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40,013 Views | 190 Replies | Last: 2 days ago by uneedastraw
aw08
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educational SAAS product

Not sure what ICP stands for ..
CuriousAg
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Ideal customer profile. Saas jargon for who are you selling to?

Good on you. Let me know if you need remote support.
Don't know if I can convince my wife to move back to Florida. My company just acquired by OpenAI and putting feelers out there for a selling position.
Boogie6
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AG
y'all hiring?
aw08
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For the vertical I'm in, the ideal customer is a business owner with a sales team, doing $1mil+ in revenue. We train sales people

Always hiring if willing to move to south Florida

Starting a team in Scottsdale by EOY
Cyp0111
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I would say the key them is you need to be in a position that either directly supports revenue generation or in the spot to drive revenue.

That can be sales, high end finance/consulting/legal, or equity ownership.
GT_Aggie2015
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AG
Hoyt Ag said:

I'm in management for a large utility company. BS and MS in unrelated fields. Just worked hard and had a strong network. It is extremely stressful work and sometimes long hours, but the pay is good and I get a lot of time off. My best advice is to work harder(and smarter), learn faster and bring more value to the company than anyone around you. I knew the assets of any company I worked for better than anyone and was the most consistent in getting information on how things worked and what they cost to do so. That is why I became successful.
exactly this
TXAGGIES
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Two last thing I'll add is "Ask For It". Let it be known what role you want in the future. You might get feedback on what to work on or next steps. These days when I mentor I consistently get how someone wants to be promoted but when I press to what role I get "I don't know, what's available "

Number 2, don't chase the dollar chase the role you will enjoy. Money will come eventually. Chasing $$$ could get you in a role you fail in b/c it isn't enjoyable.
AgLA06
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AG
That's because companies and economy have made it almost impossible to work up through a planned progression of increased responsibility.

There's almost an entire generation of individuals who have seen more mini recessions / business crashes than they have seen expansions. Every time I had traction the economy or companies looking to run lean has killed it. I'm class of 2006. Here's the major crashes that killed the industries in which I worked. Housing 2008, O&G 2014/15, Covid 2019, recession now 2024.

So in almost 20 professional working years I've spent 4 times worried about my industry collapsing and being laid off as many times or more than I've had the opportunity to be promoted. In most cases that meant changning industries or career progression to do so.

Now I'm Director level, but it's time to move on from this role as it's been over 5 years and ownership's goals have changed with the craziness of the last 5 years. That's fine, but it means the financial incentives for taking this role are no longer going to happen. I'm running into a lot of exactly what you've said. "What specific roles do you want". The reality is my experience now isn't specific to a role. It's broad experience in increased responsibility in project management and business unit management with an operations focus. So it's been a struggle to get traction on the job search as many next step roles are looking for specific supply chain or manufacturing or IT/technology or finance experience.
canadianAg
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AG
I just hit it the last two years at 31. I expect this year to possibly be a little short due to bonuses.

As the last poster mentioned, it doesn't seem very common these days but I've stuck it out the last 11 years with the same Fortune 50 oil company in finance. No experience doing sexy investment banking or consulting. Just good old fashioned corporate finance, FP&A, A&D work. I'm also still just an individual contributor. Hopefully will make the move to Senior Manager in the next few years taking me closer to $300.

I was fortunate with timing in that I was still cheap when we had significant layoffs in 2014/2015 and 2017 as I was so new still. What was important though was I used those periods to my advantage (went and got my CPA to stand out further from peers), worked harder than my peers, and made a name for myself in the company.

Now, what I find is becoming most important as I continue to progress is communication, particularly with executives. I'm currently on a team with another Individual contributor and for the first time, I've encountered someone who I genuinely feel might be better than I am at things like modelling and corporate finance. And yet, I'm the one that gets asked to present or review with the Executives (even CEO and CFO a few times), not him (or even my boss who is awful at management). Executive presence and confidence is a real thing and incredibly valuable and has been my biggest asset the last 3-5 years.
500,000ags
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AG
That's awesome. I am genuinely surprised an FP&A manager with no reports is cracking $200k though. Are you an outlier in your mind?
TXAGGIES
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A FP&A Manager at my company probably has a base around $140 with 10%-25% bonus opp so I think they max out at $175, not you can add 401K etc and maybe get there.
HollywoodBQ
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AG
OregonAggie said:

Econ degree and MBA 10 years after the bachelors. Work in pharma.

I was in sales for 15 years then transitioned to Field Reimbursement. I think one of the quickest ways to get to $200K+ is through sales. I know quite a few IT sales folks and damn they do well.
Funny story and I suspect this would be where the OP fits in on the spectrum of work effort versus comp.

Back in LA in the mid-2000s, I had a friend who was grinding it out in industrial sales and making about $65k. As best as I could tell, she would be just as capable as our entry level IT sales reps so I helped her get a job at my company.

A couple years pass, I moved on to a different job and she started telling me that she was out of work and was having trouble making ends meet. Last I knew, she was doing well selling IT hardware. So I asked her what happened to the IT Sales gig.

She told me that she made $150k the previous year but she had to work her ass off. So she quit.

Long story short, there's no free lunch. And getting to $200k is kind of like Neo dodging bullets in "The Matrix". When you're ready to make $200k, you won't have to dodge the bullets.
HollywoodBQ
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AG
TXAGGIES said:

Two last thing I'll add is "Ask For It". Let it be known what role you want in the future. You might get feedback on what to work on or next steps. These days when I mentor I consistently get how someone wants to be promoted but when I press to what role I get "I don't know, what's available "

Number 2, don't chase the dollar chase the role you will enjoy. Money will come eventually. Chasing $$$ could get you in a role you fail in b/c it isn't enjoyable.
I see a lot of young Indian men chasing a bag and not learning the skills they need and not staying in jobs long enough to show dedication and make lasting professional connections.
HollywoodBQ
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AG
AgLA06 said:

That's because companies and economy have made it almost impossible to work up through a planned progression of increased responsibility.

There's almost an entire generation of individuals who have seen more mini recessions / business crashes than they have seen expansions. Every time I had traction the economy or companies looking to run lean has killed it. I'm class of 2006. Here's the major crashes that killed the industries in which I worked. Housing 2008, O&G 2014/15, Covid 2019, recession now 2024.

So in almost 20 professional working years I've spent 4 times worried about my industry collapsing and being laid off as many times or more than I've had the opportunity to be promoted. In most cases that meant changning industries or career progression to do so.

Now I'm Director level, but it's time to move on from this role as it's been over 5 years and ownership's goals have changed with the craziness of the last 5 years. That's fine, but it means the financial incentives for taking this role are no longer going to happen. I'm running into a lot of exactly what you've said. "What specific roles do you want". The reality is my experience now isn't specific to a role. It's broad experience in increased responsibility in project management and business unit management with an operations focus. So it's been a struggle to get traction on the job search as many next step roles are looking for specific supply chain or manufacturing or IT/technology or finance experience.
I've been a subject matter expert in a nasty area of IT that nobody wants to do.

You need to find something that is really difficult to do and then become an expert at how to do it.

But, the problem is that you might have to move to certain locations or companies where that skill is in demand.

Recently, I've been hiring to support a few particular companies and the choices for work location are Seattle, Kansas City, Denver or New Jersey.

Point here is that you could have the most potential but if you're not willing to leave Texas, you're not going to be able to collect that bag.
canadianAg
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AG
To be clear, I'm not FP&A any more, just something I spent a bit of time doing. Advice I always got and that has panned out is you want to be close to the wellhead or close to the business. I'm there now, in what we would call a more commercial role, so I specifically support the business in making decisions, making investments, finding value (this is similar to what others have said about bringing value).

As far as being an outlier, not necessarily for my company, big oil pays well but it comes with risks. I'm no longer cheap like I was during 2014-2017 and I recognize that, I'm more exposed to layoffs than I was. But work life balance is hard to beat
3rd Platoon
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Become a subject-matter expert and go into business for yourself as a consultant. That's what I did, and it also opened doors for my free-time to do additional things for income. Besides my business, I also teach classes at two local colleges. I had to have a Master's degree to teach History (which I have), but I don't use my BA for my consulting business.

The corporate world chewed me up and spat me out when the economy turned in 2008. I had a steady climb as I reinvented myself afterward. Life is SO MUCH better when you're your own boss.
---------------------------------------
aka Commander 99 and "The Fake Dave South"
AgLA06
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HollywoodBQ said:


've been a subject matter expert in a nasty area of IT that nobody wants to do.

You need to find something that is really difficult to do and then become an expert at how to do it.

But, the problem is that you might have to move to certain locations or companies where that skill is in demand.

Recently, I've been hiring to support a few particular companies and the choices for work location are Seattle, Kansas City, Denver or New Jersey.

Point here is that you could have the most potential but if you're not willing to leave Texas, you're not going to be able to collect that bag.
I'm glad being niche has worked out for you. I took that approach with my bachelors and first career progression out of school for the exact reasons you mentioned. End result was I painted myself into a corner with nowhere to go for years waiting for someone to retire or growth to open more spots up the ladder. That led to an MBA to get me back out from being wedged in the corner and on a new climb.

We can all give and get advice that has worked for others. The reality I've come to understanding is timing and being in the right place at that perfect timing (some call it luck) is just as important as working hard, being better than others, and doing all the right things. The reality is if I had been born 5 years earlier or gone more general right out of school my progression would have most likely looked a lot different today. Such is life.
HollywoodBQ
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AG
AgLA06 said:

HollywoodBQ said:


've been a subject matter expert in a nasty area of IT that nobody wants to do.

You need to find something that is really difficult to do and then become an expert at how to do it.

But, the problem is that you might have to move to certain locations or companies where that skill is in demand.

Recently, I've been hiring to support a few particular companies and the choices for work location are Seattle, Kansas City, Denver or New Jersey.

Point here is that you could have the most potential but if you're not willing to leave Texas, you're not going to be able to collect that bag.
I'm glad being niche has worked out for you. I took that approach with my bachelors and first career progression out of school for the exact reasons you mentioned. End result was I painted myself into a corner with nowhere to go for years waiting for someone to retire or growth to open more spots up the ladder. That led to an MBA to get me back out from being wedged in the corner and on a new climb.

We can all give and get advice that has worked for others. The reality I've come to understanding is timing and being in the right place at that perfect timing (some call it luck) is just as important as working hard, being better than others, and doing all the right things. The reality is if I had been born 5 years earlier or gone more general right out of school my progression would have most likely looked a lot different today. Such is life.
For sure.

What I do on a daily basis for the past 27+ years has nothing to do with what my college major was.

I did maybe 3 months of Environmental Engineering and then got saddled with data management for my department. After doing IT work as an Environmental Engineer, I realized I was in the right place at the right time and that was Austin, Texas in the mid-1990s when Dell was hiring anybody who could spell IT.

Once there, I switched facets of IT from something that other people could do to something that nobody else wants to to.

With specialization, you've got to constantly work at becoming the best in your field and maintaining that position. That's the part that most people can't or won't do. You've got to figure out when is the right time to jump from a legacy technology to an emerging technology.

And also your appetite for learning things outside of your role.

Example - I saw somebody on here mention that their wife is making $300k doing Salesforce Development. In the past two years, I've had to learn how to pull data from Salesforce (and other data sources) into Snowflake and publish it via Tableau. 100%, totally NOT my job. But... my management wants reports of certain things so that's what I have to do. If I saw more of a future in that versus what I'm doing today, I'd go learn how to do that as my full time job.
AzulLandry
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I heard about a guy who started making construction rivets. He became a millionaire
infinity ag
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HollywoodBQ said:

TXAGGIES said:

Two last thing I'll add is "Ask For It". Let it be known what role you want in the future. You might get feedback on what to work on or next steps. These days when I mentor I consistently get how someone wants to be promoted but when I press to what role I get "I don't know, what's available "

Number 2, don't chase the dollar chase the role you will enjoy. Money will come eventually. Chasing $$$ could get you in a role you fail in b/c it isn't enjoyable.
I see a lot of young Indian men chasing a bag and not learning the skills they need and not staying in jobs long enough to show dedication and make lasting professional connections.

They might have visa issues and plan to make as much as they can and go back to their countries relatively richer.
infinity ag
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3rd Platoon said:

Become a subject-matter expert and go into business for yourself as a consultant. That's what I did, and it also opened doors for my free-time to do additional things for income. Besides my business, I also teach classes at two local colleges. I had to have a Master's degree to teach History (which I have), but I don't use my BA for my consulting business.

The corporate world chewed me up and spat me out when the economy turned in 2008. I had a steady climb as I reinvented myself afterward. Life is SO MUCH better when you're your own boss.

What did you become a SME in?
jetescamilla
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AG
I'm a structural engineer with 20 years of experience working for a State DOT and lead a design squad. This 8-5 job doesn't quite get me over the 200 mark (awfully close) but included with my side hustle I'm there. When we built our house in Alaska we added an attached apartment with it's own dedicated entrance above our garage and have been generating revenue as a short term rental. Combining mine + Rental + Wife we're looking at roughly $350k/year and are pretty comfortable.

I've only got a bachelors degree which is unique in my world. Typical structural engineers, and design leads especially, would nearly always necessitate a masters degree. I guess I'm just more efficient than the others . I work hard and don't treat my job like a stereotypical government employee, I came from the private sector and expect my employees to deliver and meet schedules. It's most likely this work ethic that has allowed me to elevate to where I am. I don't foresee myself ever going back to the private sector. My hours here are great, I get to spend quality time with my family. Often I volunteer for coaching basketball, mentoring lego robotics teams, and serving on national committees within my profession. This job is just the right amount of pressure to make the days go quickly but not stress me when I'm home or away on a vacation!
hedge
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Any software engineers here advice on how to break in?
500,000ags
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AG
Gf went from buying at a retailer to analytics engineering at a Series C. She learned SQL from 2 Udemy courses, started as a marketing data analyst, then moved internally to analytics engineering after getting better with SQL in a production environment. She's $165k all-in as a Sr. AE. That's cash comp and not including her options that are essentially a lottery ticket.
RangerRick9211
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Bring the hate, but consulting is easy money. You have some dues coming out of B-school, but I've been in coast mode for a few years now. You just have to find the right client, make middle management and never, ever climb the ladder.

PwC is a cohort model and their folks always crowdsource their new comp to reverse engineer the pay structure across ranks/city/tier (performance). It's pretty similar and a good proxy for other firms.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1p82A0ORFPWb6pHMv0LFKzM4FClvFoDQ8HsNTEZkXtKQ/htmlview#gid=1642874993

For reference, a new MBA grad will enter as a SA2 ($193k) with a sign of $60 and a perf (Tier 1) target of 30%. Total all-in for a fresh hire is $310k for that year. It does go down next year as sign is a one off.

For me, 36, "Manager 2" equivalent in the sheet and it's pretty close. $220 base and a consistent Tier 2 performer (40%). I do nothing beyond my client role with no desire to move up. I have, and will continue to bounce between firms to remain a "Manager."

You won't hire into S&/EYP/Deloitte Strat without MBA on-campus pipeline. But I know plenty of ex-engineers within my firm that do advisory work without an MBA. Their pay is slightly below ours, but it's still great and the ceiling is the same as mine (all comp aligns at Partner across a firm).

Once you know the game, the gig is easy, criminally easy.
Agsquatch
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DRE06 said:

Entry level jobs as an oil and gas pipeline scheduler (coordinating movements of oil through pipelines from point A to point B). Any bachelor degree can get you a job. You'll start really low. Offensively low. Almost as a test to see if you are willing to work hard for cheap just to get to where you are going.

Learn the pipeline business and after 2-3 years in a scheduling role move over to a commercial/business development role negotiating pipeline or storage deals with oil and gas producers to move their oil and gas on your assets of responsibility.

Change companies twice and you'll be $200+ within 6-8 years. With some personal skills and luck you can easily be $350+ within 10 years.

You just have to be willing to start at the bottom. And you need to do it before you are too old for a company to give you a chance at that entry level job.

Downside is you are stuck in Houston or Oklahoma until you retire.

I am extremely interested in this. Any places I should look?
Pacifico
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AG
What are you interested in? Tech, Guns, Real Estate, Cars, Wall Street? Find something you like to do. The $200K will find you.
tamuags08
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AG
RangerRick9211 said:

You just have to find the right client, make middle management and never, ever climb the ladder.




I made SM this year and am wondering how much of a mistake it was to push for it.
jtp01
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AG
When it comes to big earnings I got there purely from hard work.

I'm in sales in the ag industry irrigation specifically. At my previous employer, I was responsible for almost 50% of competitive sales wins in North America.

I use the equipment I sell and can relate to the end user because I am an end user. I understand the plight of the American Farmer therefore I've done very well. So well in fact that a competitor poached me (for essentially same money) but for a bigger upside for me.

If I was asked for a few specific things that a young salesperson should do, it would be to find a group that aligns with your values, learn everything you can about the solutions they offer and how to technically make their solutions work, be supportive of the customer when problems arise and lastly deliver good news fast and bad news faster.
aggiehunter3
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I'm 35 and it has been a long road for me. I finally eclipsed the mark the last year, and I have a pretty unique career trajectory, coupled with a lot of hard work and some luck! I got my CPA out of May's and worked in public accounting on the audit side for 6 years. While slogging it through public accounting was not enjoyable for me, the people/clients I met and what I learned have helped me tremendously get where I am today.

I pivoted out in 2018 to a client where I became controller and wore many hats (treasury and risk mgmt/HR/built a website etc). I felt like I learned as much in my 2 years with this company than my previous 6 in public, as I was dealing with true operational problems for the business. I then flipped again in 2020 to another former client in a new industry that was recapitalized by a PE group. This was a very unique opportunity to work at a highly acquisitive PE backed portco leading the financial side of the M&A/corp dev and FP&A for them.

We've completed multiple transactions over the last 4 years, recapitalizing our credit facility twice. I've been integral in building out the FP&A group, allowing us to take a data driven approach (implementing Power BI, etc) to operating the business/integrating tuck-ins. Understanding the P&L and trends/drivers for the business allowed me to set myself apart in both analysis of targets and the operating company, which as we scaled allowed me to push for larger base and bonus opportunities. Being able differentiate yourself and tying your production to actual dollars speaks volumes when making your case with upper management.

2012-2018 - $48k-$72k
2018-2021 - $90-110k base $15k bonus
2022 - $150k, RSUs
2023-2024 - $185k base $95k bonus and opportunity to co-invest in the pref stack

500,000ags
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AG
That's a nice bonus.
Seamaster
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AG
I'd 2nd (or 3rd) commercial insurance underwriting/broking.

Have been underwriting specialist lines commercial insurance and now lead national UW team for a global insurance company and earn…very good money. For an Aggie non lawyer.
rtpAggie
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aw08 said:

educational SAAS product

Not sure what ICP stands for ..
my wife is a teacher and looking to get out. you got any roles for her? shes 34 and good at everything she does professionally
powerbelly
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AG
ICP usually means Ideal Customer Profile
BoDog
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AG
Seamaster said:

I'd 2nd (or 3rd) commercial insurance underwriting/broking.

Have been underwriting specialist lines commercial insurance and now lead national UW team for a global insurance company and earn…very good money. For an Aggie non lawyer.
What was your education path? My HS son is very interested in Baylor's insurance/risk managment major. Dad just isnt too interested in the cost of tuition.
 
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