterans to companies that would like to hire them after the program.
Our first class will be in San Francisco this weekend, with our vets learning the ins and outs of all things sales development. If you’re a veteran and would like to join, or a company that would like to hire our well trained veterans, inquire here.
At Sales Hacker we’ve always had a focus on making a positive impact, not just money. A portion of the proceeds from many of the things we’ve done has gone towards animal rescue charities, more specifically Muttville Senior Dog Rescue, a cause I’m close to. (Go donate!) Now we get a chance to continue this through helping veterans.
We’re excited about spreading this across the US, city by city. If you’d like to get involved as a partner, inquire here.
Thanks for following along, and please join us in the Sales Hacker Community group if you haven’t yet.
Speak soon 😉
Max
