The job itself: what selling actually involves

What you’ll learn

• What the job actually looks like hour by hour — three walkthroughs: an SDR at a software company, a full-cycle AE at a startup, an enterprise AE selling health technology into the NHS.
• What the job is not — the born-salesperson myth, the manipulation myth, the Wolf of Wall Street image — and why modern B2B selling is closer to consultative diagnosis plus project management.
• Who thrives, on the best evidence available: Mark Roberge's HubSpot hiring data, honestly caveated, and why extroversion is not the predictor everyone assumes — plus a self-assessment to score yourself against.
• The emotional reality — rejection volume, the quota clock, month-end, what a bad quarter does to a person, and the habits that keep good reps level.
• The money reality in UK terms — realistic base and OTE ranges, why OTE is a target rather than a salary, and what your first year really pays during ramp.
• Career paths — SDR→AE→enterprise→leadership, the sideways moves into presales, customer success, RevOps and partnerships, and the honest fact that most people leave sales within a few years.
• A decision framework for whether this is for you, and what to do if the answer is "maybe".