Answers to commonly asked questions about the Prehired training program, software sales careers, and Income Share Agreements.
FastTrack is a sales community to help you get hired, promoted and leveling up to 6 figures with people who have your back for life.
Because we're a membership association and not a school or a bootcamp or a postsecondary education, we are tied to your career success.
That starts with training, mentoring and networking to help you land a full-time sales job in a business-to-business (B2B) software company within about 12 weeks -- even with no previous sales or tech experience.
And it continues with lifetime access to our multiple courses, content updates, mentoring, job references, our active online members-only group, live trainings and partner job opportunities.
The rest of the answers in this FAQ give more details.
For quick reference, here's a table comparing FastTrack to everyone else.
FastTrack is a lifetime community, with ongoing access to our multiple courses, content updates, mentoring, job references, our active online members-only group, live trainings and partner job opportunities. We're not a course, a bootcamp, an academy or postsecondary education.
With that in mind, when you're considering how to take your career in a new direction, we suggest you also ask some key questions:
How long does it take to get started? Many programs take weeks or months to even decide whether to let you in. And then you have to wait more weeks to months to start the program. And then you need to invest months in the training. With FastTrack, you can apply, interview and find out if you're offered enrollment within days. And you start the program as soon as the day after your enrollment offer.
How much content and training is there? Look how much training they're really giving you. FastTrack’s program is 40+ hours in course content, another 20 hours of 1:1 work with your Mentor, plus 60 to 120 hours to run our Career Search Process until you choose the job offer right for you.
Do you have to attend training live? If a program doesn't let you train on your own time (since you may be working a full-time job, have family obligations, etc.), it won't work for you. Our core training is video-based, and you can then schedule live mentoring at your convenience.
How many people have landed jobs? We've got hundreds, with many videos, screenshots, and full names so you can find the people on LinkedIn and elsewhere to verify they're real.
How long does the average member take to land a job? The average member takes about 12 weeks from starting the FastTrack program to land a job offer they like. That pace requires putting in a little more than 1 hour per day, on average.
How exactly do people get jobs? Unlike other career trainers, we don't demand you move to drop you in any company we want to after your training.
It can sound like a big perk when a trainer says they'll hook you up with work, but wouldn't you rather be confident you can land a job elsewhere when you decide to switch companies?
That's true security in our eyes.
With that in mind, we show you a proven system to do outreach to companies YOU want to work for.
Because the outreach is so targeted, personal and done like a sales professional, members can get interviews with about 50% of companies they contact and offers from around 20%.
(IF you're a fit for a company in our growing partner network, we're happy to make an introduction. We just don't want people coming into the program with that expectation.)
What kind of support is there over time? If a company doesn't offer the lifetime support benefits we listed at the top, what do they offer and for how long?
We look for the 4 A's...
Attitude - We like people who have a positive outlook and are coachable. Whether you have 40+ years of sales experience or are completely new to sales or the tech space, you're in good company.
Very few of our members had any previous tech experience when they joined. More than half of our members have no previous sales experience. These include fresh college grads, Uber drivers and mid-career switchers.
Wherever you are on the spectrum, what's important is you're open to our guidance. Members hungry for mentorship and who take action succeed.
Our members work at companies like Zoom, Google, Drift, Sage Intacct, Houzz, OutboundEngine, Outreach.io, Salesforce, and many, many more (100s in fact).
Aptitude - If you have native-level English (reading, writing and listening) skills, you can follow instructions without being told something several times, and you have basic computer skills (including typing without thinking about where the keys are), you can probably learn software sales.
Ambition - If you're excited to join the tech industry, to challenge yourself and to keep stepping up even after stumbling, you've got the drive you need. Remember, even average software sales reps make $60,000 to $80,000 in year 1 and $100,000+ from year 2 onward. Yet many people either can't land or keep software sales jobs because they give up before learning how to succeed.
Accountability - This one is about doing what you say you're going to do. It's important that you complete your coursework, comes to interviews on time and prepared, etc. It's also about taking full responsibility for your actions.
Many programs take weeks or months to even decide whether to let you in. And then you have to wait more weeks to months to start the program. And then you need to invest months in the training.
With FastTrack, you can apply, meet with us and find out if you're offered enrollment within days. And you can start the program as soon as the day after your enrollment offer.
You do NOT need any previous sales experience. More than 50% of our members in a given month come without a sales background. In a way, it's actually a benefit, because you won't have any bad habits to unlearn.
We've had former Uber drivers, pastors, moms who want to re-enter the workforce after raising kids, people in their 40's and 50's hankering for a career change, etc.
You do NOT need any experience in the industry, nor do you need to be a tech geek. You can leave that for the software engineers building the software. We're here to sell it.
Selling software is about clarifying people's needs in businesses. We'll teach you how to use the various tools you need to do your job well.
That said, you DO need basic computer proficiency to do our program.
First, we have no need to disguise our sales process. We're proud of our Clarity > Closing® mindset, which is our "always create clarity" and "always be helping" way of selling.
Furthermore, since accepted applicants use the membership benefits for $0 upfront (only starting payments after they've landed a high-paying sales job), we turn away anyone we don't feel will succeed.
The Six-Figure Sales Career Session is casual, so you can relax. We just expect you to bring your questions for us, and we have our questions to ask you while we walk you through what tech sales is and how FastTrack can help you.
If we don't think we can help you, we'll tell you. And if we do think we can help you, we'll also tell you. We're here to give you clarity, so you can make the decision best for you.
Yes, you can find more information on our guarantee here.
See our Member Code of Conduct.
Feel free to apply for software sales positions and go through the interviews, if you get called for any. You'll see how challenging they are. Even veteran salespeople from other industries often don't get hired into software sales roles because they don't know the right tools, skills and workflows.
Many of these folks then come to us. We teach you how to reach out to employers for an interview the way a software sales rep would approach a prospect, and ace all the interview rounds (usually 3-4) by demonstrating the exact knowledge they're looking for.
Our career launch program typically takes about 60-120 hours over 6-12 weeks (about 10 hours per week).
That includes coursework assignments you submit to get feedback on (and may need to re-do) to prove your understanding.
Your abilities prior to joining FastTrack often determine how long it will take for you to finish.
If you're currently unemployed or have a few hours a day, you could fnish the program faster.
We match you up with a Mentor who is the most available to help you. That 1:1 time helps you get the most proficient in the least time.
Since you control how fast you go through the 60ish hours of course content and your coursework assignments, you can do it in as little as 1-2 weeks if you have the time.
That said, your Mentor will make sure you understood key concepts with hands-on assignments. You won't get to move onto your Career Search Process (CSP) to land job offers until your Mentor sees you're ready.
Each FastTrack mentor may have up to 30 members they’re working with 1:1 at a time.
Aside from our member success stories, we've also been given the stamp of approval by some notable names...
CareerKarma named us the top tech sales career launch program for 2020.
HubSpot named our Science-Based Sales® system (which you learn in our program) to its Top 27 list of sales trainings for 2018, 2019 and 2020. We are the only software sales career training program on the list.
SalesHacker, the largest sales community online, named our founder, Josh Jordan, to their Top 10 list for Sales Leadership out of 5,000+ people nominated for the award worldwide.
Billion-dollar sales engagement platform company, Outreach.io, is also a fan. They've recruited several of our members and praised us on their Sales Engagement Podcast interview with our founder, Josh Jordan (which is ranked in their top 10 most popular episodes). Here's what Julianne Thompson, an Outreach.io manager who hired our members, said. (See the 19:50 mark)
Another billion-dollar software company, Drift (the first conversational marketing platform), also partnered with us to hire our members to fuel their growth.
We're also backed by a financial institution that only supports university programs and other trainings proven to boost members' income afterward. They told us upfront they'd rejected ALL the other sales training programs who applied, since they couldn't prove their members made more money after the training. They backed us only after nearly two months of intensive research on our training & member success.
You're free to exit FastTrack within your first 7 days of membership as long as you're less than 30% through the first course. (You'll know how far into the course you are because our portal shows your exact % progress as you go.)
If you choose to exit under those milestones, you'll be released with no future obligations if you're on a contracted pay plan. Or, if you signed up by paying upfront, you'll receive a full refund.
There isn't one.
You can apply any time, often interview within one day, and you'll usually know whether you're admitted by the end of the interview (pending our financial health checks).
If you're admitted, the course is video-based, so you can access it 24 / 7. And you can schedule live one-on-one meetings with a Mentor at convenient times.
You need a working computer with a camera (NOT a tablet, it needs to use Mac or Windows OS), cell phone, wifi and ready transportation to and from job interviews.
Absolutely nothing.
This is a lifetime membership, including all of these programs and benefits to get hired and to keep leveling up.
By following our Career Search Process after finishing Coursework Assignments, members land jobs in 6 weeks, on average, by investing about 1.5 hours / day in outreach to companies.
Because they're prospecting for jobs the way tech sales professionals prospect to sell, many hiring managers want to interview them.
It means you can work from home -- or anywhere you have a space suitable for doing phone calls and video calls (well lit, quiet and just for work).
You still need to work 8 hours per day on a regular schedule, Monday through Friday.
And you're an employee with a boss, not a contractor or a business owner.
You also need to hit all the same performance goals as someone in the same role working in an office.
There are usually 3 to 4 interview rounds...
Round #1: 20-minute phone screen, either with Human Resources (HR) or a hiring manager
Round #2: Either a Zoom interview with the hiring manager or a peer interview
Round #3: Interview with a VP (the hiring manager's boss) or a peer interview
Round #4: Either a panel interview and/or interview with the CEO
Why so many rounds?
Because it's common for 100s of people to apply, and many aren't qualified even if they put the right keywords on their resumes and sound good at first. Our mentors prepare you and guide you 1:1 through your interviews, so you stand out and get hired.
Your Mentor helps you master the sales tools, skills and workflows hiring managers test you on over 3-4 interviews.
Your Mentor also helps you craft and customize your outreach to managers to land interviews.
They show you how to sell yourself to hiring managers, handle objections and get multiple offers at tech companies.
Your Mentor also reviews each offer to make sure it's market-rate, with good benefits.
If you want to negotiate, they can help you do that. And they even serve as a job reference for you.
Have you ever applied online (through Indeed, LinkedIn or whatever) and never heard back?
We call that “apply and pray” because it doesn’t work well. Even when your resume is impressive and you couple it with a tailored cover letter.
We show you how to prospect for a job the way a pro Sales Development Rep prospects for customers.
Showing you can do the job like that impresses hiring managers more than anything.
We grade you on your performance in the coursework and in working with your mentor.
Hitting your coursework targets, following your Mentor’s guidance and turning in assignments on time are the top three ways to earn a great score.
FastTrack members with good scores get intros to hiring partner companies.
No. Your job search may just take longer if you only want a remote role.
The good news is 74% of tech startups (of 451 surveyed) said they plan to go either mostly remote or fully remote.
When you're working from home, you're still a full-time employee, working 8 hours each day, with the same expectations. That includes having a work space you can control without distractions (no screaming children, dogs barking all day etc.)
Having no commute also means trading office perks like endless lattes and face-to-face time with coworkers for some extra self-care or family time, so think about what makes sense for you.
Age isn't the important factor. Coachability is.
We've had successful members ranging from 20-something Uber drivers who opted-out of college, plus highly educated people in their 30s and 40s looking for mid-career shifts.
That said, we haven't had much success so far with people under age 20 or over 50. We'd love to have great candidates in both age groups, though!
Google, Apple, IBM and many other top tech companies no longer require you to have a college degree. Even the federal government decided to hire people by prioritizing skills over degrees. Many companies say they require a degree, yet our members have routinely landed interviews and job offers because they prove they can do the job through FastTrack -- regardless of degrees.
After all, in sales, what matters is how you perform. That's why Software Sales Managers often interview people with impressive degrees from prestigious universities... and don't hire them.
Managers want to meet someone who can do the job, and who they'll enjoy working with. We take you from zero knowledge to being ready to prove yourself in interviews.
See the 500+ reviews (including video interviews) on our website from previous members.
Also, check out the 300+ reviews on CourseReport and CareerKarma, the two leading sites for tech-related training programs.
And the 200+ recommendations on our founder's, Josh Jordan's, personal LinkedIn profile. (If you can't read them, you just need to create a free LinkedIn profile.)
There is some overlap between these reviews (since we asked some people who reviewed us in one place to share their review on another website). That said, we have more success stories coming in weekly.
You can see what some hiring managers say about our members here.
We are NOT a staffing agency.
We DO have partner companies that actively hire our members, and sometimes make introductions if we feel there's a good fit.
Still, the majority of our members choose to find their own jobs. They accomplish that by contacting companies they want to work for, using the workflow we teach.
Throughout the entire process, you'll have one-on-one mentors who will help you build your personal brand, provide feedback on the emails you write, prep for interviews, and discuss job offers you've received.
We answer that question at length here.
The exact work is different for every company, but it involves 3 things:
1. Prospecting
2. Qualifying
3. Scheduling
Prospecting includes identifying ideal businesses (who fit your Ideal Customer Profile) and reaching out to them (usually via email or phone) to start a conversation.
Qualifying is asking questions to see if someone is a potential fit for your product.
Scheduling is setting meetings between the prospect and an Account Executive (AE) for a software demo.
Or, if you're the one doing demos (most SDRs don't do demos), you'll mostly do those via video conferencing with screen sharing, since in-person meetings are rare.
That said, here's what a pretty typical work day looks like:
8:30-9:30am: Get to the office. Coffee + emails, calls, connecting on Linkedin
9:30-noon: Research, mapping and outreach to decision makers at companies
Noon - 1:00pm: Lunch and running errands, napping, socializing, etc
1:00-4:30pm: Meetings with potential clients (video, phone, demo via computer -- NOT traveling)
4:30-5:30pm: Plan work for tomorrow, answer emails
If you're working remotely (not in an office), your normal day-to-day is still roughly the same. You just won't hang out with coworkers in person.
P.S. If the work sounds terrible, software sales probably isn't the right fit for you. Or, if it sounds good, yet you just don't have the experience yet, that's what we train and mentor you to give you.
Knowing how to help people clarify their problems and potential solutions using a proven process (which is what sales is) gives you confidence.
It's also how you avoid being among the 24% of new software Sales Development Reps who get let go (source: Bridge Group, 2018).
Rarely. Most companies want people full-time, working normal U.S. business hours.
That said, to prep for that full-time career, you can enroll with FastTrack part-time and on your own schedule, as long as you still hit your weekly KPIs (goals), which are typically a minimum of 10 hours a week.
You won't have to travel at all for most software sales jobs. Email, phone and video conferencing are your connections to the world.
Of course, not meeting face-to-face makes building trust & rapport harder. That's one reason our training is all online. When you're going through the program, you have to prove your selling skills the same way you will on the job.
According to Glassdoor.com, the average income for an experienced person is ~$158,640 in 2022.
BUT making $100,000+ is NOT average for software salespeople in the first year.
In your first year, the average total earnings (base salary + commissions) is $60,000 - $80,000. Of that, $40,000 - $60,000 tends to be base salary.
From what we've seen from, making 6 figures can happen withing just a few years in the industry.
The tech industry has a half-million companies and ~50k new tech startups each year, so there's plenty of room to move between companies if you ever need to or want to.
Software sales is also one of the most recession-proof careers because companies still need software during a downturn to be efficient.
Our program will give you the real-world skills to perform well almost anywhere (and you have a lifetime membership to keep getting mentoring), so losing your job for non-performance is rare.
People still ask, "Even at top software companies, aren't Sales Dev Reps just glorified telemarketers?” Nope. Here’s why...
First, what do you think of when you hear "telemarketer"?
Are you cringing, thinking of your phone blowing up during dinner?
Nobody wants to be slammed with a scripted pitch for a car warranty or termite control.
Especially from someone who doesn't give a darn about you.
In contrast, tech salespeople don’t call 1,000s of people every day.
They sell to businesses, so their approach has to be more thoughtful.
That's why researching who's most likely to need their product comes first.
Even then, many tech sales teams email or message decision makers on LinkedIn first.
And yes, they also call if needed.
30 to 50 calls per day is pretty normal.
Those calls are just to confirm the business likely has a need the software can solve.
If so, the Sales Dev Rep sets up a demo, which an Account Executive usually does.
In case you're wondering, yes, some sales teams still mostly call instead of emailing or LinkedIn messaging. Those folks are doing 100+ calls per day.
You can just avoid those positions, since thousands of growing tech companies are grabbing good sales talent. (Yes, we can help you find those.)
Of course, if none of this sounds appealing, you can stop reading. Tech sales probably just isn't your thing.
After being a Sales Development Representative (SDR), it's common to become either an Account Executive or a SDR Team Leader, with promotions to Sales Development Manager or other management roles afterward. Some people also go into Marketing or other departments. For a visual reference, check out this career paths diagram.
For example, Daniel Ryan, had 4 years of retail sales experience and spent 6 months applying to tech sales roles.
After being passed up 10 times, he came to FastTrack to learn the tools, skills, and workflows used in SaaS. Daniel got hired in 2 weeks after finishing our career launch program.
Like Daniel, most people don’t know what they need to know, including how to pass the 3-4 typical interview rounds.
But let’s say you land an entry-level job. How much in earnings do you miss out on for taking a year or two to get to a junior-level?
FastTrack members often start at the junior level.You might be able to. Yet many people fail to get even entry-level tech sales jobs (yes, even sales pros from other industries).
Yes, you can use the modern sales tools, skills and workflows you learn in our program to work in any industry.
Yet, why would you want to?
Many sales jobs don't pay as well as software sales, don't pay a base salary, hardly give you time off, don't offer the same perks, require way more than 40 hours per week, require extensive travel, aren't as stable, or need you to sell products you don't believe in (like pharmaceuticals).
With our $0-upfront option, you can start making flat monthly payments only after you're hired. For those who don't qualify, we also have a cash option.
Whichever option you choose, you have LIFETIME access to our membership benefits.
You have the right to cancel your FastTrack Membership within 7 days of starting as long as you've not completed more than 30% of the course.
You will know exactly how much of the course you've completed, since the course dashboard shows you as you go.
It'd be hard to fake 500+ documented member success stories (including many video interviews) on our website and third-party sources like Facebook, LinkedIn, CareerKarma and CourseReport (the biggest review websites for tech training programs).
So, here are some other questions to spot a scam:
• Does the company have a phone number you can call? Even if you get their voicemail, do they call you back when you leave a message?
• When you email them, do you get a personalized response?
• Does the company have a physical mailing address?
• When you talk to someone in the company, do you feel pressured to buy? Or do they ask questions to see if their offering is a good fit for you?
• Can you find the company founder and other staff on LinkedIn?
• Does the company have reviews from past clients?
• Can you find those past clients on LinkedIn or elsewhere?
• Can you message past clients to ask if they're still happy now?
Of course, we pass all these sniff tests. See for yourself.
FastTrack is open to people age 18+.
You must be a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident to qualify for the $0-upfront option (with flat payments starting when you're hired).
Otherwise, you can still join (if accepted) by paying in full upfront.