I’ve been a sales leader for longer than I want to admit, with three of those years here at Auvik where I’m the VP of Sales and Business Development. The most important aspect of my time at Auvik is that I can look at myself in the mirror and feel good about the company that I work for and the way we approach problems.
Auvik may be the most human place I’ve ever worked. People are at the heart of the decision-making process. When we’re looking at business problems, changes, and risks, our leadership is always prioritizing what this means for the people who work here.
Learn the science and the art of sales
We have a really good handle on the science in our processes at Auvik. We know how to make the science of selling work. From that initial sales meeting, we know the steps and the tools needed to help the customer make a decision.
This doesn’t mean a script. It means understanding and applying the science of sales interactions, and building purpose into every call. The sales rep and the customer leave those calls feeling good after having a productive and meaningful conversation.
It’s an age-old argument — are sales a science or an art? Science is the foundation, and once you have that learned you can focus on the art of selling.
Experienced and talented sales reps look like artists. The reality is that, for them, the science is so well practiced that it seems to fade into the background. It’s like skating and stickhandling in hockey. The greatest stick handlers are generally spectacular skaters. You just don’t notice their skating because it is seemingly effortless.
If you want to build a career as a salesperson, there’s no better academy than Auvik. Here you’ll learn from an incredible sales team who have the exceptional experience to draw from. You can count on opportunities to become a master of science and the art of selling. Wherever you go in your career, that’s something no one can ever take away from you.
Real and intentional career growth opportunities
Many companies talk about growth opportunities like shooting stars — if you’re lucky, it could happen! At Auvik we’re building infrastructure to support career growth. We’re intentional about designing a sales organization to grow peoples’ careers.
Here are a few ways we do that:
- Extensive onboarding. We have a really well-defined onboarding program that includes members from sales enablement, customer success, marketing, and technical teams. It focuses on learning about the product, and our approach to working together across teams. For our BDR team, the formal onboarding process is 6 weeks. For the AE team, formal onboarding is 3 months. And for both teams, support doesn’t stop when formal onboarding ends!
- Technical training. Auvik Certification courses to build technical knowledge on network monitoring are the core. And throughout the year there are learning and development opportunities driven by our dedicated Sales Enablement team to continue to grow and expand your technical knowledge.
- Business Development Rep (BDR) to Account Executive (AE) transition program. This involves an eight-week mentorship with an Auvik sales mentor and one-on-one training and support. Read about how Sean O’Malley and Brendan O’Brien went through the program and got promoted to AEs.
One of my proudest moments as a leader, which may seem strange, was actually when one of our AEs left Auvik. After growing for many years on our sales team, they took a big next step in their career and were able to because of the skills and expertise they’d gained working here.
Two of our sales leaders Meagan Doerner and Sam Steeves manage teams today after growing in their careers at Auvik as well.
I have no illusions that Auvik is the place you’ll retire from. Your career is a marathon, not a sprint, and likely Auvik is one leg on your journey. As a sales leader, I feel a responsibility to help people grow in their sales careers, regardless of where their next role takes them. Here we have intentional structure to that more so than I’ve seen anywhere else.
3 Traits of a successful salesperson
You have to be comfortable with a significant amount of volatility in a tech sales career. You should expect a lot of change as new products and jobs are being created in the tech industry.
With this in mind, there are three driving characteristics that make a successful career in sales:
- Persistence. The love to win and perseverance to solve problems.
- Optimism. The focus on how we can, not why we can’t.
- Curiosity. The fascination with your customers, their business, their challenges, and what’s going on in their day.
None of these characteristics are related to being introverted or extroverted. There’s a common trope that salespeople need to be the life of the party — that’s not the case. Some of the best salespeople I know would classify themselves as introverts.
Join our growing sales team
You’ll have the opportunity to sell some really interesting tech in an interesting and evolving networking monitoring space.
Auvik is a place to master the science and the art of selling. You can expect intentional growth opportunities and a place to build your tech sales career long term.
Apply to join our team! See our open sales career opportunities here.
