The world of sales can be very mentally demanding and draining for salespeople. You have to be expressive, enthusiastic and charming, yet resilient and loyal. It's no surprise those who work in sales want to vent on some kind of support group once in a while.
The Instagram page Overheard In Sales is what many salespeople would find relatable, I believe. Sometimes they post quotes that could probably be easily overheard in many conference rooms. Other times, it’s sales memes catering to all sales positions: account executives, business development representatives and sales representatives alike. And if you're not a person who works in the glorious field of sales, you can still use this as educational material to acquaint yourself with the profession.
Bored Panda reached out to the author of the page. They were kind enough to tell us more about what it's like to run this funny page about sales. Check out our conversation below!
More info: Overheard In Sales
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The Overheard In Sales Instagram page has quite a following – a whopping 125k followers. The page posts daily memes or quotes relating to any profession in the sales world. So it's understandable that the person behind it is a seasoned professional who has been working in the field.
"I'm a sales professional selling SaaS software and have been selling since about 2016 or so," the Overheard In Sales owner tells us. This digital creator has four accounts on Instagram in total. Besides their everyday job and Overheard In Sales, they also curate the Sales Bant Er, Selling Advice, and Techicorn Startup pages on Instagram.
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The creator tells Bored Panda more about the accounts. "Sales Bant Er is another sales meme page, Selling Advice is a page dedicated to crowdsourcing sales advice for people, and Techicorn Startup is a meme page broader than just sales, but about life [and] working in tech at large."
Overheard In Sales is quite interactive as well. For example, there's a recurring series “Expense It”, where the curator of the page posts submissions from his followers about what they have expensed through work. The creator also does polls about various sales-related things: schmoozing, travel tales and what they find the hardest to sell.
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The person behind Overheard In Sales tells us that this wasn't their first Instagram account. It was one of the aforementioned four. "The page actually started with a different page called Penny Watcher, which is now Techicorn Startup," the digital creator says.
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"I used to trade penny stocks on my commute to work, and I would track the companies I was watching on that page," the creator goes on. "One day I made a meme, and it did better than any of my other content, so I kept making more." They then found the "finmeme" community, including pages like Trust Fund Terry and Litquidity.
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The page didn't see much success, which the creator attributes to them not working in the fintech sector. "I ran that page for a while," they say, "but ultimately I didn't work in finance so the content was lacking."
"So I decided to start Overheard In Sales and, because I actually know sales, the page grew way faster than Penny Watcher, so I decided to dedicate more time to it."
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The other two pages have grown organically from the success of Overheard In Sales. "Sales Bant Er spun up about a year after, Selling Advice about a year after that. And then about 2 years ago, I rebranded the original Penny Watcher page into Techicorn Startup."
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We already mentioned that the page's content includes memes and funny quotes alike. One starts to wonder if these come from the page's audience or does the creator of the page come up with the content. They tell us it's a mix of both. "Content is generally a mix of user submissions and things I have personally experienced, seen, or heard from working in tech sales."
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The creator of Overheard In Sales says that the best part about running the page is the community. "Through the page, I've been able to connect people with job opportunities, help people hit their sales quotas, etc. Selling Advice is especially huge for this. I'm always amazed how many people will comment to help/support people looking for advice."
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The creator has used their platform to help small businesses as well. "For a period of time during COVID, I ran something called 'small biz Sundays,'" they tell Bored Panda. "I would shout-out small businesses to help them get attention during the shutdown. It's really pretty incredible what you can do with an audience of folks who also know the hardships and successes of sales," the creator adds.
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While it's nice to see the impact of your work, that doesn't mean there aren't occasional bumps on the road. "I'm not going to say it's 'hard' to run these pages because it's a ton of fun and I love doing it, but with social media, you sort of always have to be 'on,'" the page's owner tells us.
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"The hardest part is probably the consistency," they admit. "If I take a vacation from my 9 to 5 [job], I feel like I still have to come up with content, still answer messages, etc. But staying consistent is also my best advice for growing a page like this, so while it's the hardest part, it's also very necessary," the creator emphasizes.
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