In the tech industry, sales professionals are more than transaction facilitators; they’re pivotal connectors between solutions and the businesses that need them.
The importance of tech sales roles is evident, with their valuation projected to grow by 6 percent to 10 percent between 2018 and 2028. Meanwhile, the global SaaS market is growing from a valuation of $273.55 billion in 2023 to a staggering $1,228.87 billion by 2032, according to a Fortune Business Insights market research report.
Tech sales professionals are not just witnessing this growth; they are essential to it. They don’t simply sell products; they forge relationships, deeply understand technology and strategically meet market needs.
The challenges are myriad; navigating the fast-paced landscape requires resilience and a continuous hunger for learning. Yet, the rewards match the demands: solving complex problems for clients, contributing to their success and witnessing the tangible impact of cutting-edge solutions in action.
Likewise, sales roles are dynamic, with paths for progression within the field or into strategic and leadership positions.
Sales professionals at five LA tech companies gave Built In LA a glimpse into their daily work lives, challenges, and the skills and strategies that help them overcome and succeed.
Snap is a technology company that enhances how people live and communicate through innovative camera-based solutions and in-the-moment interactions.
Describe your current role. What does a typical day look like for you?
As an account manager at Snap, my core responsibilities revolve around my clients and the effectiveness of their paid media strategies on the platform. Over the past several years, Snap’s product offerings have evolved and expanded quickly to meet advertisers’ needs. It’s my role to ensure that my clients are best set up for success in taking advantage of the right products for their specific goals.
Most days, I’ll start the morning by checking in on my client’s ad accounts to uncover any pacing or performance issues that may have shown up the day before. The middle portion of my day usually consists of meetings with my clients, where I’ll run through performance insights and optimizations for live campaigns, product beta opportunities and strategy discussions for campaigns in the planning stage. I’ll typically have some internal calls with my team mixed in there, too, and I will end the day with any internal inputs and call preparations for the next day that need to be done.
What is your favorite part about your job? What about the most challenging aspect? How do you work to overcome those challenges?
My favorite part of my job is the quality of people I surround myself with daily. At Snap, we pride ourselves on our values of being kind, smart and creative, and I’ve never been in another environment where these qualities shine as brightly as they do at Snap. Every interaction is led with empathy and kindness; I’m constantly learning from my coworker’s unique skills, and there’s consistent innovation happening all around me every day. To use the “plants need the right pot of soil to grow” analogy, if you’re looking for deep growth in your character and career, I’m confident that any team at Snap would be a place of very fertile soil.
I’m constantly learning from my coworker’s unique skills, and there’s consistent innovation happening all around me every day.”
I think the most challenging aspect of my role at Snap is how quickly things often change and the need to be highly agile in tackling problems that arise from these changes. In social media advertising, we’re day-trading attention. Performance optimization is a constant project, and while our product consistently evolves, so do our clients’ needs and goals. While all of these changes can be hard to manage, we tackle them head-on with the help of cross-functional partners, leadership and team synergy, which we’re lucky to have.
What opportunities for advancement are there in your position at your employer?
Another great aspect of Snap’s culture is how cross-functionally we operate. Doors between departments are always open, and exploring other Snap employees’ roles and responsibilities is a part of our operating model. This is an excellent perk as I explore what path my career might follow beyond the role that I’m currently in. I love networking internally and seeking out what future opportunities might be available to me in other parts of the company. For example, if a sales representative is interested in exploring a career on one of the sports or music partnerships teams, they are encouraged to do so at Snap. It is extremely refreshing to know that our leadership is invested in helping us find the best and most passion-centered career path for us, and it’s one of the things I love the most about working at Snap.
Artera, a SaaS digital health leader, offers a patient communications platform that simplifies and unifies healthcare interactions by integrating with health systems’ technology stacks to improve patient experiences and reduce staff workload.
Describe your current role. What does a typical day look like for you?
A typical day involves balancing new client prospecting and existing client support. I must find the right balance between the two to meet and exceed sales-related goals on a weekly, monthly and annual basis.
Aside from the daily planning, I find it pertinent to stay up to speed with internal and external product trends; this includes making sure I’m up to date with new solution enhancements within Artera, as well as product and market trends in the healthcare industry to ensure my prospect and client conversations are both relevant and timely to what they are most focused on. Throughout the day, I also spend significant time on documentation and organization — incredibly important parts of managing opportunities I’m responsible for at Artera.
What is your favorite part about your job? What about the most challenging aspect? How do you work to overcome those challenges?
My favorite part of this job is getting to know new people across the healthcare industry. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to engage with such impressive people and develop long-term partnerships and relationships that can span my entire career. Being able to solve problems for our partners is also very rewarding, as we can help find and implement solutions that positively impact large healthcare organizations and their patients.
Being able to solve problems is rewarding, as we can help find and implement solutions that positively impact healthcare organizations and their patients.”
The most challenging aspect of this role is maintaining an adequate balance of patience and professional persistence with our prospects, clients and partners. The health systems we work with are extremely busy, having encountered strain during and post-pandemic, and have many initiatives going on at once. My job is to do my best to engage, understand opportunities and initiatives and share the value of our solution. This can sometimes be difficult due to competing initiatives within the health systems. The best way to overcome these challenges is to remain patient yet consistent in engaging prospects with relevant information based on what you’ve learned about their needs — timing is everything.
What opportunities for advancement are there in your position at your employer?
There are many opportunities for advancement at Artera, and I have had the opportunity to do this here for the first time in my career. We are a very close-knit company that encourages its employees to grow and advance vertically or horizontally into other departments. In fact, one of our main values at Artera is “Pursue Growth,” which means we actively take steps to continue growing, learning and sharing the knowledge we have with others through customized learning experiences.
Artera has always taken a thoughtful approach to employee development, engagement and satisfaction, including surveys, employee resource groups, excellent benefits and flexible time off offerings.
Tebra provides a comprehensive practice growth platform and management solutions software that helps medical practices grow through seamless patient experiences and routine task automation.
Describe your current role. What does a typical day look like for you?
Aside from helping the company meet its revenue and business objectives, my responsibility as an account executive is to educate our customers on the current state of healthcare and help them visualize what it could look like to be a successful healthcare provider and practice owner using Tebra.
What is your favorite part about your job? What about the most challenging aspect? How do you work to overcome those challenges?
My favorite part of the job is hearing a provider’s excitement about their purchase. The most challenging aspect of my job is hearing that a customer selected another system. It says to me that I did not provide enough value for them to see what their potential could be. I overcome these challenges by actively listening to providers’ problems, diving deeper into how that directly impacts them, educating them on how it should be and doing my best to educate them on proper expectations. Tebra is the tool to make our customers successful, but it takes mutual engagement to make their time with us successful.
Tebra is the tool to make our customers successful, but it takes mutual engagement to make their time with us successful.”
What opportunities for advancement are there in your position at your employer?
There are plenty of avenues for advancement at Tebra, either in our customer acquisition teams or cross-functionally. The remote work option is a nice perk with our available office for a change of pace. Work hours aren’t a set schedule, so it offers the flexibility I like to maintain a work-life balance and meet our customers’ needs. Employee resource groups and clubs are open to everyone to join other Tebrans with common interests. I play in our recreational softball league and serve on our sales champion committees.
HG Insights specializes in technology intelligence, delivering actionable insights that enable businesses to prioritize their best prospects and drive efficient go-to-market strategies.
Describe your current role. What does a typical day look like for you?
My current role is an outbound sales role that incorporates a mix of prospecting, cold-calling, emails and LinkedIn outreach with the ultimate goal of sparking initial interest in our product and driving pipeline and revenue for the company. Our team members are usually the first employees in the office, with a typical day starting around 6:00 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. This is because we typically start our day calling EMEA and end our day calling APAC.
Although the majority of the job involves making about 70 to 100 calls per day, one of the greatest things about being an SDR is that there’s a lot of room for creativity and multiple ways to be successful. At one point, a rep on our team dressed up in a hotdog costume and drove senior-level engagement through his efforts.
What is your favorite part about your job? What about the most challenging aspect? How do you work to overcome those challenges?
This might sound crazy to some, but one of my favorite parts of the job is coming into the office. I’ve worked remote sales jobs before, and I absolutely prefer being around other salespeople throughout my day rather than being secluded at home. The management here has done an amazing job of hiring a collaborative group of people and fostering a culture where we even spend time together outside of the workplace.
This makes some of the most challenging aspects of the job a lot easier to deal with, such as the constant rejection and rollercoaster of emotions that comes with an outbound role where you are cold-calling every single day. When you’re around people who have been in your shoes, it’s much easier to laugh off the bad interactions and celebrate the victories.
When you’re around people who have been in your shoes, it’s much easier to laugh off the bad interactions and celebrate the victories.”
What opportunities for advancement are there in your position at your employer?
HG Insights emphasizes career opportunities and advancement, especially when transitioning out of the SDR role. There are defined routes for customer success, account executive, RevOps and management, and we’ve even had individuals go into solutions engineering. I’m enrolled in our Insights into Leadership Program, a three-month program that HG specifically created for those considering or pursuing a career in leadership and wanting to learn the skills to succeed. Additionally, many of the leaders here today have been promoted from within the company.
PureSpectrum offers a comprehensive market research and insights platform, providing end-to-end solutions that connect researchers to a marketplace of integrated panels for quality data and audience delivery.
Describe your current role. What does a typical day look like for you?
As a senior director of client development, my day consists of client outreach to existing or potential clients. I always make an effort to actively learn more about their business; we discuss upcoming project needs, changes to their accounts and new features on our platform. I work the most with existing clients who are newer to our platform and have a large amount of growth potential.
My goal is to understand where there is opportunity and share what I believe to be the most advantageous aspects of our platform for their business. I also focus on building knowledge of our platform within specific teams, ensuring that we stay top of mind for projects as they are won. Occasionally, I help with what we call “bids” or project orders. It’s essential that I meet with my clients in person at least once a quarter to keep building those relationships. In-person connection is still incredibly important.
What is your favorite part about your job? What about the most challenging aspect? How do you work to overcome those challenges?
The most rewarding part of my job is building relationships. I am lucky enough to work with great companies that employ wonderful people. So, in addition to teaching them about our platform and how it can make their company and team more successful, I also get to learn more about what their teams are doing, their company goals and the individuals’ personal goals.
The most challenging part is having enough bandwidth to give the same level of attention and service to every account. Learning how to organize my day and delegate tasks that aren’t specific to my role is one of the best skills I have learned. In doing this, I can better plan my day to take care of the tasks that need to be done, while also having the flexibility to help with the other requests that undoubtedly come in throughout the day.
At PureSpectrum, there are many opportunities to guide change and build new initiatives to help the greater team succeed.”
What opportunities for advancement are there in your position at your employer?
There are a lot of opportunities for my role at PureSpectrum. The market research industry alone has so much opportunity for new business. I can consistently prospect and bring in new clients, as well as help my existing book of business utilize more of our offerings.
Internally, at PureSpectrum, there are many opportunities to guide change and build new initiatives to help the greater team succeed. We believe strongly in cross-departmental collaboration on projects, which can open up unique opportunities for my clients, giving them access to different types of experts, and for my own learning and professional growth. I am continuously learning and growing within my role and in the company.
