Hunt #14: From $85k to $175k salary

Good morning hunters!

I’ve been reading a lot of LinkedIn posts about salespeople struggling to get a great job and thought this story might be uplifting and show anything is possibleeeeeeee (Kevin Garnett voice) with the right LinkedIn profile targeting your expertise.

I’ll also highlight some recently captured HOT companies along with some words of wisdom on how to think about which industries & personas to target for your next opportunity.

Enjoy!

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Main Event

Overview

Imagine being a seasoned SaaS salesperson, comfortable in your role, when suddenly, a game-changing opportunity presents itself—one so intriguing that it pulls you into an entirely different industry: ad tech.

That’s exactly what happened to a sales professional who had spent a decade in SaaS, mostly in health tech. Despite initially overlooking emails from a stable, growing company due to a seemingly entry-level title, curiosity led him to open one, revealing a role offering a $150-$200k salary—much higher than his current earnings.

After going through the interview process, he landed an incredible position that not only met his financial expectations but also offered him a chance to flex new leadership and strategy skills.

Details about the company & role

The startup he joined provides a free app targeting a specific audience, monetizing through advertising products and services to its users. They were already generating substantial revenue with major retailers like Amazon and Walmart but wanted to break into the lucrative healthcare market by convincing insurers to advertise on their platform.

His LinkedIn profile, showcasing his health tech experience, made him an ideal candidate. The company quickly hired him to size up the market, build a go-to-market plan, and execute their vision.

The Best of Both Worlds

Now, he enjoys the perfect blend of continuing to work with an industry and persona he loves (healthcare) while gaining a crash course in advertising and data—new but fascinating and highly lucrative.

The deals he works are substantial, often ranging from six to seven figures, and he gets to manage the relationships from start to finish which is both challenging and rewarding.

A Perfect Fit

He’s fortunate that the company is established, has traction, and is perfectly positioned for the healthcare market, given their platform and user demographics. He’s “lucky” in a way that the company is established, has traction, and is perfectly suited for the healthcare market given their platform & user demographics. I’ve heard some horror stories of companies testing new markets only to quickly scrap them once they’ve realized the new market/industry isn’t viable or won’t drive the returns they are looking for.

Doing your due diligence and asking the hard questions can be everything when vetting a new opportunity (but even the best sleuths can’t get it right all the time…I’ve personally mis-fired on 2 opportunities in my past).

Moral of the Story

This story is a reminder of the importance of staying open to unexpected opportunities—they might just lead to a career-defining role (and open those emails from recruiters) 😉 

Recently captured HOT companies

By popular demand, we’ve recently added SaaS sales jobs to our Quota Hunters job board. Don’t worry though…there are more than 1,000 non-SaaS sales jobs currently on there if that’s your jam!

Here are 10 newly added SaaS startups I think are pretty damn interesting:

• Archive: The leading AI-powered social commerce platform

• Prelim: Helps automate the business customer journey for top U.S. banks

• Descope: Helps organizations easily create and customize their entire user journeys using no / low code workflows

• Smartcat: The essential language AI platform for any global enterprise

• Topline Pro: A Generative AI platform enabling home service businesses to be easily discovered, trusted and booked, directly

• Rollstack: Automatically create and update data-driven slide decks and documents using Business Intelligence (BI) tools, CRMs, and data warehouses.

• Play: Scale your voice generation with PlayHT's AI Text to Speech models that can clone and generate speech with hyper-realism across any language, accent and dialect

• Traba: Building a world where the global supply chain operates at peak efficiency

• Pump.co: Pump brings you the best group buying discounts and utilizes AI to arbitrage cloud expenses 24/7

• CloudTrucks: The virtual trucking carrier & leading technology and service provider for trucking entrepreneurs.

Words of wisdom

Last week, I spoke with a highly successful mid-market/enterprise account executive currently exploring new opportunities. They had specific criteria for their search, including maintaining their compensation level while transitioning to a new industry with a larger TAM (Total Addressable Market) than they have today.

Here’s the advice that really resonated with them—and I hope it does with you too:

1. Target Familiar Personas: Focus on companies that sell to the same personas you’ve sold to before.

2. Target Familiar Industries: Look for companies in industries you’re already familiar with.

In today’s market, particularly in SaaS, companies are focused on minimizing risk. They’re looking for candidates who can immediately start delivering results—achieving quotas and ramping up quickly. If you’re selling to familiar personas, where you already know their needs and communication styles, your ramp time should be much shorter, letting you concentrate on mastering your new product.

However, if you’re considering a shift to new personas or industries, be prepared for the possibility of taking a step back in terms of title or compensation, depending on your previous performance and achievements.

That’s all for this week. Feel free to reply with any questions or feedback. Happy hunting!

Jay Green “The Quota Hunter”