2025 Recap, Happy New Year, "I Don't Know Sh*t About F*ck, Tips for Spotting the Correct Sales Org, & Consistency

It’s that time of year again, the ball drops, the confetti settles, and everyone suddenly becomes a new person with new goals.

History tells us that setting intentions on January 1 is nothing new, even the ancient Babylonians and Romans were doing it. But the reality is that only 36% of resolutions last even one month.

On average, people stick with them for about 14 days.

That means nearly everyone who swore they were going to crush something in 2026 will probably be sliding back into old habits by mid‑spring unless they treat this year differently.

So how do you make a resolution that doesn’t die in February?

Resolutions are hard. Most people bail early. But if you treat your goals like a well organized mission, you’ll build a solid foundation this year.

Make 2026 your year.

Welcome to The Pipeline Press, brought to you by Pipeline Papi, Lindy Boy, Quota Cowboy, Rookie Rep, & Ant Calabrese. Every Friday, you’re getting stories, tips, job openings, and a little lifestyle drip to keep the edge sharp and the mission clear. PROMOTION, QUOTA, EARNINGS. Follow us on X if you aren’t already, we are all very active in the tech sales space if you want to continue the convo or have any questions.

Let’s get into it.

I came into 2025 with low spirits. I’d just been laid off late in 2024 and was pretty lost. I Discovered an online legend Bowtied Cocoon, dove into the tech sales world, and landed my first SDR gig in January making a whopping 58k OTE. My take home pay and expenses were basically even.

So I had to get creative.

And honestly? I’m thankful for that era.
It forced me to really hustle for the first time in my life.

One of the first things I did was start a tech help business at a retirement home. Helping people with their phones, TVs, devices, nothing glamorous, but I scaled it up to about $1K/month. It taught me how to pitch, deliver, and build something simple that solved a problem.

Meanwhile, I was off to a tough start as an SDR. No meetings set two weeks into it.. Thought about quitting, thought cold calling was a joke, thought I’d made a mistake. Started looking at being a casino dealer on a cruise ship.

Finally I hit my stride. Turns out all you need at the end of the day is CONFIDENCE. By May, I was crushing quota, and realized I didn’t need 60-hour weeks to do it. I had the skill down.

However, I was bored. Living alone and working remote in a small beach shack sounds fun, but get old fast.

That’s when Pipeline Papi was born. Lying in bed in May, I launched the X account. Started tweeting about the SDR grind. Work was simple, money was tight, but I truly felt like I was building something bigger. Finally I didn't feel so lost. And I made my first online money with the Pipeline Papi bot, only a couple grand, but it was proof I could do it.

By the end of the year? I got hired by one of the best tech sales companies on the planet and pay more than doubled. All that work, all that brand-building paid off. I went from zero to one. From laid-off and clueless to landing a DREAM ROLE, and built a foundation in a few different areas.

Moral of the story for 2026? If you want to get to step one, build your career foundation first. Be the best on your team. Then build a personal brand. Make noise. Find your path and run hard. That’s how you go from point 0 to 1.

This year in 2026, I’m going to document the process of going from 1 to 2. And I’m beyond thankful for everyone following along and joining me in the journey.

The hardest part is starting.

Today’s edition will be short and sweet, but very relevant. You all know what happens - a new year hits and all of sudden you’re supposed to adopt all these new great habits and drop all the bad ones. Then 2 weeks in, everything is forgotten and we revert back to our comfort zone.

This year, I encourage you all to employ a different approach. We’re playing the long game afterall, right? Small wins and small improvements in habit. Go to the gym 1-2x a week if right now you havent been going at all. Slowly cut back on the zyns, the vape, the weed, etc. Don’t quit cold turkey.

Same in your sales game. Do things gradually a little better. You aren’t going to go from underperforming SDR to Grant Cardone in 1 day. Its impossible and unsustainable anyways. Employ 1 new tool. Start using Freckl. And of course, get off to a hot start in January no matter what. Nothing soothes the soul and puts lead in the pencil like MOMENTUM.

2026 is year of the horse. As the great young thug once said “Horses dont stop, they keep going”. Thats us. We keep going. We go a little further and a little harder each time. Consistent and actionable pressure. Its going to be one hell of a year boys - physically, mentally, and spiritually. Lets lock tf in and go after everything we want. Cheers!

What’s up everyone, happy 2026. Don’t know bout ya’ll, but the time off I just had I really soaked it up. Felt like it’s been a loooong time since I thought about work, and partially it was nice to have a reset but now I’m back, baby.

Starting off this Friday gettin back to making some cold calls, and I caught myself yesterday just drifting in thought about not doing it for the last week and a half. Hence the title of this week’s article, we are getting back to the basics.

I have been driving throughout the southwestern part of the US, going from ATX to SF then SoCal then all way back. To make a long story short, I feel like I have about 0 braincells available for use right now. BUT, that ain’t gotta stop
me, or You, from gettin back to it and crushin’.

So, we’ve got a New Year and a new path to Quota. The faster you can get back to work, shake off the dust, and get to work the better you’ll be. Advice: start making calls the second you theoretically log on. You are probably gonna have a few calls that go awry just gettin back, and it’s best to get in front of it to start the day rather than delaying the inevatable.

Shake off the rust, get your ass in seat and get to work my friend. It’s something we all have to do, so I know this is more of a reinforcement of something you already know. But, there are many out there who are lying to themselves, saying “I crushed last Quarter, I’ll get right back to it when I feel like it”. You already know that in Tech, it’s not what you’ve done for me before, it’s what have you done for me lately. And that is 100% true when you are an outbound cold caller.

I’ll leave you with this simple example: On the 23rd I thought meh, no one is going to answer or want to talk to me. I was lying to myself to justify being lazy. I realized that, and got back to my calls. I then stumble across an Owner who is actively reviewing solutions, and we have a short nice chat that will most likely result in a demo to start the year. I have called him a number of times and never gotten an answer, until 2 days before Christmas.

We have 0 clue who is in market and who isn’t other than REACHING OUT, and we don’t control when those people answer. All we can do is make the effort to find out. So, on this 2nd of January, 2026, I not only encourage you, but dare you to push past the rust and get back to qualifying. Your pipeline and quota will thank you.

Go Kill, and Go Frogs.

-QC

Sup everyone. Last week I spoke about SDR’s timelines early in their careers. We looked at two parallel careers.

PATH A: Join wrong org, no path to promotion, leave and reset AE clock to 0
PATH B: Join correct org, path to promotion, become AE in 14-24 months.

This is not to say that the first year or two years as an SDR weren’t valuable & a waste of time. That is not the case at all.

However I think most would say you’d want to avoid PATH A & follow PATH B. Just the reality of it.

There’s no perfect formula, but here’s what I’d check before accepting an offer:

However, if you want it bad enough you are still going to make it. No matter what.

Until next week.

Rook ♜
X: @rooktorep

Every January, people get fired up.

They go to the gym a few times.
They eat clean for a week or two.
They talk about how “this year is different.”

And then… nothing changes.

Sales works the exact same way.

You don’t hit quota because you had a few motivated days at the start of the year. You hit quota because you built a routine that didn’t depend on how you felt that morning.

Motivation is unreliable. Consistency isn’t.

If your plan to succeed in sales is “I’ll just grind harder,” you don’t actually have a plan. You’re relying on willpower. And willpower always runs out.

The reps who win don’t wake up every day feeling fired up. They just do the work anyway.

Just like the gym, results don’t come from occasional intensity. They come from boring, repeatable habits done over a long period of time. No one gets in shape by lifting heavy twice a week when they feel like it. They get in shape by following a structure, even on days they don’t want to train.

Sales is no different.

You don’t hit quota by staring at your number.
You don’t build pipeline by “trying harder.”
You don’t win by waiting for motivation to show up.

You win by having clear activity goals and hitting them every day.

Calls per day.
Emails per day.
Accounts prospected per week.

Those are the real inputs. Everything else is noise.

If you don’t know exactly what you’re shooting for each day, you’re just stabbing in the dark and hoping it works out. Hope isn’t a strategy.

This is especially true in Q1.

Q1 isn’t about heroics. It’s not about blowing out your numbers for two weeks and burning out by February. It’s about installing a routine that you can still run in June.

When you build consistency early:
• Pipeline compounds
• Confidence grows
• Pressure later in the year drops

When you don’t, you spend the rest of the year chasing.

The reps who “get lucky” later in the year usually just did the boring work early when no one was watching.

So if you’re setting goals right now, don’t just set outcomes. Set non-negotiable habits.

Decide what a good day looks like before the day starts. Then execute, whether you’re motivated or not.

Because quota isn’t won on motivation.
It’s won on consistency.

And consistency always beats motivation in the long run.

Currently Hiring For

SDRs:

NYC - new grad top 150 school 60 base 90 ote uncapped and commission
NYC - 1 YOE strong preference in fintech - 110 base 130 k ote uncapped

SF - new grad top 50 school 80 base 100 ote
SF - new grad top 25 school or athlete or somewhere in the middle 80 base 135 ote

Main Companies: Office Hours, Meow, Solidroad, Simple AI, Vapi

AEs:

Sf/nyc - comm-midmarket-enterprise aes min 2 yoe as a direct seller at snowflake / figma / vercel type companies (technical product sales)

100-200 base 200-400 ote depending on segment being worked and Yoe.

Main companies: dust.tt, factory.ai, decagon, sequence, unify

Reach out to him HERE on X if you fit any of these descriptions

P.S. The Pipeline Papi SDR Bot is live. Your SDR copilot for custom cold call scripts, objection handlers, discovery questions and more, for EVERY Prospect. Built to make booking meets 10x easier.