Today’s Tip #14 is from Ivan Gomez where he’ll talk about tips for career development.
Where are you working to get to in your own career? Stating things like that publicly will help others support you. And we’re all here to support you in your career aspirations as well.
Join the discussion below, share to us your aspirations and learn more about Ivan Gomez.
Next Stage
Next Stage Blog
Ivan on LinkedIn
Ivan’s LinkedIn Publications
Ivan’s upcoming Youtube Channel
Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the daily sales tips podcast. I’m your host, Scott Ingram, and today’s tip comes from Ivan Gomez. Ivan is the president and founder of Next Stage, a management consulting companies specialized in the implementation and optimization of inside sales teams. Here he is with today’s tip:
Ivan Gomez: How do you have a conversation about career or career planning with your manager? Well, it’s Ivan Gomez here. I want to provide you with a couple of tips. One for the inside sales rep or field sales rep or sales development rep, whatever your level is, new junior, medium or senior. And the second part is for the manager. So let’s start with the account executive, the individual contributor, the number one tip is, begin with your “WHY”. Why are you in sales aside money? And what I’m gonna challenge you to do and to think is what is your purpose? If you have a strong purpose for what you’re doing, you’re going to work with a lot more passion and dedication. The second part is, you know, develop a career path or your business. What are you trying to accomplish this year, not only revenue wise and how you’re going to penetrate accounts, how you’re going to tackle your accounts, the revenue you’re going to bring, what’s your pipeline, but also develop a career plan yourself of what you’re trying to accomplish for this particular year 2019. In this particular case, you know, you might think, “well, I want to increase my knowledge of the industry.”
That’s great, you know, advancement or “I want to increase my knowledge on closing, opening statements, value proposition, negotiation, getting commitments from the clients”, it could be a number of things. So that’s actually part of, you know, goals of advancing your career. The third point is you got on your stripes, my friend. It’s very, very important, that you show your organization that you are committed and you are delivering the results and success that you were hired to achieve. The fourth point is as you go about your success, help others along the way — become a mentor for others. Mentorships allow you to convey the knowledge that you currently have and really help you master your craft. The fifth point is crucial. Okay? It’s once you have the point one, two, three and four, take the time to meet with your direct manager or you leader or executives, not only with one person or two, and share your thoughts, share your goals in terms of learning your earning potential, your goals around your professional development and aspiration and the sixth point is, mark your calendar that with very specific dates and the task you want to accomplish along the way. You have a vision, you have a plan. Now bring this down to very specific actionable items that you want to accomplish in a particular timeframe. Once you do that, commit yourself to meet those deadlines and rinse, wash and repeat. The last point would be is to show initiative to problem-solving for the organization. Be the person that brings new initiatives, that brings operational improvement. Become a problem solver for your organization — how to accelerate the sales process, how to troubleshoot problems and as you do that, you continue to get visibility by those that are around you, especially your manager and obviously above them. Now, note for the manager, meet with your reports often and on a regular basis. And as part of your one on one base meetings on a weekly basis or by weekly basis, ask them about their career path. Say John, Nancy, what do you want to accomplish this year? What’s your career aspirations in two or three years down the road?
You know, sometimes, some of the things that we do, some of the small things that we do on a day to day basis, quarter to quarter basis can lead to huge leap forwards, you know, for the future. We can’t short circuit the process. The other tip for the manager is to develop a career path for your reps. So let’s start at sales development rep. So let’s say you’re a sales development rep, then you have, a senior sales development rep because you are, you know, six, seven, 10, 15, 18 months down the road. Then you move to inside sales, junior inside sales senior and then account executive and show career progression of what are the possibilities that the particular individual can achieve. Do you have a channel partner career path? Do you have an inside sales career path? Do you have a field rep career path? And what will be the management career path? You might notice that leaders are looking for training high potentials. Okay, so identify who are your high potentials and look beyond the department for other divisions where the talent can be achieved. So action items: develop a career plan for a one, two and three years. Set the dates on your calendar, meet with the manager and what your direct report and be patient and work towards your goal.
Scott Ingram: Here’s my question for you today. Where are you working to get to in your own career? Stating things like that publicly will help others support you. And we’re all here to support you in your career aspirations as well. So click on the link in the episode notes of your podcast player or just go directly to DailySales.Tips/14. That’s also where you’ll find links to learn more about Ivan in his company, Next stage. I also want to give a shout out to some of the folks who have been actively engaging in the conversation at DailySales.Tips. So Lisa Sullivan, Andy Jaffke, Keith German, Jack Wilson, and Neil Ashford. Thank you all so much for your contributions and then be sure to come back tomorrow. It’s a big day!