subvocalize

  Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: N/A
  Résumé/CV: linkedin.com/in/matthewfdupont
  Email: hn@matthewfdupont.com

I'm a PM/engineer turned salesperson, looking for a technically challenging Account Executive role at a company with a genuinely good product. I've been the #1 rep 3x in 6 years, including 2x at a developer tools company with at least 25 salespeople.

I'm pretty happy with https://www.lessannoyingcrm.com/ and have been a customer for several years—they seem to be making a Pinboard-esque "be small and don't die" play, and functionality and support have both been great for $10/month.

I'm not affiliated aside from being a happy customer. And there's plenty of room for more CRMs so I wish OP the best of luck with Micro!

coaching at unusuallydifficult dot com

I'm an ex-PM that works as a talent agent (100% comped by candidate, no formal relationship with companies) for tech jobs, mainly PMs but some devs. It's a side business I'm trying to grow into full-time work. I take up to 4 clients at once since it's a lot of work per person and I don't have a lot of automation in place yet.

I'm amazed that professional help isn't standard, since your job determines so much of your happiness and future path, but most people rely on skills they dust off every few years to get one.

Much like the article's dating example, it's not clear to the employer that I as an agent exist, because employers often categorically don't want to hear from third parties early in the game. So in practice this involves a lot of ghostwriting on a new, shared email account, which the candidate reviews and submits. Interview coaching is also a big part of it.

Also, from a pure negotiation perspective, Josh Doody at FearlessSalaryNegotiation.com (I'm not affiliated) is very good and specializes in developers.

This is a very operationally-focused list, since it's meant to be a guide for what to do next in "triage" modes. I almost never reach the bottom.

During this operationally-focused mode, I don't let myself innovate too much, though I'll take down notes with ideas. The "jump discontinuities" would be things like making a common sequence of responses into an autoresponder, outsourcing a common research task, or making a case to my team to add or cut a service offering.

In practice, the above strategic work happens during times I allocate and protect in advance, where I focus on improvement instead of running down the operational list. Typically for me these are 2-hour blocks, about 1-3x per week.

I use a lot of checklists, mostly via emacs org-mode. Here's an example of my daily sales workflow (B2B SaaS; formatting didn't survive very well, sorry):

* Daily work

DONE Check commission goal for EOY and update

DONE Start airtable timing

DONE Log in to TalkDesk (reboot, make sure active)

DONE Sales startup

* DONE select rotating priority of the day, tag with dailyFocus

* DONE check calendar for any major events unprepared for

* DONE check email and star anything urgent - skim. if you don't need to reply right now, don't

* DONE check new leads in uservoice for anything time-sensitive. if you don't need to reply right now, don't

* DONE rearrange plans on calendar to fit meetings etc in the day

Sales general workflow

* DONE Prepare for major interactions today

* DONE 1bd email, including new leads

* Tasks in SFDC: high, >20, or 0 (unweighted

* 2 definite reply email

* Tasks in SFDC: >3

* Contact all of dec/jan closes, to see if do again

* Weekly goals

* follow up on sammy's intros - probably a longer play

* devlearn followups

* Check out read receipts to see how can move along larger deals

* Create jump discontinuities for future, or set up ability to do same