What's it really like working in sales? This week I chat to Hollie, an account manager for Prospects who shares her career journey so far - from the shop floor at Argos, to taking on cruise ship contracts and working at sea, and now to her current role in the education sector
Participants
- Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
- Hollie Bello - accounts manager, Prospects
Transcript
Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You, the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts, prospects. I'm Emily Slade and in this episode
Hollie Bello: My name's Hollie I am an account manager. I currently work with Prospects and Jisc. I started about two months ago now, so I'm two months in. It's been great so far. I've been working with managers, employers, networking, building my connections. I thought, yeah, it's been great meeting new people. And I say I work across the board of many different companies, many different industries and sectors.
Emily Slade: So what is an account manager? What does that mean?
Hollie Bello: So account manager is someone who manages a person's account. That could be from a campaign, that could be from a product or service that they're running. It's you're the in-between for them and the company. So you're the go-to person for them who looks after the account, looks after the inventory, looks after the different products and services that they want to promote with a brand. So you're all about the communication, building that relationship from the get-go really. So they have the trusted person to go to for them, same as the user.
Emily Slade: Yeah, so skills you'd need for that is like primarily communication.
Hollie Bello: Yeah, I'd say communication, relationship building, negotiation, and be able to be like a trusted, loyal person to the brand or customer you're working with. I'd say having that like team working and networking as well. And also a skill that you could have, so it'll boost your confidence. Presentation skills alongside working also over digital era. You're working a lot on teams at the moment, a lot on different sales platforms. So yeah, it's having that confidence to just be out there and speak to people, I think, every day, because a lot of sales is talking, building all these chips. getting to know the company you're working with.
Emily Slade: So was this always the plan? Did you go to university to do sales?
Hollie Bello: Not really. I think I went to invest because I enjoyed business. I enjoyed seeing the functions of the business. And from education, I started, I started the business studies in university, but I also started early careers as working with customers, customer service businesses for our sixth form. So I wanted to just gain that knowledge. in university and see how that developed. And then when I was in university, it developed into different segments of sales, marketing, HR. And I looked into all functions and I think I sat within sales and marketing because I'm more creative. I enjoyed art, photography and skills where I always enjoyed the creative side of marketing than being on that people side as well. So it was nice to speak to everybody and different segments. University and just found that focus. And then in university I focused on international marketing in my final year and that what led me down to, let's say, the travelling route and sales.
Emily Slade: Yeah, so tell me more about that, the travelling route.
Hollie Bello: Yeah, so the travelling route was I worked as a sales professional on the cruise ships. I was, they call it a shoppie, but I say it's a sales and onboard promotion. sell the products and services within the shops and the retail set, the retail products. I also then went and worked my way up through the ranks to work as a luxury cruise ship jewellery specialist. So then I worked for the fine jewellery store, selling jewellery, planning my own day. I was more left to my own own structure. I wasn't on the sales floor, I was on my own shop, so I had my own product to sell, I had my own brand to build, because I say it's profound jewelry, it's like a brand on a cruise ship. You're selling those higher end pieces to higher end clients, so you need to make sure you structured today. You've got your clients, you've got your relationships, you build them from the get-go. And I think it's a lot, it's a lot different than just being in an office every day selling. It has kind of broadened your skills and those transferable skills I think it's larger to develop across the sales industry.
Emily Slade: And what about living on a cruise ship? Like what's that like?
Hollie Bello: Living on a cruise ship is a crazy time. I think living on a cruise ship, it's an experience. It allows you to adapt to any situation. It allows you to be open-minded. You have to be prepared for anything that comes your way, whether it's rough sea, whether you're sickness at sea, whether there's an illness on board, you need to be prepared. Whether you're going into an emergency, you need to know from the get-go what to do. So I think living on board, you are facing different challenges every day. It's a different experience. Then the fun side of it is you get to travel, you get to see every different, wake up in a different country every morning. And working in sales as well, you're not always on, you're not always working, so you have that time off, you have your new seller when you sell, let's say. So you've got time to meet with the passengers, builders, relationships on board and off board, living and working, it becomes your home. It's you literally wake up and you get a lift to work literally in an elevator. So it's like you have to wake up 5 minutes and I'd be at work within a minute. So it's not, it's It's not a rush environment. You don't have to catch your train or bus. Everything you have is on board. So I think that's the joy of it. You're not having to fork out all your bills and everything. is supplied for you. So I think it's just, you get that thrill of the adventure of working, of meeting people and you meet people from all across the world. You're not just dealing with the same people every day. You're meeting different staff on every turn around, different passengers on every turn around. It's just a great environment, I think, to work in and it does build that confidence in yourself. Yeah. I think especially when we've been a jeweller as well, working as a jeweller as every day I got to do presentations, I had to go into theatre, present the jury, do live shows with people so they can come and see the jury. And as I say, went to competitions and yeah, it's a great place I think. And it does build that confidence throughout your sales career to know, okay, that every sale is going to be there. But having that background of knowing there will be a sale, it's going to, there's something in the pipeline that will come through. So things to have that resilience as well.
Emily Slade: Yeah. And how long were you on the ships for?
Hollie Bello: So I was on the ships for about 3, four years in total. I think once you had all the seasons I did, it worked. It worked about three years, four years. I say I worked on smaller ships to bigger ships. from contract to contract that differs. So say 8 months at a time, used to come back two months, do work from home, right work as a temporary job and then go back on the cruise ships and just have that break in between the office and travel book. Amazing. Yeah.
Emily Slade: So you came back to shore?
Hollie Bello: Yeah.
Emily Slade: And how did you land this role?
Hollie Bello: So this role, so. I had a look on research. So I always thought I wanted to go back into sales, wanted to do marketing. So I'd done previous jobs before this, worked in account management, built my skills and experience in account management and thought, right, okay, let's see where else I can have a look around, see what's available and where else I can adapt and bring them to an environment that I'm used to, education, just prospects. It kind of resonates with me from the get-go as I look through works of prospects when I was in university. not as an employee, but as a student. So being on the opposite side and working with prospects as a service and product to the students, it was just a great, great opportunity, I think. And then looking online and doing my research into the company, making sure I knew all about it and prepared for the interviews. I managed to learn the role through the different interviews and go done a telephone interview and then face-to-face interview, then a presentation. and presented to my manager and all kind of worked out. It was great. It was just great to present and have that experience throughout the interview process. And Jessica and Prospects is a real amazing company, as I say, they work with you throughout the interview process, make you feel calm and allow you to bring your skills out.
Emily Slade: And it feels like something that there's a lot of transferable skills for this role. So it feels like the kind of role that you can come to whoever you are, wherever you've come from, whatever your background is, what advice would you give for people looking to enter into this industry?
Hollie Bello: Yeah, I would say just be open-minded and be ready to speak to people, communicate well and just be out there and network with people. I say build your confidence every day, know the company you're speaking to. do a bit of background research before you get jobs, what the company's about, and just find the company that fits with you. I'll say there's a lot of account manager roles out there, but when you find that one that fits, your confidence and your experience will come through. I think when you're in university, it's more about there's so much opportunity to develop your skills, just take everything as it comes. There's only one chance you get in university and you want to make sure it's the best and you can bring that across and transfer those skills into I'd say as being an account manager, being a sales lead. There's many different terms that you could say as an account manager, but as I say, it all comes down to have negotiation, communication, resilience, relationship building, and just thinking outside the box. As I say, digital era is upon us and we don't know what's, with AI and everything, what's around the corner. So I'd say just be open-minded to the different sales techniques and speaking to many people as you pass.
Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely. So you talked briefly there about the different types of account management roles. Is that, do you know, do you do a lot of driving around the country for your role? Is that an option as like what are the different types of roles?
Hollie Bello: Yeah, so you can be like home-based as an account manager, you can be on the road, you can be like a sales lead, you can be business development. A lot of these roles kind of all blend into one, kind of can do business development, sales account management. As I say, customer focus leads, you can be a lot, it's more about the people you're dealing with and the customers you're dealing with every day. You're managing their account at the end of the day, you want to build the business for your company. So it's just more about getting out there and being networking with people. And as I say, as you mentioned, it's not just being home-based, it's also traveling and being adaptable. So you can then travel to different parts. of the country and being flexible with work, which is great. And that's what's great with the company and working with because it's flexible, it allows travels, feeds some people, you're out on the road, many different like weeks, going down to London, to Birmingham, to Manchester. You see different cities that you probably wouldn't see, just stop behind your desk. So I'd say look into different options, what suits you best.
Emily Slade: Yeah, perfect. And what's your favourite thing about working in sales?
Hollie Bello: I'd say it's the people you meet. I think everyone is different, every opportunity is different. I think with sales, not every day is the same. It's as bringing it back to the cruise ship, not every day is the same. And I think I like that difference about it. It's the motivation you have. You want to drive, you want to get to your target, you want to keep pushing yourself further. And I think with sales, it's always been about communicating with people. From an early age, I was working customer service, because I worked in Argos, I worked in retail stores, I worked some hospitality, and it's always been the same, speaking to people, building relationships, having that face-to-face communication or the initial contact with the person selling the product or service to. As I said, you can do a lot behind the desk, but it's different when you actually can see how the emotional side behind the product reacts with the customer.
Emily Slade: Yeah, fantastic. That's brilliant. Thank you so much for your time today.
Hollie Bello: Yeah, no worries. Thank you for having us. It's been great to chat about my life story.
Emily Slade: Thanks again to Hollie for their time. For more inforamtion on getting into sales head to prospects.ac.uk. where you can sign up for job and course alerts for free. You can also head to our YouTube channel @futureyoupod to watch the full interview. And if you enjoyed the episode we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us as podcast@prospects.ac.uk or you can leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. Thank you as always for listening and good luck on your journey to future you.
Notes on transcript
This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.
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