What it’s like working in a tech sales career

It’s easy to sell when it’s something you’re passionate about

It is hard to believe that just a few years ago Katie Hanishewski was a homeless single mom couch surfing among her friends.

Today, she’s one of the highest grossing sales reps at Virtual Gurus, a Calgary tech company that connects businesses with virtual assistants.

She is passionate about a sales career and wants to let those who might be considering the Lean Sales pathway of the Tech Adjacent program know how rewarding a sales career can be.

An accountant by training, Katie loves numbers, but considered herself shy and reserved. She never thought she could be in front of people every day, speaking to strangers and selling products and services.

As a single parent with multiple sclerosis, Katie struggled to return to the workforce after her maternity leave. Then, she landed a position as a Sales Trainer and Director of Operations at 180 retail locations. From there, she moved on to a sales position with Virtual Gurus and immediately felt at home. She loves the social mission of VG to offer meaningful employment to under-represented women.

She loves her sales job and says her “secret sauce” to being successful in sales is that she prepares for every call by researching the clients, their needs and their competitors.

As part of a sales career, you are going to hear “no” more times than you hear “yes.” So, she practices how to handle objections and tailors her pitch making it unique and customizing it to every client. She doesn’t like to use a scripted template because she says clients can tell it’s pre-written and no one likes being sold to.

“I love my clients. They’re the highlight of my day, I treat them like my best friend, in that I’m going to take care of them. My honesty and integrity mean alot to me, so if they’re not my ideal customer, I tell them that. You can bring on every customer, but if you can’t execute successfully, it’s a waste of everyone’s time,” says Katie.

Katie says she gets to be both creative and analytical in her position. She uses creativity to tailor the pitch so it resonates with the client. Then, she dives into her sales data to see what’s working and what isn’t and if a new strategy is needed. She also uses technology and AI tools to make her job easier, automating a lot of the sales processes.

She has been able to build an incredible professional network of clients (many she considers friends) and she loves bringing them something of value.

“It’s really easy to sell something you believe in, so my advice is for people to find a company that they’re passionate about. Even if you don’t know if sales is for you, my advice is to try it.”

She says the job has built her confidence and resilience, and benefitted her personally and financially. She says sales is one career where there is no salary cap - with commissions, the harder you work, the more you can make.

Virtual Gurus has over 700 virtual assistants and is now in a Series B funding round. Katie is proud to work for this startup and be one of their top performing sales reps month after month.

If you want to read more about the Lean Sales pathway of our Tech Adjacent program, visit our Lean Sales FAQ page. If you’re ready to apply, let’s get started here!

Our next Discovery Session takes place August 22nd, register on our Events page. If you have questions, please reach out to info@inceptionu.com to book a 15-minute call with one of our team members.