The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex - Corporate Sales or Entrepreneurship: Unlocking Wealth in Both Paths ft. Andres Sanchez

Episode Date: October 12, 2024

In this episode of The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex, Paul sits down with Andres Sanchez, founder of Beyond the Wealth, to discuss how you don’t need to be an entrepreneur to achieve financial success. Andres shares his journey from sneaker reselling to thriving in corporate tech sales, revealing how six-figure salaries are attainable right out of college. They explore the advantages of corporate sales, the mindset required to excel in the corporate world, and why entrepreneurship isn't the only road to wealth.Check Out Andres Sanchez!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andressanchezofficial/?hl=enYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@beyondthewealth“Your Network is your NETWORTH!”Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024Youtube: https://jo.my/ytpaulalex2024Linkedin: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur?Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.ATMTogether.comwww.Merchantautomation.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

Welcome to the Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Alex. I went from being a cop to an eight-figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day. I created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals. Let's win together.

Remember, I have your six. Get ready to level up right now. Hey guys, welcome to another episode, the Saturday special with another special guest. This is the Lovell Podcast. I'm Paul Alex, guys. Let me introduce you guys to a very special friend of mine. I was actually on his podcast just a few weeks ago. Phenomenal, phenomenal entrepreneur, but also he goes against the grain with the idea that you have to become an entrepreneur to build wealth, which is what I love.

So our special guest, his name is Andres Sanchez, the founder of Beyond the Wealth. He has been able to go from college to go ahead and transition into corporate America, guys, where he's going to show you how you guys can build $100,000, $200,000 straight out of college or even high school if you like to. Andres, how are you doing, my man? Paul, thank you so much for having me on the show. I need to get used to being on the other side. I'm typically the one interviewing. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to talk about this topic that might ruffle a few feathers. Thank you so much for having me on the show. No, absolutely, man. I love talking to you, dude. I think we had a badass podcast last time

and I think the subject that you actually want to go ahead and start this up with is why it's great for either college students or anyone looking into making or building wealth sustainably in their life, man, and how they can go ahead and take advantage of that with corporate America, dude. So before we get into that, let's go into your background a little bit, man. For sure. So I've lived in this entrepreneurial world here for about five years. When I started right out of college, I was kind of in that sneaker hype world. It was easy to go and pick up a pair of Jordans and make a quick hundred bucks. I built a few companies off of that. I built a sneaker reselling business that was selling anywhere from 100 to 200 shoes a month. And that was making me

enough money in my early 20s to kind of do whatever I wanted. I launched a few other companies in that space, but I struggled to kind of break through that enough money to really make a difference level. COVID hit. We had issues with the supply chain. Those businesses kind of died. And I think it was good that they did. It was kind of that natural time for me to step up and do something different. And I was introduced to the world of tech sales.

And I think it's an industry and an area that people can make a lot of money and don't give it enough credit. And you can make a lot of money early. I was able to be kind of lucky enough to jump in right out of college and get a gig at one of the biggest tech companies in the world. And in my opinion, it is the easiest way for somebody in their early 20s to make a hundred grand. And I know we live in this very intense culture and we're going to talk a lot more of this of needing to own a business and needing to be the CEO.

But I think that there is a very strategic way to go about this and leverage corporate America to your benefit. Don't let them leverage you. You leverage them. Take the money they're willing to pay you, which is an absorbent amount of money to do not that intensive work and go ahead and build businesses on the back end. Dude, so let's jump into it. Corporate America, tech sales. For people that are watching right now and everybody likes to throw that word around, I'm in tech sales, right? But realistically, they're not selling anything. They're like, I don't know, they're doing IT at the corporate office, right? So for everybody that's watching right now, what exactly do you do in tech sales? Yeah. So in tech sales, there's so many companies you can go and join and you should really

target the ones where you can sell software. Software is by far the easiest product to go and make a lot of money on because traditionally we sat in a world where it was all hardware. You had big companies that came and built hardware that sat in all of these major companies and it was not that hard to sell. And you were able to go in and do these big deals with a lot of these big brands. Now in the software world, you can go to smaller software companies and have a product that's hitting on all cylinders and all these different industries and go in and be able to sell it. And why I think software is

such a good route for people to jump in. One, there's recurring revenue and we love that. You want run rate business when you're going and building a book of business. Two, you can kind of dictate where you want to sell at. You could sell software at the enterprise level, where we're selling to Bank of America, Carnival, like these big conglomerates. And you can go and sell software all the way down to the bottom to smaller businesses.

So I think it gives people a lot of opportunity. And if you want to go and start a business, well, why don't you go and try and sell to the people running them and meet them and learn and understand what they care about? And it's kind of a de-risked way to go in and build this brand. But tech sales, like you need to be at one of the companies that actually hold some weight. Like you can't be at the software company. And granted, there's always these startups, but I wouldn't recommend that as the route to go. It is not unrealistic to get hired at Google, to get hired atDR, BDR roles. And we could talk a little

further about what those roles kind of entail, but it is not unrealistic to go and get a job at one of these fortune 500 companies. And they will pay you around a hundred grand to book meetings for their sellers to go and close deals. And it gives you a really good insight into one, what it takes to be successful in sales, but also you get to do the hardest part about that. And that's lead generation. You have to go and get opportunities. And I think anybody that wants to start a business or own a business needs to understand what it takes to actually get the customers that are going to put money in your pocket. You can go and do it at these companies with all the resources. They give you all the tools. They give you all the methods. They give you a credible brand behind you. That's going to get you in the door and let

you go and sell and learn what it takes to kind of drum up all this business. Yeah. But it's completely de-risked. It's on their dollar. And then you can literally take what you do at that day job and do it outside for whatever business you want to start and then start to acquire customers. But you didn't have to pay any money to learn it. You actually got paid to learn it. Wow. That's amazing, dude.

So let's break it down to the beginners that are watching this. You know, majority of my audience, the level up, dude, they're like aspiring entrepreneurs, which is cool that like we're talking about giving them another opportunity besides entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship, you know, like how I said on your pod last time, dude, is it's not for everybody. It's not for everybody. I think social media glorifies entrepreneurship to be this like cool, like, like vibe, like you need to start a business. You need to be a CEO. But just like when we were having coffee earlier, dude, like, how are you really a CEO if you don't have any employees, right? So to get back to like tech sales, man, I'm thinking like SDR, right?

Sales Development Reps. Why would you say that is a good entry level for anyone looking into getting into tech sales. And then the second follow-up question on that one is what are the secrets to get hired by companies like Google? Yep. A hundred percent. So the benefits of going in are a little bit of what I spoke about of, these are things you're going to have to do to start a business if that's your goal anyways. Yeah. But understanding what it takes to close a deal, to get somebody on the other side of the phone to want to continue talking to you. Those are all skills that translate to everything in your life. I mean, you're selling yourself constantly,

so you might as well learn to do it early. Right. And on top of that, it's the fact that you get to kind of see the inside of these big companies. You get to understand what they do, how they work, and in life and in entrepreneurship, it's all about risk. I wrote a newsletter recently about the fact that the one single thing that I've noticed in interviewing 60-plus high level individuals like yourself is that those people can tolerate risk a lot better than the average individual. But we're never taught how to kind of manage that.

We're never taught how to put yourself in risky situations and feel comfortable. And I think a lot of it is natural. Like not everybody's built for that. But I think there is a little bit of learned aspect to it. That's what sales gives you. You're going to make 50K base, but you'll make 100K if you get to your number. You now understand what it's like to risk it and get paid in doing it because 50K base is low.

Like you can go and get an entry level marketing job, an entry level job in law and any of these other bigger fields and make around 80 to 90K. And that's fine. But you want to learn what it's like to risk it a little bit, to be uncomfortable, to have to go out and get it because that just continues to level up. Then it's like, oh, now my base is a hundred and my OTE on target earnings, which is basically for people that don't know on target earnings is you getting to 100% of your commission. So you needed to sell $5 million worth of software in a fiscal year. You would be paid a hundred grand commission if your OTE was 200K and your base was 100K. So you are now teaching yourself what it's like to risk and have risk in your operation.

Those are all really intangible things that you're going to take forward. If really your goal is to launch a business, you're going to need those skills, but you're not doing it on your own dime and you're doing it at a high level. Early on in my career, I've closed eight plus million dollar deals with huge brands that everybody would know. And I got that experience at 22, 23, 24, because I sat in one of these great companies and I can go and have an executive level conversation with almost anybody now because I've sat in rooms with the people that make decisions at these companies and I've sold them on what we're talking about. That skill is translatable over any industry or any project you want to go and pursue,

but you're able to do it with the backing of a credible brand behind you. And I think that lets you understand what's needed to go and then launch your own company, sit in that world of very risky. But if you just jump in and you've never had a risky situation in your life, you're going to crumble. Yeah. Here you can crumble, but then get right back up the next day and go call the next ceo go call the next one you don't have a business on the line you don't have employees that are relying on you yet but you're almost doing a little bit of the same thing and i think for me because i was in the shoes of probably all your listeners. I launched a few companies between 20 and 22, did around half a million in sales, thought I was the shit, traveled, had fun, did my thing.

And then those companies failed and I was in a little bit of a rut. What am I going to do? And I met with a mentor who is in this industry and has made a lot of money in this industry. And he told me, stop being so... Put your ego to the side and understand that yes this isn't your business but you have a set of 100 accounts and you can run that book of business how you want yeah all you have to do is sell the product all you have to do is hit your number no one's going to tell you how to do it so when I thought about it that way I I'm like, I have my own company. I now have this book of business. This is's like to run some of these other companies. So that's why I'm so passionate about people going and trying because we I think people forget how hard it is to start a successful company. Like I think we've kind of forgotten that. It just seems easy because everybody on

Instagram is doing it. And I'm sorry, but the gurus you see on Instagram, most of them aren't really living that life that they say they are. And they are eating ramen noodles and really struggling, but it looks good on camera. So don't shy away from an opportunity to make a couple hundred grand early in your career because you don't own the company or you're not the CEO. Because that just to me doesn't make sense. Go and have somebody fund your learning period in life and then send it when you have the money coming in. There's a lot less risk when there's going to be tons of risk anyways. I mean, business is all about risk. So for me, it's using a lot of these skills and learning a lot of these skills that you're going to need in building a company, but just doing it on somebody else's

dollar. And then the other question was like, what are some of the secrets to get into this industry andres before you dive into that just because dude like you have so many gems you just dropped with that answer you gave me dude um key takeaway here guys is that andres is telling you to join a big company like google any of these companies that you wish you could work for gain all of the experience that you can at their dime and that was the key takeaway that i got from that man is and it's the same thing i tell my employees i actually had this conversation with my entire sales team yesterday i was like guys you guys need to start building your personal brands within the business because people buy from people yep and when you're in an entry-level job like an SDR, a sales development rep, I mean, you're in the trenches, dude. You're getting the leads. You're getting the door slammed in your

face. You're getting the phone hung up on you. And not a lot of people can take that pain, but that's very minimal pain compared to the actual founder and the CEO of the company. Because now you got bills, you got overhead, you got payroll, dude, it's stressful. It is stressful. So that's a smart move, dude. I love that. So guys, if you guys are listening to this right now or you're just tuning in, okay, we're talking about why the easiest path to take after college, after high school, or even if you're trying to do a career reset is to get into corporate sales, guys.

Go into tech sales and start as a sales development rep where you land the deals for consultants or closers to go ahead and close the deals. And then you work on commission. Yep. So it's a great way to learn a skill that sales is never going to die. Never. Every company, every organization does sales. So that's a smart move. All right. So the follow-up question is, what are the secrets for the listeners and the viewers right now

on how they can land an entry-level job with Google, one of these major companies, so they're able to take advantage of learning a soft skill like sales? Yeah. And I think you'll be a little disappointed because it's not that crazy. I think a lot of people have the limiting belief of, oh, that's Google. That's Microsoft. Like Microsoft has 200,000 employees.

You could easily be one of those 200,000 people. And really what I've noticed is do the little things and show up and you will get some of these gigs because you have to think about who you're competing with. When you're at that entry level, when you're going for that first kind of line job at these big companies, you know the talent pool isn't too crazy. All of the highly talented people have either already done it or interviewing for some of those higher level roles. And why I mention that is because there's a, there's like a unspoken thing about showing up and looking better than what you need to look for, for that role, I guess is a way to put it. And what I mean by that is show up with your suit on, show up looking like you've closed millions of dollars in business, show up with confidence, like you're going to be there. And that alone will put you ahead of 90% of the pack. And then the other 10% that you need to land some of these gigs are doing the things

that feel a little cringe. Yeah. Find out who works at these companies on LinkedIn. All their profiles are public. Find out who they are. Find out who the hiring managers are. Ping them on LinkedIn. Ask them for 15 minutes of their time. Try and connect with people that hire for these roles because that alone is going to put you ahead of the pack because not everybody's doing that. Not everybody's going the extra mile to find who that is. If you are competent, if you are charismatic, if you believe in yourself and can show up in a 45 minute interview with some type of confidence, you will land these roles without a question. Yeah. I've worked with plenty of people who I know you have listeners that are more competent and higher qualified than these

individuals and they hold these jobs. Yeah. I think really it comes down to that limiting belief is like, oh, I couldn't work at Google. Like that's too big. Like they're too big. And that is not the case. These companies have hundreds, if not thousands of entry-level sales roles that you can go in and make 70 to a hundred K right out of college. I joined my company six months after I graduated and I had booked that job two weeks after I graduated and just had to wait for the fiscal year to roll over. This is something, and I didn't have anything special. I wasn't some valedictorian. I didn't have a 4.0 GPA. I wasn't some guru that had done all this business. I had like a few fun companies that it was interesting to talk about in an interview, but I showed up and I looked like I was supposed to be there. I brought the attitude like I deserve to be there. And that enough, that is enough to get you into these roles. And then once you're in, you're good

because then you just show it's very performance based. If you show up and don't suck, you will continue to move every year. Every year, the top performing reps will move up to that next level. The bottom performers will stay or get laid off. It is a cutthroat industry. I don't want to make it seem like it's completely unrisky because at that lower level, if you're not hitting your numbers, you're gone. Like it's just the way it is. And it's, it's, it sucks. But when you go to interview for that next role, they're going to ask you why you left that role. And you need to be able to talk about why you didn't hit your numbers, why you didn't go through that. But that's all challenges that I think are so valuable for people early on. And like you said, in the start of my career, I was working with eight or

nine reps that had been there 10, 15 years. You think those guys and girls are going to be nice and easy to work with? No, they want leads. They need to go close business. They need to go feed their families. So you're sitting in this very high pressure position early where you have hard numbers. You're banging the phones, 2000 calls a week. You're sending 3000 emails a week. You're doing anything and everything to try and book these meetings, get the right people on the call. And it is a very intense time early on in people's life, but I think it is the single best way to put pressure on yourself, but not have the ability to crumble or have like a situation where your life is basically upended, where you took a $50,000 loan on a business and you completely failed. Now you've got a serious problem. You're in this business and you're not booking enough meetings. You're probably just going to get fired and it's onto the next opportunity and you're going to try again. So I don't think there's any crazy secrets. I think it's just

stopping thinking that you don't deserve to be at these big companies because everybody has a shot. They will interview you. If you can show up and act like you're supposed to be there and look like you've been there before, that alone is a reason why they will hire you and just give you a shot. Because that's what that whole org is at all these companies. How many bets can we take on early in career people that will turn into our C-suite, that will turn into our top sellers? And that's that funnel. They will hire 100. 10 of them will become high-level people. And all the rest were just a bet. You want to be part of that bet. And then it's up to you to see if you can go and perform and move on to that next role. Dude, you dropped so

many gems and I resonate with everything that you said, because I'm thinking back when I was like 18, 19, 20, 21. And even though I was a nightclub promoter back then, um, I would put on a face when it came down to the nightclub industry, I would act like I was extroverted. I'd be like, what's up guys? Like all this stuff, right? Cause that's what people want, right? They want to buy with other people that are like that. But in all reality, dude, I was very introverted. So like to me, I always tell people, if I was able to reset with the current mindset that I have now, I would definitely go your route. I would go get a entry-level sales job, which I did. I mean, at Ecolab, I did. And I really built my soft skills,

right? Presenting, being confident. But I think for a lot of people now, the youngsters, even to people my age, dude, old school millennials, there's a lot of introverted people out there, dude, especially since like 2020 changed dramatically everyone's life because now it's just like, people are so used to working from home. So they're not interacting with people like in person. So what are a couple of things? So people do not suck during the interview process that they can do ahead of time to not only build their confidence, but also to go there with that winning mentality, dude. What would you recommend? Yeah, I would say challenge yourself. If you have people in your network that are high level individuals that you respect, have them interview you, have them try and grill you. You are going to

be surprised at when you get into some of these entry-level interviews that they're pretty standard. The questions are very similar. They're not there to trip you up. They're just there to see if you have some of the intangibles. Because when you're hiring for sales, you want to make sure that they have the skills you can't teach. The drive, the determination, the attitude. Those are things that it's hard to teach. All the rest can come. You don't understand the tech that well, that's fine. You could just learn it. If you don't understand the right things to ask in a discovery call, that's fine. You can learn those things. They want to see some of those soft skills you talk about. Can you actually show up? Do you

have an executive presence to you? And that comes with reps. It comes with reps. The program that I got into at my company, there was 10,000 applicants and they picked 48 of us. I was one of those 48. And I've said this before. The only reason I got that gig is because I did my sales program in college. I went to FIU, the local school here. I think it's now a minor, which is exciting. But when I went, there was a sales certificate. It was five classes you had to take at the end of your kind of career in college. And it was all around sales. And our professor worked at Hewlett Packard, HP, in that tech world for 20 plus years. And that guy would grill us in class, like put you in the front of the class with 30 people and everybody got to ask

you questions, like interview questions. So you're just sitting up there, rapid fire, answer, answer. We would do role play after role play after role play. And you have to do the reps to actually feel confident, which I think is really important. Like when I think of times where I've gone into an interview or gone into a meeting and I felt bad or I felt like I was not performing well, it was always because I was underprepared. I didn't do the reps. I didn't come in and practice what I was supposed to do. I didn't run my presentation by my fiance or by my brother or by my mom. And to me, those are things that you can go and fix and you learn those things. But if you do the reps before these interviews, have people interview you.

LinkedIn is popping now. There are so many wannabe influencers, wannabe sales coaches. Just start DMing these people and say, hey, do you have 15 minutes? Do you have 15 minutes? They're going to give you time because at the end of the day, you're an inbound lead to them potentially. But use them to your advantage. Ask them, oh, would you hire me? Oh, what questions would you think would come up in these interviews? And them to your advantage. Ask them, oh, would you hire me? Oh, what questions

would you think would come up in these interviews? And start to take note. And they're not going to be these crazy, like I had a question in an interview that was insane. And when you start to get hired, it works like that, where they wanted to ask me very specific questions about accounts and investments companies have made and how to flip them and talk to them about different things. You're not going to have that at these entry-level roles. They're going to ask, can you speak competently? Can you be organized enough to manage your CRM, manage the leads and do what you need to do? And can you work under pressure? When that rep that's trying to feed his two kids and he hasn't closed a deal in six months is calling you and bitching you out on the phone

because you haven't booked him a meeting in six months. Can you go and get in there into the trenches and right-size that business and go fix it and do your job so they could do their job? Those are things that you're gonna have to figure out on your own when you get those spots. But it's all about the reps when it comes to these interviews.

It is not as complicated as people want to think it is. And I keep going back to just bringing the attitude and bringing that presence. That enough is to get you by early on, like 100%. Because if there's 10 people interviewing, I bet eight of those people didn't reach out to the hiring manager. Right there, boom, those are gone. Now you're only competing against you and one other person. If you just do one small thing better than that other person, whether you looked better, you showed up,

it's an entry-level role. The other person showed up in a polo. You showed up in a suit with a button up, ready to rock and roll. You can never be overdressed. And I will die on that mountain. You can never be overdressed. It is so easy to be underdressed.

And in sales, those are things you need the other person that's going to sign the check to respect you. You need them to believe that you're telling the truth, that you are authentic. A lot of that comes with how you show up. And I have like a, with a sports background, it's kind of like when you, and I played baseball and baseball, like for people that know there's a lot of swag that goes on. You got all the wristbands, things, the tape, this and that. You really do play better when you feel good. Yeah. And I think in sales, it's the same shit.

You show up feeling like a million bucks, looking like a million bucks. You're going to bring a different attitude than the person next to you. That's like, damn, I can't believe I'm here. Like, this is huge. Like, I got my polo. Like, I thought of a few things. That person's going to get crushed by the end. And the individual that looks better

might not have some of the soft skills this other person has, but they have executive presence. And that's what these companies care about. They can train you on all the rest of that shit. Can you show up and own a room is the really important part. And you'll develop those skills down the road,

but it's really not as hard as people want to think it is. And again, it's that limiting belief. You can go and get it. And anybody can go and get these roles because I've worked with hundreds of people that I know I have people around me and I've met people that are better than them, but they just don't want to apply because they don't think they're good enough or they don't think they can do it. And sales isn't for everybody, but at least go give it a try because you're not going to make that much. You're not going to make more money in an industry than sales throughout a career, other than launching your own business and being uber successful. So go and jump in and see if it's for you, because if you don't want to do sales, but you want to do business, good luck,

because you can't do one without the other. Facts, man. Facts. You can't hide behind the scenes and not be involved in sales, especially when you're a CEO, a founder. Even if you're getting into any executive role in any company, there's still some type of sales aspect to that. So great point on that, man. So let me ask you, I mean, you're telling the audience right now that are listening and watching, like, go there professional, wear the suit, you know, get a haircut, do all this stuff. Dude, when I'm hearing you talk, man, I'm getting fired up because I'm just like, dude, this is old school America.

Yeah. You know, it's just like old school morals. It's what the corporate world used to be. I feel like a lot of people, especially on social media, it's almost like a flex for them to wear sweats and like a tank top and to be like, well, I'm about to go into the Lamborghini dealership and buy this like $200,000 Lambo in my sweats. Right. And a lot of people, like they glorify that, which I think is bullshit because when you're really making money, dude, and you're selling high ticket offers, like in tech sales, you know, people are sizing you up from the from the gate. And I always tell my guys, you have to go ahead and take care of yourself because the guy that works out or the gal that works out, the gal or the or the guy who's who's, you know, in shape, looks good, feels good.

They're just going to perform good. And it was the same thing in law enforcement, dude. This is why a lot of officers, they got in officer-involved shootings because the suspect who would try to go ahead and kill the officer, they would think that they're able to go and overtake that officer because of the presence.

If you got an officer that's overweight, is lazy, is scared, guess what? That's where that one event or that one incident happens where, dude, it could be your life. So in sales, I transitioned that into corporate America, into what I do now, full-time entrepreneurship. And I always tell people, dude, you got to build your authority. People buy from people they like and they have confidence in. So it's the same thing in the interview process when you go for these large companies like Google. But dude, that's a lot of gems. So let's dive into a day in the life. Okay. So what would you say is your average schedule look like? Or is there like an average schedule would you say with doing tech sales?

Yeah. So there's definitely an average and it really depends where you work. A lot of these tech companies are like very boomer. Like they want to give you flexibility. You could go to the gym in the middle of the day. They give you credits to go work out at Equinox and all this stuff. So it really depends on where you work. But the reason why sales to me is so attractive is if you're running your book of business and you're hitting your numbers, no one's bothering you. Like no one's no, if you're over a hundred percent and it's Q3 and you're not at work and you're in the gym at 10 AM doing your thing, your manager's not screaming at you. Your manager's not calling you. If you're at 20%, yeah, they will. And they should be. But so a day in the life for me is I wake up and I'm not a crazy early riser. I'm 8am, 8.30am. I'm

up on the computer by nine. I'm big on prospecting. I think that sending a lot of cold emails, casting a wide net is something that's so easy to do, but most people or most reps don't want to do it. So 9am to 10.30 every day is prospecting time for me. It's easy. CEOs, CIOs are on their way to work. They're getting into the office. I want to hit them with a phone call and hit them with an email while they're haven't started their day yet, because that's where you usually and I've tried all the hours I get the most and some people say later, some people say early, I get the best results right there in the morning. So eight, nine to 1030, it's all prospecting emails out, phone calls out, start my day, cast a net. Now I might get some leads throughout the day. I might

get some callbacks throughout the day, but I can close that book. Then it's strategy. I've got a hundred accounts. Well, which accounts are actually going to pay me in this fiscal year, which accounts have budget to spend. So you're kind of sitting there and working. And when you work at these big companies, you've got a lot of internal resources, specialists, data analysts. It is pretty cool. You really do run a book of business with unlimited resources, which is very rare. And go through an account map. What accounts am I going to target? Who do I have in-flight opportunities with? Who do I want to go and break in with? Like, for example, coming into a local market, what big fish do I have no traction in?

They're completely white space for us. How can I go and target that CEO? Do I know anybody there? Do I know anybody at the company? Do I have connections to that individual on LinkedIn that I could start kind of peeling the onion back? And sales is fun, man. If you like to get out there, you can go to events,

go to happy hours. And we live in Miami, there's shit going on 24 seven. So if you like that fast paced life, you can go and get out. So for me, do the simple repeatable stuff early, prospect. Get the emails out and phone calls out. Yes, it is the lowest conversion, but that doesn't mean it's not zero.

Like you will get opportunities. And in sales, you've got 12 months to find a way to hit that number. And you are going to need a fair amount of lucky one-off hits. And that cold email and cold outreach to me gives me that opportunity. Then strategic. How do we account plan? Which accounts matter to me? Which accounts do I want to continue to pay

attention to but are not priority right now? And which accounts are just shit? I've talked to them. I've tried. They don't want to hear from me. And that's fine. It's going to be that way. You're not going to win 100% of the deals you go into, especially in an industry like tech where it's heavily competitive and very political. There's a lot of companies that have worked with these brands, worked with these vendors for a long time. You have to lot of companies that have worked with these brands, worked with these vendors for a long time. You have to kind of navigate that. And then the last half of my day is internal meetings, talking to people on my team. It's a lot of strategy. Like you really do have to sit down with everybody around you and plan on a 12 month period. And when you work at

these companies is grueling. When you go into these account manager roles, when you jump up to that next level, because you're forecasting, you're watching your book of business. How much money do I have coming in? How many commits, how many deals do I have booked? Your manager's rolling that number up to his manager, his manager's rolling that number up. So there's a lot of scrutiny when you're not handling your business the right way. And again, it comes back to those skills are invaluable down the road because it's hard. Like you can think about it the same as being a CEO. If I have this deal in commit, if I have this opportunity in commit and it's a 500K deal, let's say, I'm thinking, okay, great.

Now my team's going to make a bunch of money. I'm going to distribute that money. That deal falls through at the finish line. That's tough. Like you now aren't going to pay out your team. You aren't going to pay out the people around you. Luckily in sales, you're the only one that's got to eat shit on that front, but it teaches you what it's like to get punched in the face. Go to a deal. Think you've got a million dollar deal, fall flat at the end. Those are the skills and experiences that you're going to take down the road that are going to make you that 10X CEO, that 10X CIO, CSO, whatever you want to be in your career. But for me, it's very repeatable actions that I can do with tools and all that fun stuff of just outreach. And then a lot of strategy, a lot of

sitting down and mapping in. Like when you think about these organizations at the enterprise level, when you go and try and sell a deal to Carnival Cruise Line, there's going to be eight, nine, ten decision makers in the deal. You've got procurement. You've got the CIO. You've got the departments that are going to own the tool you're going to sell them to. So you have to understand how can I frame my product so that it makes sense to the people who are buying it and are going to use it. They want to use it. How am I going to tie revenue to it? So the CIO CEO is willing to sign the check. And how am I going to convince the procurement department that it's an actual good deal and to not send it to a bid and bring these other vendors and brands in to go against me. So it's a lot of moving parts and understanding what needs to happen.

And you just get that killer mentality. And we talked a lot about that dress to impress. I'm the first one to throw on sweats. I'm in t-shirt, hat. I love being relaxed, but I'm also aware of who I'm selling to. The CIO of that brand is not most likely a 25 year old. He's most likely not a 35 year old.

He's most likely a 55 plus individual, woman or man, that has been there a long time. They don't wanna see me show up like a slob. They're gonna judge me immediately when I walk in the room and they see how old I am. They're gonna immediately start sizing me up. What can I do? What can I control right off the bat

that's gonna give me at least a leg up? I'm going to show up looking like a million bucks and I'm going to bring a presence that that individual is immediately going to feel that he's not going to push anything by me. And a lot of people make that mistake of, oh, well, I'm a stud, like I'm good, I'm fine. That guy or girl doesn't give a shit what you've done. They're at the pinnacle of their career right now. They're the boss in that room. How can you go in and bring an executive level at a young age? It starts with showing up looking the right way. And then it's all the rest of the things you've learned along the road.

How can you bring all that to the table? How can you bring the executive presence you've learned taking shit at the bottom for a while? How can you bring the confidence that you've gained from closing deals and getting in front of accounts? And then how can you convince that individual that he should do business, he or she should do business with you and not the other eight reps that are waiting outside? It comes down to all of those intangibles kind of mashed up. And then you being good at what you, at the end of the day, you have to be good at what you do and you will be weeded out before you get to that point. And all of those things together, like are things that you can take and do almost anything you want after you can go launch that agency. You might want to launch, you can go launch that software company, but you've got to

understand all of these other things that yes, you can go and figure those things out. Going the entrepreneurial route, 9.9 out of 10 of you will fail. And that 0.01% will succeed in this other way. At least 50% of you will succeed. The other 50% will fail. Why not take the route that gives you a better opportunity? Puts almost as, I mean, look, if you're a business early on and you're making 150 to 200K, that's great. Like you are doing well and there's not that many people doing that early on. Why not just go this route and basically guarantee you're going to get there or at least give yourself the opportunity to get there and then use the flexible schedule.

Use the everything that you're getting from that to go and launch the company that eventually lets you walk away. Yeah, no, that's, that's some gems right there, dude. So let me ask you this, man. I mean, when you got people really thinking, okay, well, you know, you're saying you have to be good in sales, but right now I just started my SDR job. I'm in corporate sales. How can I level up? How can I get better? Because that's what people are looking for. You know, the people that really care about how much money they're going to make in sales, how, what's the path of least resistance that you took to learn and perfect your craft, man? Is it just the reps or is it, did you buy like programs, courses, mentors?

Did you have a mentor within corporate America? I had a ton of mentors throughout my careers, dude, corporate America, law enforcement, even in entrepreneurship now. I don't stop dude. Every year I pay for a new mentor. So how about you, man? What, what, what have you done to level up throughout your career in corporate America? Yeah. it's check the ego at the door immediately. You probably were an athlete because tons of athletes go into sales. You probably were a stud your whole life growing up and things came easy to you. Check your ego at the door. And it was some of the biggest mistakes I made early on were,

and I came with a background of, oh, I launched these companies. Oh, I know how to generate my own revenue. Check your ego at the door and be willing to receive mentorship from people that have been there 20 plus years because they're there for a reason. They will be willing to help anybody who's actually good and actually a high performer. If you're genuine and they can tell that you are there to get better, they will always you and if they don't they're not the right person to talk to awesome Check your ego at the door and be willing to take mentorship take advice And it doesn't always need to be good and I literally just had this conversation in an interview because I was going for a higher role now and

Tidbit don't let people slow you down early in your career I don't care if Jimmy's been in this role for eight years. It's your career and you need to push forward no matter what. I had a conversation and in my last role, I had a unique role. I got to join a startup within a big company and I sat in a geo role, which means I covered the globe. I had accounts in Asia, in Europe, and in the US. I got to work with an unnormal amount of reps, over 180 account managers all across this company, all over the world. And my biggest takeaway from that was all the little things that I just kept building. Like, oh, I liked that. Oh, I did not like that. That was pretty good. That was all right. And you take away all these little pieces

from people that you work with. And if you're not actively looking to get better every day, you're missing all that. But I'm always trying to get better. I'm always trying to see how can I be a better rep? So anytime I meet with a rep, I'm grilling you in my head. Oh, that's how you handle your customer? That's weird.

Oh, that's your approach? That's actually really smart. I'm going to go and use that. So I think it's going in and checking your ego at the door, being open to mentorship. And also in every opportunity you get looking to gain something, whether it's something you like or don't like, you will then in turn become a better rep because of that. I now sit in conversations and I think back on like, I hated the way the rep handled that meeting last week. I would never do that as a rep. I would do this.

Right there, I just got a little bit better because I will now not make a mistake I saw from somebody else. But if you're not checking that ego at the door and being open to getting better every day, you will stay stagnant. And those are the people that fail, that think that, oh, just off a higher level who are invested in you. It's the same thing as if you joined a startup or you work for somebody like yourself. If I was joining your company today, if you hired me today, no skills, I'm immediately doing whatever I can to add value to your life specifically as the CEO, whether that's, oh, you need me to go grab coffee today. I'm on it. Hey, if I go and grab this, will you walk with me to go get the coffee? Now I get 15 minutes to chat and hear what you're thinking. What are you

looking at? Always go and try and be in the room with the people you want to be. And there's always a way to get in. There's always some value you can add. You can always take a responsibility off your manager's plate. You can always take a stretch project for something your manager doesn't want to do because they're too tied up. Never pass those opportunities up because you never know who's going to have that linear trajectory above you that's going to take you along for a ride. There's managers that I know that are 35 years old and are sitting at SVP levels at Fortune 500 companies and have taken people on that ride with them. And you obviously want to be that person. So why not stick with them and stay around them?

So for me, it's a lot of going back and just being open to anything and not being like, oh, I'm the man. I'm the one that's here. I'm the one that earned it. No, somebody gave you an opportunity. Go in and learn from everybody around you, good or bad. Most people only look for positives. I'm always looking for negatives. I'm always looking for shit I don't like because it's so easy for me to be like, that was horrible. I'm never going to do that. Where everybody's always looking for, oh, I didn't really hear anything that's going to make me better today. I didn't really learn anything new. Well, I always ask, did you learn something that you didn't like? Because now you did just get better because you're not going to make that mistake.

So it's a little bit of playing the game, but also being so open to like, there are people that know more than you and you need to allow them to pour into you. If not, you're going to have a very hard time moving up in corporate America because the only way to move is to have people above you that want to take bets on you. They're like this, this guy, this girl, they have the intangibles. They can learn the rest. I'll take a bet on them. I'll move them up to this role.

That's a little senior for them. And I'll pour my time into them. And that's how you accidentally go from making a hundred K to 350 K by 30, 35 years old. That's great money, dude. That's fantastic money. Like, I mean, life-changing money. Like I've, let's put your kids through Catholic school or private school. That's enjoy good vacations money. And it is so attainable for people who can perform at a high level with very, very little risk. And if you are a good salesperson and can build a resume over a five to 10 year period early in your career, you will always have a job. You will always have a job because you can go and sell anything.

You can learn an industry. You can learn a technology. If you know the fundamental skills of being a salesperson, you will never not have a job. I don't care what economy or what market we're in. There's always people because new businesses don't make money without you. It doesn't matter. They don't make money without you. You will be a resource that is always needed. And it's, I mean, it's off to the races from there. Yeah, absolutely, man. I mean, I feel like sales consultants, the sales team for any organization is like the bread and butter, right? So essentially, you know, me as a CEO and a founder of multiple companies, I always pour into my sales reps and I always tell them, look, take advantage of what we're teaching you

here. Build your personal brand, learn how to network it's huge but also be willing to learn and that's the biggest thing to show up just like you said just show up and dude with that let's pivot a little bit and talk about the online space so in the online space the last two years I've seen a lot of closer programs a lot of sales programs that basically they go ahead and sell a course or a program or a mentorship and then like an agency, like you were saying. And then they enroll people that want to be in sales and make five to 10K a month. But then what I'm seeing now in 2024 specifically is because I get hundreds of DMs a day, dude, from closers or SDR sales development reps asking for a job. And I'm like, bro, like, wait a minute.

This digital marketing world is very, very niche and everybody knows each other. So I can count probably like a handful of people that I know that used to work for a couple of my buddies. And now I'm like, dude, you're not working for them anymore? Like, what's going on? And what I'm finding out is that a lot of people, they're not getting taught the right things. So what's your opinion on like digital sales programs online right now? I know it's a hot topic because people want to work remote. So what's your view on that?

Yeah, and I've interviewed people that own these brands. And I think that for the high performer, you can go and crush it in these roles, but it's not for the general public, but it's being kind of taught as that. It's like, oh, you can make 15 K a month from your bedroom off your laptop by just taking sales calls. Sales is hard. You can't just take a course and just think you're going to learn what it's like to actually be in the trenches. And I think it's sexier than it is. It's like, oh, come to Miami, take these calls and sell a good offer. And you're going to make a lot of money. I think that space dries up eventually, Like this course and constant courses and info.

I don't know how long that actually lasts at the level that it is right now. And unfortunately, in a lot of the people I've talked to, and again, this is not for everybody, but a lot of the people I've talked to, the sales skills that they learn in those opportunities don't translate to the corporate world. Wow. I just, I don't think that the sales process, the attitude, just the way that they go about it. And again, as a salesperson, you need to mold to what your industry wants. Right. And that info space, unfortunately, takes a lot of harder selling.

You get a lot of objections of like, oh, I don't want to spend that money. Oh, I need to talk to my wife. Oh, I need to talk to my partner for certain things. And you have to be hard and you have to be stern. That doesn't translate. When the CEO of a big company tells me they don't want to spend the budget, I can't belittle him and say, oh, you don't have the money. Like, oh, you need to talk to somebody else. Where, unfortunately, some of the sales in the info world are kind of like that.

And I've seen the clips of a poor guy that wants to level up his local business. And he tells the seller that he needs to talk to his wife. And then the seller's kind of making fun of him. Like, oh, you don't make the decisions and things like that. And, again, that's not everybody. And that's a little bit of a generalization, but I just don't think that the value is comparable. You can go and be a closer at one of those roles and make good money. You could probably make a hundred, 150 K the high performers will make 250 to 300 K the low performers will probably make nothing. Right. You have no base salary.

You're fully on commission and it just doesn't translate on a resume. Like somebody, if I, if me and a closer came to you and said, Hey, we talked about your automation business. It's crushing it. I said, Hey, I want to come work for you. I want to sell for you. I've got this on my resume. I've worked for this company. I've worked for this fortune 500 company. I've sold this amount of money, 1.8 to $9 million deals. I've had this track record and I've been employed at these corporate companies as a seller for three to four years. And then a remote closer comes in and says, Oh, well I've closed on these two offers. These I've sold five, 200,000 in, in, in info. And I've been on these eight different like sales teams or whatever. Who are you as the CEO going to put a bet on as a more, like as a safer

salesperson to come in? It's probably going to be the one that's done it at a high level in a corporate company where you know you have to perform well and you know you have to carry yourself at a certain way if not you'll just get fired like they're just they just they just will fire you so for me it's you and again we talked about it i think i can go into the info space right now with what i know about selling these high ticket tech world and crush it. I don't think that the person that's crushing it in the info space walks into a big tech company and sits down with a CEO of a billion dollar company and closes the deal. And I think that's a little bit of, and unfortunately, it all ties back to that glorification of entrepreneurship on social media right now and that like oh if i don't have a company i'm failing they go in and get sucked into that world of like well at least i'm in the trenches at least i'm with these people

at least i'm working with the guy that's got this really cool online instagram brand and it's like oh well look at this guy in corporate sales like what is he doing? Like just NPC following the norm. Like it has a little bit of a negative connotation. And I just laugh because I'm making more. I have way less risk. I have all the benefits. I've got a 401k. I've got an employee stock purchase program. I've got a lot of money that I'm making outside of just my sales job. Plus I get the chance to sell really high ticket deals with huge margins with the backing of a brand behind me. I don't know why there's even a discussion or why there's even a question of which route should you do right out of high school. I mean, right out of college. I mean, right at high school too. I work with people at my level. And again, I'm not going to

say the company I work for, it is a top 10 company in the world. I work with people that have high school diplomas and are fantastic at their job. So don't think that the corporate world excludes people that don't have these sick resumes. Dude, sales, if you get the interview, if you can get the interview and sell yourself, it's off to the races. Like you don't need all these qualifications. So I think for me, it's like, it's kind of funny. Cause I, I don't even think they're comparable. And again, maybe I'm biased, but I don't see a comparison. I just see so much more upside on one side and so much more risk on the other, but we're essentially learning the same things, but one just looks a lot better. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think social media has a lot to do with this, man.

Influence, right? Yep. And people go on social media and there's a lot of influencers on there that actually came from corporate America. I came from corporate America. I came from law enforcement. And, dude, like people always say, like, dude, you were able to do this in corporate America? Oh, my God. You were able to do this in law enforcement?

Like, what the hell, dude? This sounds like a movie. And I'm like, well, dude, it's just because I just bunker down and I focused and I always went to people that were smarter than me. And that's it. I always tell people I'm not the smartest person, dude. To me, the leverage that I have over a lot of people is it's just like you said you could be prideful or you could be rich yep and with me at the age of 29 i feel like i'm a late bloomer but it is what it is i feel like at 29 i finally realized the cheat code to life and that's just to stay humble stay grounded even if you're balling out of control and you have that ferrari or whatever dude just show off the car but let that speak for itself right your results and ever since the age of 29

now to 36 that's what i've done every single year dude and every single year more and more people of influence more people at a higher level than me are willing to work with me because they're like dude you're a nice guy and you're really highly successful. Let's go ahead and make you even more successful. And I believe it's the same thing in any sales job, corporate America, but you're right. You have a point, bro, because I have interviewed hundreds of sales consultants and associates, and I've had guys that are in their mid-20s, corporate America, a lot of life experience, and I usually pick them. Compared to someone who just took a closer program or a sales program and then they think by telling me that they've been able to close over $300,000 in revenue is something. Well, in all reality, guys, I mean my companies, they do millions of dollars a month.

So at the end of the day, I have closers that will like they're superstars, dude. And I have one closer in particular, which he finally decided to start his own company after he was rocking with me for like three and a half years. But this closer, he started with me when he was 20. His best month ever, dude, was last year in December. He brought in nine hundred thousand dollars by himself monster dude monster within two weeks and somebody like him i was like dude i think you're ready to start your own thing like start your own program do a legit program and he's a great sales coach but right now his struggle is he is not used to the amount of stress that comes with the overhead

liabilities people managing keeping other people accountable all that jazz he's like you know he's like paul dude sometimes i just wish i was just working for you dude because i just like to focus on sales yeah and i don't have to worry about anything else he's like how do you always keep so calm and i was just like dude because i just handle you know some people just have it naturally yeah like some people just have a higher risk tolerance right but i think it also comes back to my background dude yeah because i dealt with a lot of stress a very stressful job yeah you know i worked in oakland california and you know when we were having coffee earlier you were like yeah dude i mean tech sales is great for anyone that wants to go from college and make a100,000 and they make even more as they progress. And then remember I said, well, people could go into law enforcement. They can make the same money, work overtime. But the only difference is, would you rather work at a desk or would you rather get shot at. And that's the biggest differences that people have to see. There is a hard path, no matter where you go, when you go into the workforce or when you're trying to do

sales or when you're trying to find what's going to fulfill you. And ultimately that's going to be your career for your life, right? So to end this dude, some words of encouragement so people can level up after they go ahead and listen to this, view this a couple of times guys, because I know it was a great episode on how you guys can go ahead and streamline yourself to a hundred thousand dollar sales job right after college, right after high school, or anybody who's trying to do a career reset. Andre Sanchez just gave you guys the keys to that. Okay. Phenomenal. So what would you tell them as far as a couple words of motivation, some inspiring words, and then anything else that

you would like to say? Yeah, I want to leave some people with an action item, something that you can go and actually action after the episode. Go right now and go to a website and not affiliated whatsoever, RepView. It shows you all of the reviews on the biggest sales companies. You could filter to tech, you could filter to tech you could filter to construction and go in and see how many are hiring go look at how many open roles and do the same thing on linkedin do the same thing on any job look at how many open roles there are go ahead and go to linkedin see the people who sit in these roles study study what their profile says, what they have, create a LinkedIn profile and apply to 50 SDR roles. 50 is a lot, 25 to 50 SDR roles and go and see if you get any bites.

And if you don't, hit up 30 leaders from these companies on LinkedIn and ask them for 15 minutes of their time because you're trying to break into the industry and I guarantee you they will give you the time of day. That is all you need. Literally, you need one recommendation to get into any of these roles and you can go and create that on your own. Go ahead, create a plan, create a strategy, reach out to leaders from some of these big companies

and ask for 15 minutes on their calendar because you wanna break into this industry and I guarantee you the majority of you will have a job in the next two to three months because these leaders are always looking for talent. They always want to build a bench of people that they can go and hire down the road. If you show up, and like we talked about in this interview, show up like if it's an interview. Those 15 minutes, you are selling yourself to that individual so that they can put you in contact with the person that's hiring for those SDR roles.

And that is the best way to be successful. So go to these websites, find the open opportunities, reach out to 15 to 20 leaders from some of these companies, and try and go and get yourself your first sales job. It will change your life. You will begin to make more money than you've made in the past. You will realize that there is a clear path to a successful future at amazing companies. You just haven't looked hard enough. I love that. I love that, man. And where can they find you? You can find me on Instagram. I have a podcast called Beyond the Wealth, which Paul was on. I'm always looking to interview amazing CEOs. If you started a company, if you're a high level performer at

another big company, I am looking to interview anybody and everybody for this show. And you can find me on Instagram at Andres Sanchez official. That's where I post the majority of my stuff. Same thing for Twitter and reach out. I'd love to connect. And if you're looking to get into sales, I want to open my DMs to you. DM me, ask me any questions. I will do whatever I can to help you and connect you with people I know in the industry because I want more people to take this route and build a very successful future at a young age. There you have it, man. Andres Sanchez, go ahead and telling you guys exactly how you guys can start at an entry level sales job as a sales development rep for major companies like Google or any top 10 of the tech companies out there, guys. Take advantage of this information. Share it with your family. Share it with your friends. Share it with anyone that you care about, guys, that's looking for a job or looking to transition to something else. At the end of the day, it's you versus you. Don't let

anything stop you. Anything is possible in this world. You just have to make sure that you have the proper mindset and you are willing to level up. This is Paul Alex with the Level Up Podcast and our guest, Andre Sanchez. Killer job, dude. And make sure to subscribe if you're watching this on YouTube, guys. And if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, make sure to share this with your family and friends. Catch you on the next one. Remember, I always have your six. Make sure to share this episode with your family, friends, and anyone you care about. The world's already hard enough and we need to take care of each other.

Make sure to share this episode on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and share it with the world. Do me a big favor and tag me, Paul Alex. Also, keep the five-star reviews on iTunes coming. This episode is going to help change the way the world thinks and will help everyone level up in their life. And lastly, if you want to continue to level up, learn more about business and life, then make sure to get a copy of my book from blue to digital gold, the new American dream on Amazon or at officialpaulalex.com.