Tag Archives: Technology Sales

Does your recruiter provide sales training?

What is the value of a recruiter?

Traditionally, when I think of recruiters, sales training does not jump to mind. I think “this is someone who will save me the time of locating candidates.” Then, my next thought is, “but how do I know these are good candidates?” There is value in a recruiter, don’t get me wrong, I covered this in a previous blog. But what if that recruiter also provided training vital to future success and also continued the vetting process throughout that training as they watched them in action. This would be extremely valuable to a sales hiring manager.

Combining Recruiting and Sales Training

Imagine a recruiter who specializes in one single area. One so specific that they actually vet 100 candidates on the front end, arrive at the 16 best, and then…TRAIN them for 8 weeks. Usually recruiting and training don’t always go together. However, they should. At Techqualled, the standard program is as described above, vet candidates, train them in a 7 week program called LaunchPad for Veterans. This program provides training specifically for Technology Sales roles. I participate regularly in the role plays and can tell you, this is real world, challenging sales training at it’s finest.

Come for the recruiting, stay for the sales training

As Techqualled evolves, our hiring partners and our Veterans are seeing the value of the training aspect of the program. We are now fielding requests and building out programs to simply provide sales training for their existing employees. That speaks volumes to the quality of this program. So, expect more as you hire a recruiter. Don’t just ask for a stack of resumes, ask them to see the syllabus for their training program.

Mission: Transition – My Journey to Nutanix

In the military, there are several things that are critical to a successful mission: you need a plan, a team, resources, rehearsals, and plan B’s. If you go into a mission without these key factors, you set yourself up for failure. I found the same to be true for my transition out of the military. I had a plan of transitioning into a civilian career, but not necessarily the team or resources, which is where Tech Qualled came in. If it were not for TQ, I would be struggling to complete a successful mission and most certainly wouldn’t have a career at Nutanix.

Transition:

I began planning my transition 9 months prior to my End of Obligated Service date. A big part of this was figuring out what “bridge” I needed in order to get to where I wanted to be. With a young family, going back to school was not a viable option.

After attending the Transition Readiness Seminar (TRS), 7 months prior to EOS and leveraging my network, things started to take shape. One of the most important things I did during the planning stage was to list my priorities:

Geographic Location
Salary
Work/Life Balance
Industry

Defining these categories helped clarify things immensely. After reviewing my plan and priorities, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to have great work/life balance in the technology industry, a competitive salary, in a medium to large city, with a mild climate. Yes, it was extremely specific, but I was on a mission!

Enter Tech Qualled:

Eight months prior to my EOS, a recruiter from Tech Qualled reached out to me via LinkedIn. At the time, I was still looking at the technology industry but focused on an operations or logistics position. I quickly replied to the recruiter “Thanks, but I’m not interested at this time.”

After attending TRS, I spoke to numerous people in my network about mid-level positions at the technology companies I was interested in. It didn’t take me long to realize that I would need a substantial bridge to accomplish this mission. From what I had gathered, I had three options:

An advanced degree
An internship
Entry level role and rapid promotion

Frankly, none of these options were appealing, and I was not about to give up on my plan/goals. I quickly began looking at other ways to break into the industry. Tech Qualled kept coming to mind, so I set out to speak with several alumni about what Launchpad Academy is actually like. I began to realize that Tech Qualled really does bridge the gap for transitioning veterans, and was stunned that I would have an opportunity to enter the technology industry at no additional cost, while also having senior level training. I immediately reached back out to the recruiter and asked to be considered for the Fall cohort. Thankfully, they allowed me to begin the interview process, and I was accepted into the program shortly after.

Launchpad Academy:

During the seven weeks of Launchpad Academy, I had the opportunity to dive in deep and learn about the tech sales industry. The courses were interactive, fun, and very educational. The practical applications, exercises and videos combined to make it an extremely worthwhile experience. However, I would say the information and processes really cemented for me during Week 6-Virtual Bootcamp and culminated during the live Bootcamp in Ft. Worth, TX. It truly was an incredible opportunity to cement relationships, share knowledge, and learn from success and failure in a fun environment.

Transition to Nutanix

During the placement, ownership of the process is key. Tech Qualled was the bridge that enabled me to have a conversation with multiple Tech companies. Learning how to leverage my past experiences and the soft skills generated, while combining them with the training, coaching, and partners Tech Qualled brought to the table was the key.

I accepted an offer with Nutanix on December 3^rd (2 weeks prior to EOS) and started on January 7^th. Looking at what my priorities were (Work/Life balance, Salary, Industry, Geographic Location) I am thrilled to say, it was a mission accomplished.

Thank you Tech Qualled for bridging the gap!

Gary lives in Raleigh, NC with his wife, and son. Previously, he was a United States Marine Corp Officer and Osprey Pilot active from 2008-2018. Having graduated from Tech Qualled’s Cohort 13, Gary is now an Account Executive at Nutanix.

About Nutanix: Nutanix is a cloud computing software company that sells what it calls hyper-converged infrastructure appliances and software-defined storage. Nutanix Enterprise Cloud combines the agility and simplicity of the public cloud, with the security and control you need in a private cloud. Built on the industry’s leading hyperconverged infrastructure(HCI) technology, it integrates compute, storage, virtualization, and networking in a full-stack solution that runs nearly any application.

Whirlwind Transition – Naval Officer to High Tech Sales

When you are in the fleet, you know a military transition will come one day but it seems so far away and unreal. It’s easy to push these thoughts out of your mind when you’re getting flung off the front of an aircraft carrier on a dark night…but eventually those days and nights come to an end.

Making the transition out of the military and into the civilian workforce was a whirlwind, and without Tech Qualled’s program, I would not be blessed with the job at Tektronix that I have today.

After having my first child, I decided that long deployments and work-up cycles were not for me anymore, especially because my husband was also an active duty military officer. So I did what many military officers do – I got an MBA. I finished up my MBA as I began my transition out of the Navy, had another baby, and my husband also made the transition out of the Marine Corp. Lots of change, and all the while, trying to figure out how to land a job that is dynamic, challenging, well-paying, satisfying and flexible. Not long after, I received an email from the Tech Qualled team explaining a little bit about the high-tech sales industry as well as the Tech Qualled Launch Pad Academy.

Turns out, a few of my husband’s former squadron mates were a part of the first cohorts at TQ – they both said they loved it! I applied to the program and started toward the end of August 2018 – at this point, I had had my third baby (I think that’s it for me!). Tech Qualled Launchpad Academy is challenging and definitely took me out of my comfort zone several times. I feel it truly prepared me with invaluable skills like how to anticipate customer interactions, negotiations, sales cycles, business acumen, prospecting and more. I also found a little piece of comradery that you tend to lose when you leave the military. It was down-right fun training with other people that you know share a similar background in serving our country.

The mentors and staff are also world-class people. As I was going through training, my eldest child had medical issues and I was in and out of medical appointments. Surprisingly, I received and accepted a job offer before the end of the 7-week training. While I was very excited, this meant I had to sell a house, rent a new house, move a family and start a job (with three kids – a sick four-year-old, a clingy two-year-old, and a newborn). It was a lot but the team at TQ did everything possible to help me make this transition into my new job smooth and seamless.

Fast forward three months later, and I’m getting a grasp on the firehose that consumes your workday when you start a new job in tech sales!

The job is exactly what I was looking for: dynamic, challenging, fun, flexible and well-paying. Things are settling with family and work life – and it would not have been possible without Tech Qualled. Sincerely, Tech Qualled helped propel the course of my career, and I can’t say enough good things about this program or the team all around.

Today, Julia resides in Los Angeles, CA with her husband and three children. She joined Tech Qualled for Cohort 13, and is currently a Strategic Account Manager with Tektronix.

Beyond Just Hiring a Sales Recruiter

Introduction to Sales Recruiting

I was first introduced to the role of the sales recruiter and hiring sales people back in the late 1990’s when I took my first management role at IBM. The process then, was simple, go to universities, collect resumes and schedule interviews. This works great for entry level sales roles, when people actually communicated via a sales call. Fast forward to today. If you are familiar with the evolution of the sales process. (Sirius Decisions refers to this as “The Buyers Journey“) then you know it’s not that easy anymore. Thus the importance of self driven, trained sales people are vital. This is where I was introduced to the traditional recruiting model.

We have posted several sales roles at Cima Solutions Group, and hired recruiters. Even with a recruiter, the role of a sales manager in the process really doesn’t change much. You still have to build the posting, review candidates, interview, negotiate, etc. Sure a recruiter might help bring some additional candidates, but now you have to trust the recruiter. Which candidly, I never do. So, what am I really getting from a recruiter?

Enter Tech Qualled

I spoke with Nick Breedlove two years ago when he called to introduce the organization to me. I instantly fell in love with the idea. What I liked most about it was, this was not just recruiting. It is recruiting, vetting, profiling, training, and showcasing. I don’t really like the last term, but the truth is, within this program, as a sales manager, I get to spend one day watching the 12-16 candidates in their final role plays and then interact with them over lunch dinner etc. I can do all this in one half day! No more lengthy recruitment process that typically results in two hours of interview time to base a decision on. So, when I say showcasing, yes, it’s a great showcase of the various talents these candidates posses. What I look for are things unique to the role and culture at our company. That is better than ANY interview process you have sales managers.

Worth the Investment

I have been around Technology Sales Managers for 25 years now. Most of them take a lot of pride in the value of their time. So I always question ones who say they cannot afford a recruiter. With Tech Qualled or a recruiter, there is a placement fee. If you look at the word fee, you are doing it wrong. Think about the amount of time you will spend finding the right candidate. Then, add in a confidence score related to how you vetted that candidate. Then consider your time in training someone. How many hours did you come up with? How much are you worth an hour? Starting to get the math here? What really makes all of this add up, is how the Veteran hires differentiate against a College Hire and a Seasoned Professional Sales Rep. Tune in later this week for a deep dive on that viewpoint. If you are interested in more on this perspective, hit me up on Linked-In