What Is Tech Sales?

According to Google Trends in October 2020, “software sales” is actually the more popular term, relative to “tech sales” and “technology sales.” For some reason, Indiana is the only state in the U.S. where the term “tech sales” is just slightly more popular than “software sales.” When we think about the capital “T” Tech industry, in general, some products and services are software-based, but not all of them. Some tech companies sell hardware, and other tech companies don’t really sell tech at all. But they are still referred to as “tech” companies because they are highly tech-enabled, for one reason or another. Take Amazon, for instance. One of the largest tech companies in the world, but a big chunk of their business is just delivering physical products. How Amazon does their delivery is where the tech comes in.

“Every company is now a tech company.”

This phrase has been repeated in various forms by various publications: Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Thomson Reuters, and TechCrunch—just to name a few. TechCrunch writes,

“In 2011, Marc Andreesen famously wrote a Wall Street Journal essay declaring that ‘software is eating the world.’ Five years later, the five largest companies in the world by market capitalization are all software companies.”

Modern companies are increasingly tech-enabled and modern customers are increasingly expectant of the the tech buying experience. From this perspective, it’s starting to look like “tech sales” is the future for all of sales.

What is tech sales?

The most obvious definition of “tech sales” is …

The profession of selling a tech product or service

But there are some tech companies with very tech-forward sales teams who don’t technically (haha) sell a tech product or service. For example, Away sells luggage and Hims sells wellness products. We would argue that salespeople at Away and Hims are still in tech sales, because both of these companies are highly tech-enabled internally—in other words, they use CRM software, etc. So, in the broadest sense, being in tech sales means either:

1. You sell a tech product or service
2. You work in sales at a tech company

The rise of tech sales.

Investors are increasingly interested in the tech and startup spaces for the promise of unparalleled growth. New startups are created everyday by hungry founders motivated by the same. And tech behemoths just can’t seem to stop growing. One of the main bottlenecks is hiring for employees. Just as much as these tech companies need engineers to build their products, they also need salespeople to communicate with their customers. Hence the surge in demand for tech salespeople!

Data from the tech sales job market.

In their Occupational Outlook Handbook, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics splits tech salespeople into two different sections:

• Technology
• Sales

In the Technology section of the Handbook there are Computer Support Specialists who “provide help and advice to computer users and organizations.” Here are the stats for the Computer Support Specialist occupation:

• Employment projected to grow 10% from 2018 to 2028.
• Median annual wage of $62,770 (in 2018).

“More support services will be needed as organizations upgrade their computer equipment and software.”

In the Sales section of the Handbook there are Sales Engineers who “sell complex scientific and technological products or services to businesses.” Here are the stats for the Sales Engineer occupation:

• Employment is projected to grow 6% from 2018 to 2028 for Sales Engineers.
• Median annual wage of $101,420 (in 2018).

“As a wider range of technologically sophisticated products comes on the market, sales engineers will be in demand to sell these products and services related to these products.”

How much money can you make in tech sales?

In tech sales, you control how much you make. It’s not based on waiting your turn for a promotion or asking your boss for a raise. Your earnings are directly correlated with your work output. And your earnings are usually “uncapped” in the sense that there is no limit (for most tech sales roles) on how much commission you can make. According to the 2020 Compensation Guide from Betts Recruiting, here are the average OTE (base salary + commission) ranges for various tech sales roles in various cities. For this guide, Betts used salary and on-target earnings (OTE) data from over 1,300 roles filled by their firm over a 12-month period in late 2019 and early 2020.

Position (OTE*)	San Francisco	New York	Austin	Chicago	Los Angeles	Denver
Junior SDR	80-95K	65-80K	70-75K	70-75K	65-80K	70-75K
Account Executive	120-170K	120-160K	90-120K	110-140K	110-140K	110-140K
Enterprise Account Executive	220-320K	240-320K	220-300K	230-280K	230-280K	230-280K
Inside Sales Management	260-340K	240-300K	190-220K	200-260K	200-260K	200-260K
VP of Sales	360-500K	360-500K	280-450K	320-450K	320-450K	320-450K

The figures above are in terms of “on-target earnings” (OTE), which refers to an employee’s composite pay structure made up of a base salary and an additional variable component (in sales, this usually means commission). This is a term you’ll want to be familiar with for the tech sales interview process. Recruiters and hiring managers will often ask,

“What range are you targeting for OTE?”

Tech sales is the future!

New tech products are coming out everyday. Cybersecurity, 5G, The Internet of Things, Big Data, The Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Machine Learning, and the list goes on. All of these have potential to unlock massive value for consumers and the economy as a whole, but they are also complicated. These products need salespeople to communicate their value to the market. The current tech boom hasn’t just created a surge in demand for software developers and engineers; it’s also created a surge in demand for salespeople.

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