Leisurely sipping on my coffee as it hits 10A and my mind drifts back to the days of rushing through morning traffic, logging in just in time and then immediately having informal “sales huddles” with my colleagues, invigorated by caffeine overload, typically coffee # 3 by 10A, as we commiserate the fact that we have nothing to forecast for that week, potentially that month, depending on the size of your Account you’re managing.

Sigh…coffee medicine.

Your ability to move deals to Forecast in Sales is one of your greatest assets and the quicker you can act on this, the less stressful that Sales Forecasting call is going to be with your Director Friday mid-afternoon, explaining many times over why this deal is not pushing forward. But what if this is just a bad month and your client’s budget is frozen for the next few months? Perhaps they’ve had a change in management and you’re back to square one in positioning your value proposition again, now what?

Simultaneously, in the back of your mind, you’ve heard via the grapevine that layoffs might be happening in the next few months, you just don’t know which team is going to be affected and your ability to move deals to Forecast is absolutely critical or you’re potentially facing that layoff soon. Not only does this affect your upcoming commission, it affects your ability to pay your mortgage, continuation of Health Insurance for you, your partner and your kids or once again, having to dip into your savings because another deal is just not moving forward.

We feel you, we’ve all been through this dilemma.

So often we’re navigating these challenging waters alone. We grow panicked that if we don’t secure our next gig soon, every activity we execute on is going to be micromanaged and every deal update request we don’t respond to immediately is going to be scrutinized. What becomes our reality when we’re in this spot?

It’s a tough place to be in and having spent a decade in Tech Sales engaging in conversations around these concerns with so many of my colleagues, I wanted to find a way to continue to support my peers.

One of the driving forces behind me setting up our Tech Alignment Sales Professionals Alliance is to connect Sales Professionals with each other. Whether you’re reaching out to help navigate the current work climate or need assistance in securing that elusive job referral, we want to connect you. Perhaps you’re looking for guidance on negotiating that new Comp plan, or, maybe if you suspect you’re about to get laid off and need advice on negotiating a layoff package with continued Health Insurance, we want to connect you with members who can help.

I owe so much to my network of colleagues who have been there for me so often in accelerating countless job interview follow ups I’ve had to navigate.

You don’t have to do this on your own anymore.

If we have you curious, and you’re perhaps:

• Looking for Tech Sales job referrals or can provide referrals for new and upcoming Tech Sales jobs

• Looking for guidance on negotiating Compensation packages, Severance packages, Parental Leave packages and potentially Equity when receiving a new job offer or being able to provide guidance to other members on these topics

• Looking for guidance on negotiating continued Health Insurance during a layoff or being able to provide guidance to other members around negotiating this

• Looking to learn more about doing part time Sales and Business Consulting work

We’d love to connect with you right here

We will also be hosting monthly open office hours to meet with our members to get a perspective on how we can help each other out.

The first step forward is always the biggest step, and, perhaps being around like-minded folks can help pivot you into a multitude of possibilities.

Take care and I look forward to connecting with you as well as connecting you to some folks.

Cheers,

Megan Bernhardt

Founder, The Tech Alignment