The interview I went for the other day, it turns out I got the job! I went to the second interview last week and I got the chance to sneak a peek at the sales floor. I got to tell you, it’s lively up there. Everyone is so friendly and best of all, everyone is English! West Island is known for being all English. It’s like a brand new city to me completely set apart from Montreal as a whole. I went for the second interview up there thinking it was going to be an interview with only the hiring manager. I did not expect whatsoever to be in a room with four people interviewing me ! During the entire process, I was red as a tomato. It was just my red face I was embarrassed about but the interview overall went really well, I answered everything without any problems. .
The only thing I messed up at the end was the questions part when it was my turn to ask any questions I had on my mind. To prepare for the interview beforehand, I went online and I did my research to see what were the best questions to ask after an interview. One of them was to ask “if I was not hired, what would be the reason?”.. so I asked that question and I immediately regretted it. Not only did one of the interviewers tell me that it was a bad question to ask, she also gave a bit of a lesson to me explaining why it was a bad question. I was so red. However, luckily one of the other interviewers saved me and made it less awkward by saying, “That being said, would you like to rephrase the question?” and laughed. It allowed me the chance to re-ask the question in a more optimistic way.
In the end, they all liked me and wanted me on their team and gave me the job! This will be the beginning of a new challenge and to conquer a new skill, selling! Selling is one of the most crucial skills to have if you are interested in becoming a successful entrepreneur. I have done direct selling and marketing in the past years ago but I was not very good at it. The reason I failed in acquiring many sales in the past was because I was not targeting the right people. I was 18 to 20 years old at the time and I was desperately trying to sell to people my age. That was where I went wrong. The people with the money were the parents and how many of the parents were going to listen to the advice of their kid? That is the drawback of trying to run a business and acquire customers when you are young. People don’t really take you as seriously. It would have been a great business had I focused on the right customers.
I tried selling insurance, voice over IP products and even tried B2B selling interac machines. The latter failed simply because I was kind of shy and gave up hope after making merely 1 sale over the course of 3 months. It was a job that started at 8 am to 5 or even 6 pm. Another drawback of this job was that it required a lot of traveling. We were traveling further and further up north every day and the further north we went, the more french it became. My weakness. Had I been less shy and knew how to talk I would have been successful.
Essentially, it was like your own business where you obtained your own customers and hired your own team. One of those “pyramid schemes” as people call it. People forget that every company is basically a pyramid with a leader at the top and it is not necessarily a scheme as people view it. Just because they are not making enough money in proportion to the amount of time and effort they put in, they call it a scheme. The ones at the top are the ones that have mastered the art of failing. They have been rejected multiple times to the point where they have become numb. They learned from their mistakes and moved on. They were persistent regardless of the amount of failures that came their way. Many people give up after experiencing rejection a certain number of times. These direct marketing companies are the best ways to challenge yourself as an entrepreneur. It was a great learning experience and never have I ever regretted partaking in those ventures.
If you are really serious about gaining experience as an entrepreneur, look for a direct sales marketing company. There are hundreds of thousands of companies out there that are always looking to recruit sales representatives. Companies such as Mary Kay, Avon, 5linx and ACN are all examples of direct marketing companies. They provide you with the tools and the merchandise for a start-up fee (could be high or low depending on which company you decide to work for) and you go out there and acquire your own customers.
As with this new job of mine, I will be working as an Account Executive. A fancy name for basically sort of like a sales representative who manage the client accounts assigned to them in a specific area. I will be on the phone most of the time and dealing with my existing clients and also trying to sell to what they call “warm leads” which are customers that know about the company since the company I am working for is well-known. Therefore, these “warm leads” won’t be completely stranger to the company, they will have heard about it but do not know much and basically my job would be to attract and acquire these customers. It will definitely be something new and challenging to me. Something way out of my comfort zone that is for sure! One more goal to get a new job in sales checked off my list!
I am looking forward to it and will be starting in approximately a week and a half! I am so excited, wish me luck!
X.O.X.O.
-Fifster
