Ever felt your limit before?
After a solid week of being home and reflecting on the summer that was, I look back at some of the highs and lows with appreciation. You really have to push the needle to see where your tolerance for achieving your ambitious goals actually lies. I sure as hell discovered that.
Coming into Summer 2019, my goal(s) were simple yet audacious: I wanted to see how much I could accomplish if I really dug in and had tunnel vision on going after these five things:
- Learn the foundation of sales at Indeed, feel comfortable talking to clients, & going through the nuances of a sales cycle.
- Deliver results for the startup I’ve been working for — SioTex (product site: RecycleSil.com) through a successful Google Ads campaign & overall being as helpful as possible to my CRO.
- Read 3 books.
- Workout 4x a week.
- Get through my month-long online class to give me some wiggle room for senior year!
Yeah, you’re probably not the first person to accuse me of biting off more than I can chew. But let’s dive into the lessons I learned the hard way:
I’m so glad I adamantly went after a sales internship for the summer. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place after taking some big swings and missing with other tech companies while recruiting for sales internships, but I’m so fortunate to have landed with Indeed. The level of mentorship, coaching, and autonomy to do things my way after learning the basics made for an incredibly rich 12 weeks of getting better at sales. Now don’t get me wrong — it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. About week two into getting the training wheels let off and getting on the phones, I was flat out bad. I knew I was leaving a lot on the table.
The beauty in sales is that everyone tells you that there’s no way around getting your hands dirty. You HAVE to get the reps in. That’s how you get better. 1% better everyday is the goal. The successful Account Executives in the office all trusted the process & system that Indeed’s leadership preaches & were able to see the results in due time. After rigging my mindset and buying in, I took the pressure off myself and made sure to shift my focus to working on one aspect of sales at a time. Little victories along the way followed!
Be relentless in figuring out your selling style. Be inquisitive in learning about your customers and what their pain points are. Be curious in soaking in as much as you can from quality sales reps in the office. Be sure you walk away at the end of the day knowing you gave it everything you had. As a sales rep, you truly can control your destiny over the long run if you follow those core tenants.
What I learned quickly is that my naturally obsessive nature wanted to spend more time honing the craft. But I had over committed myself across the board with the aforementioned activities, and I couldn’t create enough time outside of work (an excuse, I know) to put in the extra hours. A non-negotiable to my first full-time sales role after college: I’m going all in on becoming the best sales rep I can possibly be. This was super fun. Looking forward for my next sales challenge. Ready for the everyday grind.
Startups are like a baby that doesn’t stop screaming but you can’t ever really figure out what’s wrong. Ever. All of us suckers who love startups get life from the constant rush of making things happen, building a brand, and making those first thousand customers happy with a unique product.
My quest in building a quality Google Ads campaign for our startup’s product was far from smooth sailing. But thanks to the classes I’ve taken and various hours of patchwork Ads knowledge, I was able to nail the basics for a successful campaign mostly right. Using Ahrefs I knew what long-tail keywords to go after, customer data allowed me to know what geographic areas to target, and a whole lot of trial and error taught me what words increased click-through-rate for our ads!
Our ad campaign generated a promising amount of ROI, but there’s many more puzzle pieces that I’ll be working on to make sure our Digital Marketing creates as much value as possible. Again, I couldn’t get obsessed the way I wanted to due to time restraints (excuse, I know). But I have all of senior year to continuously iterate and drive impact towards expanding our customer base for RecycleSil. Time to take care of that screaming baby!
So I cheated on the whole books thing… I audio booked one via Audible. No regrets.
I listened to Hillbilly Elegy over audio by J.D. Vance. Uniquely written memoir chronicling the state of life of lower middle class native Appalachian people. My mind was blown at how misrepresented the plight of white, lower middle class Americans is along the rust belt. They have good reason to feel left out of the new digital economy. It’s time we take action.
Recently just finished Sapiens. Don’t read it if you’re not ready for the uncovering of human history through a anthropological lens. Although dense, there’s no other way to better understand our origins and what made us grow as a species across Earth. Super fascinating dive into why and how we do what we do as humans.
And of course, for my sales summer, I needed some sales inspiration. The Greatest Salesman in the World just gave me a mental boost in taking things on with a good attitude. The story is quick and hard hitting, and certainly ‘cheesy,’ but it never failed to give me an added shot of inspiration in approaching every day at Indeed with a winner’s attitude.
Ha! The whole workout thing… yeah, we were good on it until the first week of July.
One of the most lovely things about being extroverted is that you’ll never know when someone could be your guy and help you out when it really counts. I was fortunate enough to have someone come through and teach me my online class’s content in a week’s period and snuck an A in the course. How? I really don’t know. I do know that I’ve never focused so much on learning as that week — my friend somehow taught me everything within 5 days! Just goes to show anything is possible if the effort is there… (sometimes!). I’ll take the A, and I’m super thankful for a friend who should maybe consider being a professional tutor.
That’s it. That was my summer. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think I could do it multiple times throughout. But I really badly wanted to see what my threshold for learning, doing, and iterating would be like with my back against the wall. I damn well know it now. I learned that bringing excellence to a full-time job that’s demanding (Sales @ Indeed) while trying to maintain creativity and be an executor for your startup ( Marketing @ RecycleSil) is very difficult. I tip my hat to people who can bring their best self to two very different types of roles. You have to have a strong ‘why’ that can pull you through the times where you feel the burn of overcommitting and sometimes underdelivering — because of x,y, and z reason.
With all that being said, I sincerely loved the ride. I love going 100mph and leaving a trail of mistakes that are lessons to my future self. Surviving this summer taught me that you can push the boundaries of what YOU think is possible. Commitment and discipline can do a whole lotta things sheer talent can’t, and I felt it in my heart of hearts.
I’m ridiculously far from being the best salesman I can be. And I have a long way to go before I can say I know how to navigate digital marketing pitfalls that startups face. However, I’m a helluva lot closer than I ever would be if I didn’t have the summer I just did. See where your limits are you’ll always be amazed at what you can accomplish.
