In this community-member interview, host Dylan Vergara talks with Benny "Big Bags" about his journey from joining the Cereal Sales community while traveling in Mexico to becoming a successful SDR recruiter. Benny explains why he joined the community in June 2023—referred by friends Tristan and Burhan—and how, after paying a $50 monthly fee, he secured a closing role within five days, thanks to community connections and a month‑long interview process. He reflects on the challenges of finding work while in Mexico, the importance of trust and networking, and the value of community calls. Benny then outlines his career progression: closing for a UK SaaS company, a capital‑raising role covering Asian markets while living in Dubai, and eventually moving into recruiting and sales management in Australia, where he helped introduce a commission‑only model for startups. He has placed around ten SDRs from the community, citing a strong ROI and a tight‑knit network that extends beyond virtual interactions. Benny advises newcomers to join any relevant sales community, listen, provide value, and prioritize helping fellow members, emphasizing that both new and seasoned salespeople benefit from the network. The interview closes with a mutual endorsement of the community’s ability to connect people to opportunities and a light‑hearted sign‑off.
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Alrighty, YouTube guys and gals, we are back with a community member interview with Mr. Benny Big Bags. Benny is a member since June, joined back when he was on his Mexican excursion, but he's actually from Australia. That's where you are right now, Benny, right?
Yeah, that's it. Melbourne, Australia.
So yeah, guys, Benny's been in the community for a bit. Don't really have some crazy agenda for this call. Just wanted to hop on, chat with him about his experience, learn about the earlier parts of his involvement, you know, what and what all happened between then and now with, I think you're man— what are you officially doing? You're placing SDRs, right?
Yeah, I'm placing SDRs on B2B vetted offers and also then managing them, giving them training and enablement. So if you asked me that, if you asked me like, you know, a few months ago if I'd be like, what are we doing? I wouldn't have thought I'd be doing this, but here I am. Yeah. An opportunity came around and here I am.
Natural progression. Anyways, man, what, let's take it back to June when you first joined the community. Like why, why'd you decide to hop in? What was going on? What were your goals? And when you hopped in, like what, What was your first experience?
Yeah, sure, sure. So I joined the community because a lot of people had actually mentioned it and brought it up. I knew Tristan and I knew Burhan. They were in the community and they sort of recommended to have a look and join it. And so I was like, hell yeah, why not? Let's have a look. I heard it was like a really good place for some jobs and opportunities as well. And so when I was in Mexico, I went over to Mexico and sort of struggling to get a job. And yeah, I came into Cereal Sales and within 5 days I paid $50 to sort of join in that first time for that monthly membership back then. And yeah, within 5 days I literally found a role that spoke to me from someone who's big, sort of big on Twitter. So yeah. Got in contact with them and joined some community calls as well, which was really cool. found a lot of value. I think it's quite fun. And still, even till now, like, the community calls are such a highlight of my week, so I join them whenever I can.
Yeah. Even though you're on the other side of the world in the opposite time zone, you have better attendance than some of the guys that are in like the US region, US, Canada. So it's always appreciated. I'm curious, man, the type of role that you landed When you first came in, it was a closing role, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's right. So, um, you know, I've had what, 4 or 5 years of sales experience and, um, you know, I'd been an SDR before and, uh, then I got sort of training and stuff like that to become a closer and take that experience to be able to sell to people through a webcam. And then yeah, I landed a closing role with, um, yeah, with a guy on Twitter, which is cool.
You found yourself over in Mexico on a tropical vacation and you're in a position where it's like needing to produce income to, I don't know, make it, get out, get away from the cartel. I know we're kind of joking about that, but like, what was that situation like? And then, you know, the role that you found through the community, like how did it help you basically make ends meet? You know?
I mean, totally. So, I mean, from someone who I trusted, they recommended, actually quite heavily suggested for me to go over to the Eastern time zone to find a closing role over there. And the way I roll, I just do things 100%, put my trust in people and go for it. And so I went over there, realized then within the first month it wasn't as easy as people suggested it could have been to actually land a closing role. And so I went to Cancun and then went down to Tulum and spent a month there. Got some crazy stories for another time about that, but it was really difficult to land a job. And then I actually was connected with Tristan and Burhan. They were from Cereal Sales and been in it for a while. And they suggested that I should join the community because there were some jobs coming through there. So I was like, fuck it, let's have a look. So jumped in. It was on the monthly subscriptions back then and yeah, just found a lot of value. Found something within 5 months, sorry, 5 days. I found something within 5 days, which is good. However, the interview process took like about a month and yeah, it really helped because you vouched for me as well. The guy who was hiring me sort of really liked me as well, just from first impressions. And then yeah, eventually Ended up landing that role, which looked pretty solid.
Yeah, that's good. That's good. What, what do you think for somebody coming in now that you've gone through a couple of roles, like what is the biggest thing that you were, that you didn't understand before you got in? And now that like you've, you know, you've kind of moved up the ranks, now you're like, oh, if only I knew this back then, it would've been easier.
That's a good question. And I think it's sort of almost who you know in this industry. Like, you want to be jumping into those communities, you want to be able to provide value. Or, you know, some people jumping in, maybe, you know, an 18-year-old might not be able to jump in and provide so much value. But, you know, what I'd recommend is you just get in, you listen, you learn. And you don't have to just join the Cereal Sales community. There's plenty of communities, people, and group chats out there. And I think the thing that I valued the most about the Cereal Sales community is just the sort of support that I got and also the opportunities. And yeah, let's just say I made a pretty good ROI on that. And even some of the boys in the community, I feel like I'm friends with them even though I actually haven't even met them in real life. You know, when Abdullah and I, when we have spare time, we literally just sit on WhatsApp and we just create some sauce for appointment setting, man. You know, we just shoot the shit and create some sauce for appointment setting. You know? Yeah.
Yeah.
Fun.
Yeah, man. That's, I mean, even for me, I'm still in this now, like closing. Well, yeah, I close my own offers and then managing and just like really still connected to all this and like, Even for me, the network effect through the community has been insane because it's, I mean, yes, there's people that are brand new to it in there, but there's also people that have been doing it for a year, 2 years plus. And those are really the people that you want to be connected to. So let's fast forward, man. You get on this roll and you make some money and you leave Mexico and you go back to Australia. How many other roles did you have between what you're doing now and that one?
So, I was closing for that SaaS company based in the UK and then there was an opportunity that came up to work with a capital raising company and they wanted me sort of based in Asia. And so, and then my best mate who's actually set up in Dubai, He kept sort of inviting me to Dubai and I was like, you know, fuck it. Like, let me go to Dubai because then I can be in between the American time zones and then Asian time zones and then hang out with my best mate. So I went to Dubai for a month and that was really cool. It was tough, man. 16-hour days pretty much juggling that SaaS offer in the UK and then that capital raising offer in the sort of Asia markets. It was quite tough. And so, and then eventually I ended up leaving both roles because you know, it was a sort of good start but sort of wasn't what I was expecting and sort of wasn't what they projected to me. So then after that, um, I sort of jumped into recruiting and sort of sales management, if that, um, and, uh, yeah, like, because I had some friends here that were in enterprise sales and they just started up their own, um, of placement company because the whole commission-only idea here in Australia is very new and very novel. And it makes a lot of sense from a standpoint from the companies who are new, who are young, new startups. They don't have hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars to invest into a sales team. And we're sort of introducing that commission-only model here in this sort of time zone, which is pretty cool.
Yeah, that's cool, man. Did, did you pull anybody yet from the community into those roles or no?
So I think right now I've helped place around 10 people. If you know Alexis from the community, he's, he's in the, he's in the States.
Yeah.
Yeah, I ended up helping him get onboarded into a particular offer that's based here. However, they've got a closer in America and they're sort of doing some expansion over there, which is really cool. So yeah, he was sort of really curious and jumped at the opportunity and he sort of jumped into my hiring pool because I've got my own hiring pool so I can, you know, keep track of everyone because Twitter DM is just a bit of a mess, you know. So yeah, that's, and that's the sort of idea, you know, first, if an opportunity comes my way, what I like to do is just look after, I guess, you know, my friends or my people in my network or community first, you know, people like that, like they're gonna get the opportunities first, you know? Yeah.
I do the same thing. I mean, the community always gets first priority. A lot of my personal friends aren't really in this space. But yeah, people that I meet through this stuff and the community always gets first dibs. I don't really have any other questions to ask you. I feel like you kind of summarized, like you've been in for June, it's November, 5, 6 months. So it's been a while, but at the same time, we're still early, right? I don't know. I guess, do you have any other like last words or like if someone's looking at the community, like I don't know, do you recommend someone hops in or like what's your take on everything?
Yeah, like, I mean, if you're looking for genuine people, a genuine sort of network, if you're looking for different opportunities as well, I think it's very good if you're new to the space, but also very good if you're somewhat tenured. I forget the guy's name, but we had quite a tenured guy come through the other day. He was closing with you and now he sort of just joined your community. Right? And now it's like boom. Now he's got like a lot more access and opportunity through that. So I mean, yeah, like serial sales. Yeah, the boys, we're gonna eat, you know? We're gonna eat.
Yeah. Yeah.
We're gonna eat.
Yeah, man. Well, I appreciate the kind words. Hopefully we had some technical difficulties. Hopefully we can piece this one together and make it look all pretty. But if you're considering hopping into the community, You wanna meet guys like Benny and Alexis, the guy that Benny helped connect with a job, and myself. And I think the guy you were talking about, his name was, what's his name? I can't remember right now. But yeah, yeah, he was, he was, we used to close together on the fitness offer. You wanna meet guys like us that we, we're in this, we're doing this, we're helping each other out. like everybody is winning, like 90% of the people in there have jobs, then it's a good place to be. So if you made it this far, well, one, Benny, I appreciate you hopping on, but if you're watching this, I appreciate you watching and hope to see you inside soon. Peace.
