Have you ever spent your London Tube commute daydreaming about your next career move? Research found that 30% of full-time employees in the UK plan to change jobs in 2019. Motivation and all, finding the perfect workplace can be a time-consuming task.
For sales and services people in particular, several unique factors play into job satisfaction. If you’re selling an unreliable product, or have an endless list of unhappy customers, chances are you’re not going to be skipping to the office every morning. And those are just the foundational pieces.
A proper workplace should do far more than keep you from dreading the alarm clock. To get an inside perspective on the elements you should be considering as part of your search, we looked to those who have recently been there, done that.
Meet Director of Services & Sales Engineering Danny Clarke and Strategic Accounts Director Jess Turner, who joined our Highspot team earlier this year. With the job hunting process fresh in mind, they shared insights on four non-negotiable things you should look for in a new sales or services job.
A Product You Can Get Behind
Authenticity is at the core of meaningful relationships — and the key to long-term sales success. When you genuinely believe that the product you’re selling can make a difference for people, selling becomes trusted advising.
“In any given day, I can talk to multiple customers and I never feel like I’m trying to convince them to buy or do something,” Danny shared. “I’m asking about their challenges and talking to them about how together we can solve them.”
Services and sales people who feel their product is truly great radiate confidence and trust. And when they not only love their product, but know it like the back of their hand, they can provide the personalised guidance and anecdotes that buyers relate to on a person-to-person level. This is especially true at Highspot, where our sales enablement solution is specifically designed to help go-to-market teams have better customer conversations.
“We drink our own champagne,” Jess said. “We get to live and breathe the value that our product delivers. The stories I share are often my own examples of how I get the most out of our Highspot platform.”
Company Growth and Career Runway
New to the idea of sales enablement? You’re in good company. Just a few years back, sales enablement took off in the United States — Gartner states that “by 2021, 15% of all sales technology investments will be applied to sales enablement technology, up from the 2017 level of 7.2%.”
The category’s traction in America is now being mirrored in EMEA with leading companies recognising sales enablement as the solution to their sales and marketing challenges. The skyrocketing global demand is fuelling Highspot’s hypergrowth. Our revenue, customer base, and employee count are all more than doubling year over year as hundreds of companies adopt the platform to empower their teams to elevate the customer experience.
“One of the best things about my job is that feeling that comes at the end of a meeting when I can see the relief and excitement on our customer’s face,” Danny said. “For me, it’s profound that we’re in a position to change the perception of how companies drive their business forward — not just within our own company, but across the whole market.”
For Jess, a rapidly scaling company meant a green field for career growth.
“I wanted to be part of a founding team setting the pace, tone, and culture of the company,” she said. “I knew Highspot was a fit when the leaders I interviewed with responded to my ambition with, ‘You want this — it’s yours on a platter. Come here and own it.’ I never looked back.”
A Model That Sets You Up for Success
You might be the most efficient person, but if you’re trapped within the confines of an ineffective model, your performance will suffer — or you’ll work double-time to produce the same results. No one wants that.
At Highspot, Jess discovered a new inside sales model that allows her to focus on the part of her job that matters most: selling. She explained: “Sales reps don’t hunt here. We are delivered leads from an enormous account development team, because Highspot, quite rightly, sees these functions as two full-time jobs. The business has proved to me repeatedly that this model works — the quality of the leads are out of this world, and I’m a better seller with more time to focus on engaging my buyers.”
Danny also experienced a different approach to customer success upon joining Highspot. New Highspot employees complete a month-long onboarding programme designed to make them not just a product expert but an industry thought leader. That combination of business strategy underpinned by technology allows the Highspot services team to provide ongoing consultation and real solutions instead of a “set ’em up and ship ’em out” approach to customers.
“We first want to paint the bigger picture for our customers,” he said. “Education on the market and sales enablement as a whole come first, and then we can talk about how Highspot’s solution fits into their unique picture. The goal: Make our customers successful — every time — and we’ll be successful, too.”
A Hard-Working Culture with Room for Laughs
“You know that feeling when you wake up and you want to come to work because you and the team are working toward something bigger than yourselves? That’s Highspot.”
Danny spoke to something every Highspot teammate relates to: Our shared company vision of transforming the way millions of people work by building beautifully designed software with a spark of magic. Getting out of bed every morning is that much easier when you have a “why” for where you’re going and what you’re doing. Some may call it a purpose, others may call it a mission, and many of us at Highspot regard it as plain passion. No matter your preferred nomenclature, days are generally better when your time, effort, and energy have a tangible impact.
But as with all things, balance is key: “Oftentimes at fast-moving companies, the environment is serious and aggressive. But here, it’s like living in banter-ville,” Jess said. “It’s out-loud LOLs, it’s sarcasm, it’s laughing — but coupled with a hardworking culture. It makes me want to come in every day.”
What’s Your Next Move?
Choosing your next job is an incredibly important decision. It’s where you’ll spend the majority of your time, where you may meet your next best friend, and where you’ll gain the experience that will catapult you forward on your current path or in a new direction entirely.
If Highspot comes to mind during your search, we welcome a conversation to share more about life here or speak generally about your career goals. In the meantime, give our open roles a look, and we wish you the best of luck in taking your next step.
