If you’ve checked your 401K, Robinhood, Schwab, etc. recently, you know markets have been awful in November.
NEWS TO KNOW
There’s fears over an AI bubble – led by Michael Burry (famous from the Big Short).
Drawing comparisons of 1999 with the Internet Dot Com bubble.
My take?
Private markets are getting frothy.
Public markets were just a bit overextended. Short-term draw down and a ton of upside in the next few years.
There will be a bubble… but we are in the early innings.
📚 – Business Travel Tips
BEST FROM LAST WEEK
📝 – Lessons from Auditing 16 Closed-Lost Deals
💸 – Powerful Question to Ask In Interviews
📚 – Uncovering Decision Makers on 12/1 with me + Will Aitken
UPCOMING (EVENTS, WEBINARS)
Just Thankful
It’s Thanksgiving week here in the States, so let me get sappy for a second about why we landed in one of the best jobs out there.
The barrier to entry is basically nothing
You don’t need a fancy degree. You don’t need a 4.0 GPA.
Half the top sellers I know barely made it through college, and some never went at all.
Compare that to law, medicine, or finance where you need specific credentials just to get in the door.
In SaaS? You need to be coachable, hungry, and able to talk to humans. That’s it.
I’ve seen bartenders, retail managers, teachers, and college dropouts become $200k earners within 18 months.
Show me another industry where that’s possible without massive financial risk or years of unpaid grinding.
Our “bad” money is really good money
Your base salary as an SDR or junior AE is probably $50k-$130k.
The median household income in the US is around $75k.
You’re making that as a single person in an entry level role, and that’s before commission. If you’re closing deals as an AE, you’re likely pulling $100k-$200k total comp. Mid-market or enterprise? $250k-$500k is standard.
Most people in America will never see those numbers, and we’re hitting them in our 20s and 30s without a decade of school or six figures of debt.
We work actual human hours
When’s the last time you worked a mandatory Saturday?
Unless you’re at a startup that’s completely on fire, the answer is probably never.
Meanwhile, nurses, doctors, retail workers, restaurant staff, they’re all grinding weekends and holidays as part of the job description. Investment bankers are pulling all-nighters regularly.
Big law associates are billing 80 hour weeks.
We work 9-5 or 10-6. We can take lunch. We leave when we’re done with calls.
Sure, you might hop on email at night or prep for a big demo on Sunday, but nobody’s forcing you.
The work-life balance in this job is sneaky good, and we don’t talk about it enough.
The stakes are low, actually
Mess up a demo? You’ll probably get another shot with that prospect in 6 months, or you just move on to the next one.
Compare that to a surgeon who makes a mistake, a pilot who misses something on a checklist, or even a construction worker who cuts a corner. People can literally die.
We’re moving software. That’s it. Yes, deals matter. Yes, quota matters.
But nobody’s life is hanging in the balance because you fumbled a pricing conversation or forgot to send a follow up email. The psychological weight of that is huge, even if we don’t think about it day to day.
You know exactly where you stand
Pull up your CRM or Gong right now.
You can see your pipeline, your close rate, your average deal size, and your attainment percentage. You know if you’re having a good month or a bad one.
You can compare yourself to the team leaderboard and know if you’re trending toward President’s Club or a PIP.
Now think about someone in marketing, operations, or PR.
How do they really know if they’re crushing it? Sure, there are metrics, but it’s a bit squishy. Attribution models, sentiment scores, NPS changes. It’s way harder to quantify individual impact.
In sales, the scoreboard is public and updated in real time. That clarity is a gift.
You’re never wondering if you’re doing well. You know.
Pressure is privilege
Yeah, quota stress is real. Yeah, end of quarter panic happens.
But that pressure means something. It means people are counting on you.
It means you have the opportunity to directly impact revenue, to get recognized when you perform, and to earn way more than your base when you execute.
The pressure exists because the upside exists. Most jobs don’t have that equation. You just show up, do the work, and get the same paycheck whether you crushed it or phoned it in. That’s soul sucking in its own way.
Here, you get out what you put in.
That’s not a cliche, it’s literally how the comp plan works. And yeah, it creates pressure. But I’ll take that over feeling like my effort doesn’t matter any day.
So this week, while you’re eating turkey and dodging questions from relatives about what you actually do, remember you landed in a pretty damn good spot.
Low barrier to entry, high upside, humane hours, low stakes, and clear feedback on how you’re doing.
Happy Thanksgiving. Now go close some deals in December.
Win the week!!!
