Michael Nuccio didn't know email security was a category when he took his first job out of college. What he knew was that he wanted to sell, and that AI was about to change everything, so he wanted to be close to it. A connection through his sister led him to an AE at Abnormal, who encouraged him to apply for an SDR role. Two years and one promotion later, the thing that changed how he sells wasn't a script or a deck. It was a comparison a manager made at a sales boot camp, and it stuck: don't offer anyone a fix until you've actually figured out where it hurts, the same way a doctor would.
A Job That Checked Every Box
Michael set a simple bar for his first job out of college: a great product, a relevant industry, strong people and enablement, and real room to grow. The more he researched Abnormal, the industry it was competing in, and the people already working there, the more convinced he became.
"The product was incredible, the need for a new approach to email security had never been greater, and everyone I talked to had a real excitement for where the company was headed," he said. "Abnormal has checked every box, and I'm super grateful."
Like every new sales hire, Michael's first real introduction to the company came at Abnormal University, the company's week-long sales boot camp in Las Vegas, where the entire new-hire cohort trains together and gets direct time with senior leadership, including CEO Evan Reiser.
"I was surprised how down to earth Evan is," Michael said. What struck him wasn't just the accessibility, it was Evan's honesty about where the company was strong and where it still had work to do, along with his ambition for what Abnormal could become.
"He talked about being more than an email security company and eventually expanding into this broader platform," Michael said. "At the time, those plans felt very distant, but here we are just a year and a half later and I'm seeing it begin to unfold."
"We're a recognized leader in the industry, but it feels like we have a lot more to prove, and that makes working here really exciting," he said. "We've made a lot of strides but aren't even close to our peak, and that makes me thankful to be along for the ride."
Selling Like a Doctor
Michael's first year as an SDR was a long stretch of trial and error: failing, asking for help, watching what top performers did differently, and looking for the next thing to improve. "I was afraid I wasn't going to succeed, and it took me a long time to feel like I had a solid grasp of the job," he said.
The shift came when Michael circled back to something he'd heard in his very first week: an SDR manager at boot camp comparing a sales call to a visit to the doctor. Picture walking in with a broken leg, Michael explains: if a doctor started prescribing treatments without asking a single question, none of it would actually help. First they ask where it hurts. Clients show up to a call the same way, with a problem they need solved, and the job is to understand it before offering anything.
"It's a goal of mine on calls to have the client talking more than I do."
That rarely happens, he admits, but the habit of trying is what's changed. Listening, he's come to believe, matters just as much as talking.
A Culture Built to Invest in You
Six months into his SDR role, once he had a solid grasp of the job, Michael decided he wanted to become an AE. One of the AEs on his team told him, in so many words, to treat getting the promotion like a part-time job, and he took it that way: spending hours a week shadowing AEs, meeting with mid-market leadership to understand what they looked for in a rep, and studying the product on his own time to close every skill gap he could find.
What made that possible, he said, was a culture where people are quick to invest in anyone willing to take the initiative. All you have to do is ask. By the time he interviewed, SDR leadership, his AEs, and the mid-market leaders who'd been mentoring him for months all offered to put in a good word.
The advice that shaped his approach the most wasn't about sales tactics. It was about how to learn from anyone. He started asking everyone he met the same question: "What's one thing you can confidently say you do better than anyone here, and how are you so good at that one thing?" Then he'd adopt whatever he heard back into his own approach.
One of his most influential mentors was a fellow SDR who'd already made the jump to AE, proof that help could come from a peer just as easily as a manager. Now Michael is doing the same for the SDRs coming up behind him.
"It feels great to help others how I've been helped here."
Better by One Percent
Ask Michael what makes Abnormal's approach to AI different, and he sums it up in one line.
"It's the dedication to getting 1% better every day that makes us unique."
For him, that shows up most clearly in account research. He's built tools that scan the internet and intent signals for the moments that make a conversation worth having: an acquisition that introduces new risk, a breach that could have been prevented, new leadership rethinking an old stack. "We provide tremendous value to our customers at Abnormal, and AI helps connect me with the people who are more ready to have this conversation," he said.
The result, he said, is more time in the areas that matter most: researching a company before a call, reaching out with messaging that's relevant instead of clutter, and less time lost to the monotonous work that used to eat his day.
Michael is still early in his career, and what matters most to him right now is building skills he can carry for the next 20 years, at a company that keeps investing in his growth. He sees that same instinct at the company level. "We're not making progress for the sake of progress, we're innovating in the areas our customers need us to," he said. "This is just the beginning for Abnormal, and I'm really excited to be here for the long run."
Want to build a career somewhere that matches your effort with real investment? Explore open roles at abnormal.ai/careers.
