Employee Spotlight: Megan Martell’s Path Towards Selling

When I graduated from college with a degree in small business marketing I, like many new graduates, had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  I decided to get as far away as possible from my home state of Vermont and moved to Boulder, CO to begin my life and my career (whatever that meant).  I thought – having a college degree – I would be a shoo-in for a great job.  Well, finding a job was a lot harder than I thought.  Companies wanted someone with experience and were unwilling to take a chance on someone with little to no experience in the real world.  I was running out of money fast so I did what any 22-year-old woman would do – I joined an all-male house painting crew and used my white collar degree in a blue collar job.  This position immediately humbled me and gave me perspective on how hard you must work to make a good living.  It also made it very clear that a house-painting career was not my calling.

A year later I moved back East, put my resume together, and interviewed for anything and everything: radio, advertising, real estate, motivational poster sales – you name it. Nothing seemed to fit.  After about 20 interviews, I landed an entry-level sales position at an independent Yellow Page company. I accepted the job, feeling like this was a fit. I was home and ready to kick some serious butt.

In the past I had always thought of sales as cheesy. I pictured the typical guy in a suit, gabbing away about the features and benefits of his company’s awful product. To my surprise I found sales to be just the opposite. It is all about understanding your customers’ goals and providing a solution to meeting those goals.  Sales is about helping people, learning about their business, life goals, families, lives, and more. It is more about relationships and less about the product you’re selling.  I found when I focused less on the “sale” and more on helping the person, not only did it “click”, but I also felt a sense of gratitude for what it was I was providing for people.

So after 16 years in sales, these are the top five reasons I believe college grads should consider a career in sales:

1. Owner of Your Destiny: You and only you are responsible for your success. The more you are willing to put into your sales career, the more successful you will be. You create your own schedule. You decide whether to pick up the phone and make one more call, you decide to work that extra hour on Friday.  Only you – with the help of some great mentors, of course – control your success.  
2. Unlimited Earning Potential: Sales is one of the few careers that offer the ability to make unlimited earnings.  It is definitely for the mentally tough, and there are very few careers that offer this.
3. Work Life Balance: Let’s face it, life is busy. Down the road you may decide to get married, have kids, volunteer, etc.  When choosing a career, decide the kind of life you want first.  If you want a career that is flexible, sales might be the right fit.
4. Feeling of Accomplishment: At the end of the day, you are helping people reach their life goals.  It does not matter what you are selling.  If you believe in the product and feel like it is something that is actually changing peoples’ lives, there is no better feeling in the world.
5. Self Growth: When you choose a career in sales, you are constantly evaluating how you conduct yourself.  You are reflecting on the past call and digging deep when you don’t make a sale. You are constantly educating yourself and asking, “What could I have done better?”

If you are a self-starting, motivated, mentally tough, and disciplined person who enjoys working with people, setting goals, and are generally patient and customer-service oriented, than you should consider a career in sales.

Pictured above: Megan Martell (right) with Andrew Dell’Aglio, Senior Vice President Channel Sales at Google in San Francisco!