{"id":33787,"date":"2020-02-13T14:27:24","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T19:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=33787"},"modified":"2020-03-18T09:21:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T13:21:29","slug":"starting-a-conversation-fiu-business-alumni-share-their-careers-in-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2020\/02\/starting-a-conversation-fiu-business-alumni-share-their-careers-in-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting a conversation: FIU Business alumni share their careers in sales."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(l.
(l. to r.) FIU Business faculty member Rafael Soltero Venegas, with panel participants JC Gomez, Barbara Pestana Cartaya, Edgar de la Calle, Stephanie Serrano Costa Ramos, and Greg Acevedo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Research, empathy, problem solving: these are tools of a successful salesperson. The \u201csales pitch\u201d is more of a conversation than a lecture, and learning how to bounce back from \u201cno\u201d is key to a successful, lucrative career.<\/p>\n

These were a few of the insights shared by FIU College of Business alumni working as sales professionals at \u201cGetting Comfortable with the Uncomfortable,\u201d a panel presented on February 5, 2020 by the FIU Alumni Association as part of Panther Alumni Week, which brings college alumni back to campus to share their experiences with students.<\/p>\n

Five panelists with sales careers in diverse industries, including software, medical devices, real estate, beauty and technology, shared personal stories of moving out of their comfort zones, including how they got started in sales, met challenges, and used rejection as a motivational tool. Their goal: encourage students to think about professional selling as a potential career path.<\/p>\n

Barbara Pestana-Cartaya (BBA \u201902), director of U.S. Sales & Marketing, Neostrata, a division of Johnson & Johnson, never envisioned herself in the sales field. She was working at the Miami office of Eastman Kodak as a receptionist and customer service representative when a job for a professional sales person opened up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019m really good with customers, the distributors in Latin America,\u2019 \u201c she said. \u201cI just knocked on the door of the hiring director and said, \u2018I think I can sell and I want that position.\u2019 And the rest is history.”<\/p>\n

JC Gomez (BS \u201904, MBA \u201913), senior project manager, Wellington Construction Group, was the kid who sold everyone else\u2019s chocolates for the school fundraiser. \u201cI was never scared to talk to strangers,\u201d he said. \u201cI sold boxes and boxes and boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a career in the U.S. Army, he found he couldn\u2019t sit still in a desk job and welcomed the mobility of sales. That field seemed tailor-made for Gomez. Rejection was never a problem for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing certain is that you\u2019ll fail. Who cares?\u201d he said. \u201cYou learn from it and you get back up.\u201d Today, he focuses on building and maintaining his business network, with much of his referral base coming from within that network.<\/p>\n

Edgar de la Calle (BBA \u201904), therapeutic consultant, NeuroPace, now works with implantable devices similar to a pacemaker for the brain, a highly technical field that brings him into detailed technical conversations with brain surgeons. He\u2019s a long way from his first sales job, selling cell phones at Navarro. He developed a philosophy early on, starting with that job, where no one seemed to want what he had to sell: \u201cEvery time I got shot down, I started trying harder and harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Global<\/p>\n

Starting a conversation. <\/em><\/p>\n

Gregory Acevedo (BBA \u201901), sales executive, Cloud Deployment Solutions, Alight Solutions, who also serves as an FIU Business adjunct, says he focuses much of the sales conversation on the prospect, asking: What are your pain points? What does success look like?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt throws them for a loop,\u201d he said. \u201cI know a meeting went well when the prospect talked more than we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephanie Serrano Costa Ramos (MS \u201919) engineering manager, Orange Technologies, noted her background as an engineer was extremely helpful in her field. \u201cIn sales, you have to know your products and identify the customer\u2019s needs. You not only sell, but you should also teach the client why your product is worthy,\u201d she said. \u201cIn most cases in technical sales, you have to have a background in the industry, equipment and processes that will help you ask the right questions to identify customer needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

To start a new business relationship, she shared this advice: \u201cDo not approach directly with a sales pitch. First, study the person and their industry. Find the right person and search for something in common.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pestana-Cartaya agreed. \u201cYou have to ask the right questions,\u201d she said. \u201cIt may feel like prying, but you don\u2019t really know how to sell something until you understand what your customers need.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new \u201ccold call\u201d \u2013 social media. <\/em><\/p>\n

With more consumers rejecting calls from numbers they don\u2019t recognize, cold calling has dropped as a sales generation tactic\u2014but it hasn\u2019t completely disappeared. Panelists discussed \u201cwarm calling,\u201d following up on leads generated through social media outreach, an increasingly popular tactic for raising initial interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about why they should buy your service,\u201d Acevedo said. \u201cThe frame of mind in cold outreach is why they should grant you more time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rafael Soltero Venegas, co-director of FIU\u2019s Global Sales Lab and an instructor at FIU Business, who moderated the panel, noted that today\u2019s FIU Business students have access to training opportunities that many earlier graduates had to get on the job. FIU\u2019s Global Sales Program, housed in the Global Sales Lab, now includes a Certificate in Sales and CRM<\/a>\u00a0and a Minor in Professional Sales<\/a>, two competitions, Panther Sales Tournament<\/a>\u00a0in Fall and the Global Bilingual Sales Competition<\/a>\u00a0in spring, and the Sales Society<\/a>, a student organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research, empathy, problem solving: these are tools of a successful salesperson. The \u201csales pitch\u201d is more of a conversation than a lecture, and learning how to bounce back from \u201cno\u201d is key to a successful, lucrative career. These were a few of the insights shared by FIU College of Business alumni working as sales professionals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":33801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3912,4281,3960,3645],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33787"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33803,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33787\/revisions\/33803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}