Your first remote sales job: how to succeed and get promoted to closer

This guide is for juniors: 0-2 years in sales, or in an SDR, BDR, opening, discovery-only or appointment-setting role. Part 1 covered choosing the right role, and part 2 going in with your eyes open. This part covers succeeding in the role, staying successful and moving up.

The golden rules for your first sales job

Everything I write, and every tool I've built, is designed to help you succeed in any sales role, and people write whole books on this stuff. So I'll stick to my golden rules.

1. Learn the process, and follow it

Learn the processes your role needs as fast as you can. If the company is any good, it already has a tried and tested process. Even if you think you know a better way, do what they tell you and master it first. Then pitch your ideas to your manager. Sales runs on process: learn it, and follow it.

If you're remote, you won't pick up the process by overhearing it on the sales floor. So ask for everything: the script, the playbook, recordings of the best calls. Then learn it at home, out loud.

2. Soak it all up like a sponge

Listen, listen, listen. In sales meetings, listen to everything, very carefully, especially the top performers and top closers at your level. Then ask those top performers your questions directly. Don't be the arsehole asking irritating questions in the sales meeting, like "what's an SQL?"

3. Make yourself indispensable to the best closer

Befriend the top performers at your level and above (and below, if anyone's below you), and align yourself with them. Make yourself indispensable to the best closer in the organisation. Feed them hot leads and become a team. Then they have a vested interest in developing you personally, and you'll move up fast.

They can also get you promoted. To an extent, the top earners can tell management what to do.

If you're remote, you can't take them for a pint at lunch, so do it online. Message them on Slack the moment you've got a hot lead for them. Ask for 15 minutes on a video call to pick their brain. Ask to sit in on their calls. Make sure they know your name for the right reasons.

4. Stay focused on your goals

You'll have personal goals, but your main goal here is professional development: learning your trade. Focus on that. Make it your lodestar.

5. Don't be a prick

Juniors often let a modicum of success go straight to their heads. Don't fall into that trap (see first big month syndrome). That guide covers the mindset side. On the practical side, you'll rub people up the wrong way, make yourself look ridiculous, piss off your manager, and probably watch your numbers start to slide.

Be confident, but humble. You're junior, and you're there to learn. Don't be obsequious (definitely not), but don't let anything go to your head.

How to stay successful in sales over the long term

Number one is the mindset piece: stay focused on learning and developing. If you're anything like me, you'll be itching to move up and make more money, and you should absolutely be gunning for that. But never think you're too good for the job.

Remember, most of sales is extremely tedious, and that never changes, however far you go. It's following very boring processes and playing a numbers game to get results. Everybody finds it boring.

Keep yourself motivated by focusing on your goals and finding ways to learn. Get that senior closer you befriended, the one you feed great leads, to bring you onto their sales calls. And don't sit there on mute with your camera off. Engage, even if it's only through your facial expressions and looking attentive. Practise how you look on a video call, and how a prospect might read your expressions and body language. If the closer is happy for you to, chip in every now and then. They might even let you run the meeting.

How to get promoted from SDR to closer

I've covered a lot of this already, so I'll focus on one thing: getting bumped up the ladder.

Find out at the interview

First, find out at the interview whether they want someone who'll go on to become a closer. Teams often need a good SDR who wants to stay an SDR, so ask up front. You might still take the job, but you'll probably have to move elsewhere to get bumped up.

When progression comes naturally

If the company does see the junior role as a stepping stone, it can go one of two ways. In a lot of teams, progression comes naturally: you build your own book of business from the smaller deals the closers let you keep. In that case, keep building it and proving yourself, and you'll get bumped up. It's purely down to performance.

When you have to ask

Often, though, and probably more so in remote roles, you have to ask. It's all about timing. Before you do, run through this checklist:

• Have I made myself important, even indispensable, to the team?
• Have I performed consistently and hit my targets or quotas?
• Am I ready to step up? It's a risk: if you can't perform, you could get fired and have to start again.

If the answer to all three is yes, have a chat with your manager and tell them you want to start spending some time closing. They won't say no.

If you're remote, have that chat on a video call you've booked for it, never in a Slack message, and bring your numbers.

How I went from opener to closer

I went from junior opener to closer by following the process. I learnt the script in less than a day and mastered it in two, mostly through homework: reading it and practising at home. I fed the top closer hot, hot leads. I befriended him, went for lunch with him and picked his brain. In sales meetings I was active and engaged, but not annoying.

Then I demanded the step up. I offered to take the scrap-heap leads to prove myself while still opening, so I did both jobs. That way management took no risk, and I had nothing but upside.

Only once I was a closer did I go commission only, and I did it because I fully backed myself. With hindsight, it was probably too early: I still had more to learn. But sometimes challenging yourself is the best way to learn.

Forgiveness rather than permission

There's another way, and whether it works depends heavily on the kind of company you're in. I call it the "forgiveness rather than permission" method: you just close some deals without asking first.

Whether you should is a massive case of READ THE ROOM. In some companies it'll go down like a cup of cold sick. In others, they'll love you for it. My own reaction has always depended on the company, what we were selling and how our processes worked. Sometimes it could be a complete and utter disaster, and I'd fire the salesperson on the spot.

If you're not sure what sort of company you're in, don't. Unless it's a REALLY big deal...

Start from the beginning: Your first remote sales job: how to choose one worth having