Hi, I’m Yamin! One of the Sales placements at ProspectSoft. In this blog I’ll be sharing some of my experiences over the course of the past thirteen months, and hopefully giving you some insight into the role itself. As my placement comes to an end in August, I have been reflecting on the past year. There have been moments of success and failure, trial and error, but ultimately this past year has been an eye-opening and unforgettable experience.

As I began the job last August, I did not really know what to expect, I knew I would be in a Sales role; to me this meant talking to new customers or clients and trying to persuade them to purchase our service. I assumed I would immediately be talking to these clients and taking sales calls for the company. I quickly realised that it was not that simple, and the sales process was far more complicated. Essentially, it dawned on me that sales was not as straightforward as I had previously thought, it was a skill that required practice and dedication. This realisation was humbling but overall had a positive impact. I was able to see the progress that needed to be made in terms of my sales skills and the work that needed to be done, to find success in the role. There was a clear path dug out for me that I needed to follow.

Initially there were a number of setbacks, firstly giving the CRM software demo at the beginning of the year was exceedingly difficult for me, and proved to me that there was more to Sales within ProspectSoft than first thought. I needed to present the demo pitch several times before it was deemed adequate for the Sales team; this was tough, but the challenge was welcomed. I took the first steps into the sales world.

The next setback was understanding and acquiring the required skills to begin performing in the role; this ranged from time management to communication and client relations. All these skills needed to be learnt and utilised quickly. The hardest skill to learn was communication and as a result rejection handling, often I would call a potential customer only to be met with a negative response which was demotivating. Learning how to deal with this really improved my ability to look past the rejection and realise that I was only one more “No” away from an eventual “Yes.” This is the main premise I have learnt about sales; it is entirely a numbers-based game, to mitigate risk of not performing you must play said game.

I had a lot of support when it came to overcoming these setbacks. Firstly, we had frequent morning meetings which allowed us to voice these setbacks and any concerns we had, the whole sales team would then be able to provide valuable advice to myself and Rohan, the other Sales placement.

Additionally, we were able to sit in on sales calls and listen to conversations between the team, this was always insightful and often answered the questions we already had. We were also provided sales scripts to follow when making our calls, this really helped overcome the setbacks because we were given a tried and tested script that, if used correctly, proved immensely helpful. Finally having a weekly one-to-one with Louise, our sales manager allowed us to talk specifics in terms of how we are performing. We also discussed how we can manage and overcome the setbacks we were facing.

Over time I’ve become far more comfortable in my role, I can call potential clients easily and find more success. Moreover if I come across a setback in my calling, I can adjust the script and find new ways of producing results. I’ve also become more confident in asking specific questions about the role to ensure I have understood everything, and I am planning well. The past year has been insightful and has allowed me to progress my career and as a person. I’m really excited for my final year and university; I will be taking the skills I have learnt in this role and translating them into my work at Uni.