It was the 8th of April 2024.
The day I started my career change from marketing to tech sales.
I couldn’t sleep the night before as I was worried that I might not be able to do well in my new role. I rolled on my bed the whole night thinking about all the mistakes and letdowns I could have made once I started.
However, after a while, I told myself to just do my best, learn as much and we will see how it goes! I can only control what I can control and there is no point in worrying about stuff that might not happen at all.
The Genesis
I walked into the co-working space to be greeted by another colleague that is also starting on the same day as me! It’s always good to have the same batch mate as you know you both have each other’s back and going at the same pace.
The first day was mostly administrative stuff, where I got my laptop and accounts set up to start my learning.
What I enjoyed most about the onboarding was even though the team is global, they took the effort to arrange a call on our first day to introduce themselves to us! In addition, they also had a calendar with our learnings planned out for us as our introduction to the company.
So, the first 3 weeks would be us taking online courses to learn more about the company’s product and also the software used as a Sales Development Representative. They also have a module for us to learn about cold calling, discovery calls and prospecting for leads.
Overall, the company I joined has a very mature learning programme for beginners in the tech sales industry. I am very grateful for this and I will be putting in all my effort to learn and absorb as much as I can.
This is so that I can prepare when it is time for me to start prospecting and hitting targets!
I was also fortunate enough to join the company at the right time, as during my first week, the CEO came down to Singapore for lunch and to give a talk to everybody in Singapore.
I always love to hear CEOs talk as the way they talk is always very calming, direct and tactical in the sense that they know how to avoid giving direct answers but also answer the questions at the same time. Somewhat like how ministers respond to people.
Even though my colleague and I just joined, during lunch, he also made the effort to sit down with us to talk and get to know us. One thing that stood out to me was that he told us, he began his career as a Sales Development Representative as well!
He said that most of the lessons he learned as an SDR, were what helped him get to where he is today. Therefore, I am MORE convicted about making this career switch work.
Being a CEO?? I would never dream of that. Maybe I will be a CEO one day and look back at this post to laugh at myself.
Overall, my first week was very good in terms of meeting my colleagues, learning and slowly getting the hang of getting into a sales role.
Once again, I am very grateful that I got this job, helpful colleagues and also being in such a big company.
From now onwards, the pressure IS ON! Time to network and see where this role takes me!
If you would like to know more about my journey as an SDR and change into tech sales, feel free to reach out to me on my LinkedIn here!
