If you are nervous to get into sales and feel you do not have the past experience to warrant it, let me tell you how rewarding a career it can be. It is completely worth giving a shot. Sales builds your confidence–it builds you up and makes you stronger than you ever thought you were.

Prior to entering the sales world, I thought all salespeople did was sit by the phone and make calls all day. I thought if you’re in sales, you are one of those annoying people pestering others to buy a product they may or may not need, pressuring the person on the other end of the phone, and calling from numbers labeled as ‘Scam Likely’. Boy was I wrong. There is so much more to sales than meets the eye. Sales is an integral part of all companies looking to expand their brand and their mission. For us at Alleyoop, sales is what we do to help others grow.

I started with Alleyoop not having any previous sales experience. Rather than sales, I had a rich background in customer service. I figured customer service is dealing with people, sales is dealing with people, how much different can it be?

So here I am, coming into sales with a mindset that the customer is always right, and that you should never speak up or go against what someone on the other end of the phone says to you. At first, it was tough for me to get consistent wins/sales. I was in over my head, too afraid to speak up to those who blew me off over the phone, too afraid to call someone’s cell I had never spoken to before.

But I gave it my all, as I always do. I kept my head down, kept my mouth shut when I was learning something new, and kept my ears open for advice. Most importantly, I had some great trainers and co-workers to learn from. I also had the chance to work with an account executive who was very hands-on with me and my co-workers. He arranged a role-play session every day. I don’t think you read that right… he arranged a role-play session every single day.

These role plays were short, sweet, and straight to the point. They were tough and contained realistic and challenging scenarios. This made it so that our role-play call was our toughest call of the day.

This AE also provided a solid script that helped guide my scattered mind which was so fresh and new to sales. He provided objection handling for most scenarios and taught us that dials are king.

With this guidance, things quickly turned around for me. As I started growing with my role, I started to notice the little things that made other Alleyoopers great. I noticed that the best reps knew how to be bold with the other person on the end of the phone when necessary. They knew how to be persistent and not easily give in. The more I watched the top performers, the more I understood the importance of tonality. Sounding salesy would get you nowhere fast because it’s authenticity that people crave. I learned that if you can see the potential for your prospect’s company to benefit from the service or product you provide, then you can and should respectfully challenge their initial brushoffs.

My momentum soared along with my confidence, and I soon began to be positively recognized within the company. Imagine that, I was someone that started this new career with fear but did not allow the fear to take over. I knew that my hard work ethic would not fail me. Now I feel blessed to have continued to grow with Alleyoop, moving up to Sales Enablement, and now moving up once more to a Business Development Manager role.

It’s clear to me that I still have more to learn so I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. I stay humble and try my best to learn something new every day while passing on the wonderful and helpful knowledge that was imparted to me along the way.

If you do these things then you will be successful in sales no matter what career background you come from.

Alleyoop has afforded me the stability I always sought, and the chance to expand my resume and my repertoire. It has been quite the journey, one I thought, at times, I was not going to make. But if you make it out on the other side, you gain skills in your life and your career you would have never been able to gain any other way.

Hear more about our team members’ sales journeys by keeping up with our LinkedIn page. If you’re looking to get started in sales yourself, check out our friends over at Ready Hire.

Sharon Viera

Business Development Manager | Alleyoop

Sharon is a BDM running an ever-growing team of incredible SDRs. Having risen through the sales ranks here at Alleyoop, Sharon has a unique perspective on what it takes to be a world-class SDR.