Marketing has been a huge part of my life and my bread & better in terms of my career. My journey in marketing started as a Performance Marketer in a Fintech company where I learned the different types of digital marketing and how they all work together.
Since then, my interest in Marketing has grown and diversified into different fields such as SEO, Content Marketing, Email marketing and much more!
Seeing the numbers, analysing it and thinking of ways where I can grow the traffic was what I enjoyed most about this job. However, I always felt that something was missing even though i enjoyed solving these challenges.
I did this for about 4 years until June 2023 when I started to think what was next for me. Am I okay with spending the rest of my career doing this? What do I like to do?
You could say that I was going through a quarter-life crisis where I questioned whether what I was currently doing was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
After 6 months of contemplating and exploring the different options I had, I decided to leave my marketing role and pursue a career switch into Sales.
Why Sales?
I have always thought that I am not suited for sales because I am an introvert and it drains my energy a lot talking to people, having small talk and starting a conversation with others. It is a challenge for me to hold a conversation as I am not very interested in small talk.
During the 6 months, my mindset changed as I spoke to a few people about what made them pursue a career in sales. They all mentioned the same thing that motivated them to get into sales, which is MONEY.
Money is also what motivates me to do well and to hit targets. Previously I felt like I wasn’t getting paid enough as I was putting a lot of time and effort into my work. Even during my leaves, Medical leave, I would still be thinking constantly about work and work was all I could think about.
I know that this is not healthy for me and it is more of my issue. So instead of seeing it as a weakness, I decided to go into sales where the amount of effort and hard work you put in, will result in your commission!
I am not saying that it will work if you put in a lot of hours, but it is better than getting a fixed pay.
As for the part where I am an introvert and my energy gets drained while talking to people, I realised that for me to grow as a person, I would need to overcome this hurdle and get out of my comfort zone for me to reach my next level of growth.
Type of Sales Role
I didn’t know what type of Sales I wanted to get into, but I just knew that I wanted to try sales at least once in my life. I felt that the best time for me to try getting into sales would be before I turn 30, hence, leading to me deciding to switch careers.
I tried getting into many different types of sales roles such as selling marketing services (SEO, SEM, and Website designs) to trying to become a property agent.
After trying and exploring the different sales roles in the market, I came upon Sales School Singapore. As I had previous experience in the tech industry, I roughly knew what a Sales Development Representative (SDR) does. I mean.. It’s just selling software, right? How complex can it be?
That was when I was SO WRONG about this. I had a call with Matthew from Sales School Singapore, and he told me about the fundamentals of tech sales and what an SDR is all about. It piqued my interest and I decided to join the 3rd batch of students in Sales School Singapore!
You can read my post here to learn more about my experience and journey in Sales School Singapore!
I was fortunate to get a job after graduating from Sales School Singapore! My journey as a SDR has just started and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead.
