Meet Grace Coughlan, District Inside Sales Leader, UK Large Corporate and Corporate Acquisition at Dell Technologies. 

I had the great pleasure to meet Grace during a Women in Tech Event a couple of years ago. I must say I was always truly impressed with her sales career and how she succeeded in her leadership role. 

According to the 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics, women are underrepresented in B2B sales in most industries, and only 12% of that number are female sales leaders. 

Grace will share her journey of becoming a successful Sales Leader and share some career tips for any females looking for advice on enhancing a career in sales.  #InternationalWomenDay2021

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your journey in sales?

Like many young women in their early twenties, I was unsure of my career path. An opportunity arose to pursue an entrepreneurial venture that involved me ‘selling’ my business concept to investors and potential clients. With no previous sales experience and no one else to rely on to get my business off the ground, I quickly learned that sales is essentially the ability to understand your customer, their challenge/need and be able to articulate how your product/service can solve that. To be able to do so with honesty, transparency and ultimately build a trusting relationship with the customer is the essence of a good sales person. I had a natural flair for this, so when my experience as an entrepreneur reached a conclusion after a couple of years, I decided that I should pursue a career in B2B sales. At the time in 2011, technology was and still is the fastest growing industry in the world so I was delighted to be given the opportunity to join Dell Technologies as an Inside Sales Representative. My career has evolved in Dell over the last 10 years from inside sales rep to product specialist to sales coach to my current role now as a District Inside Sales Leader managing a team of incredibly talented sales account managers.

Why do you think there aren’t more women in sales?

I think previously sales was perceived as high stress, aggressive, time-demanding career choice which perhaps led women to fear that they would struggle to balance career and family life however I think there has been a critical shift of this perception in the last few years. I am proud to say in my organization we have an excellent balance of both male and female salespeople and most importantly this equal balance is concurrent in senior sales leadership positions. Dell actually has an excellent mentorship program called Stem Aspire which is a year-long mentoring program for women who are currently at University and who want a career in Technology after graduation. But making the transition from University to that first job in Technology can be so daunting they may never consider it. STEM Aspire sets out to make this transition easier. Many organizations across different industry verticals sponsor similar programs, which is fantastic.

What obstacles have you faced during your career, and how did you overcome them?

My biggest obstacle throughout my career to date has been my own self-doubt. I am aware of speaking with female peers and mentors that this is very common in women no matter what career they are in. It is known as ‘imposter syndrome’. It is an internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be. Men can experience this also. However, it is widely known to affect women much more. This has led to me procrastinating too much in the past about taking steps forward in my career due to fear of failure or suffering unnecessary anxiety ahead of key presentations or engagements. I have learned to internally check myself on these feelings, and now I simply ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’! 🙂

What would be a piece of advice that you can give to other women who want to develop their career in sales?

Women have a tendency to read a job spec for a promotion or a new role, and if they do not have 100% of the desired skill or experience, they will entertain thoughts that they are not good enough or not ready. My advice would be if you have even 50-60% of what the job spec is looking for, then go for it! By putting yourself out there, often hiring managers will recognise your drive and ambition to make up for the rest by upskilling on the job, which is very attractive to a potential candidate. I was given this advice early in my career by a male mentor, and he was absolutely right.

What do you think are the most important attributes to be successful in sales today? Do you think it has changed in the past years?

The most important attributes are, as mentioned, the ability to be honest, transparent and the ability to build a trusting relationship with your customer. To achieve this, you sometimes need to walk away from a sale if it is ultimately not going to benefit the customer or perhaps your business. This is key because you may not get that sale, but the customer will see you as a ‘trusted advisor’ and will endeavour to do business with you on other projects. I do think this has changed from times past when naively sales people would aggressively try to make the sale no matter what without much thought of the bigger picture or longer-term relationship with the client.

Any tactics that you would share on how you can grow your sales career and sales skills. 

In order to grow your sales career and skills, you must constantly be educating yourself. Educating yourself on industry and market trends (both your own and your customers). Educating yourself on macro-economic conditions of your market. Educating yourself on your product/service and how it can address challenges/needs. Educating yourself on sales communication techniques. Every day has to be a school day, as the saying goes. A colleague of mine once used the analogy that sales people educating themselves continuously are like professional athletes who need to constantly train and stay agile in order to win out on the pitch against the competition.

A lot of people struggle to craft a resume when they are thinking about a career change.  What details should you include? What is relevant, and what is not?

When you consider how many resumes each recruiter or a single company receive daily, you realise that they don’t spend much time reviewing every single bullet point on it. They scan them very quickly, looking for keywords that grab their attention. If you are thinking about a career change, you will have to revamp your CV and show the skills that apply to the new job. 

Put yourself in the state of mind that the intention is to create a resume that stands out.  Your resume is a “brochure” of what you have achieved and how you can use that for your new employer in the future. Its main purpose is to sell your skills and experience, and the product you are selling is YOU. You have to think about it as your sales pitch. 

If you are going into a new line of work, here are some best practices that you should follow when you start working on your CV. 

1. Craft your resume based on the Job Description.

Read the Job Description and analyze the keywords, key qualities, and competencies required for the role. Look for matching traits. Use the right language in your resume that matches the language of the Job Description. 

2. Write your summary statement to explain what type of position are you looking for.

In a couple of sentences, you have to answer the question of why someone should hire you! It doesn’t have to be long but include a brief description of professional you.

3. Highlight the skills that are directly related to the work objective and position. 

I know that the career can be a rocky road, but focus on skills directly related to the role that you are applying for. Don’t use the same standardised CV that includes all you did so far in your life- you limit your chances to be selected to the next stage of the interview. 

4. Articulate clearly your previous work history. 

It sounds obvious, but it’s a widespread mistake that I still keep seeing. Make sure that your resume includes all company names, length of the service and position titles. If you moved internally in the same company or got promoted, make sure that your CV reflects that too.

5. Quantify your achievements.

Instead of listing your main responsibilities, show your direct impact during the time with the tie company. It’s important to include in your CV your responsibilities, but when you do that, tell the story showing your direct impact on the business within your role and relevant to the role that you’re applying for.

Job interviews can be a stressful experience for anyone who is looking for a new job. There are plenty of different types of interviews, but I’m sure that you’ve heard about behavioural interviews in the past. If you are looking for a job now or preparing for this type of interview, it should be your priority no 1 to understand it. Well build CV can tell the recruiter if the candidate has a skill required for the role. However, an interview is a critical step to evaluate this skill. Don’t panic! We have some practical tips on how you can be more tactical and master your skills here.

What is it a behavioural Interview?

Behavioural interview, known as a competency-based, is an interview where the candidate is asked to give an example from their previous experience to predict their future performance. The best way to answer them is to use STAR methodology to help people structure their answers for behavioural questions in specific and easy to understand compile way.

Let’s break down the STAR framework.

STAR stands for:

STAR Framework is invisible but gives you structure and strategy to come up with the impressive answers. It’s practical in application, helping to articulate your experience and tell the meaningful story. It’s challenging to know what type of questions exactly the interviewer will ask you. Questions are designed based on the competencies that are required for the role and usually  start with:

“Can you tell me about the time, when…?”

“Describe the situation when …”

Based on the Job Description, you can predict some of them. Having that in mind, it’s important to have a few examples, you can adapt to a different situation. Mastering how to use the technique will help you organize your thoughts and ideas and build your confidence during the interview.

Nail the STAR framework

1. Be tactical! Learn how to read the job description and aim to find the required competencies for the role. Look for the keywords that will lead you to those competencies.
2. Think about the examples of your success and practice telling the story using the methodology. Great to have a few examples you can adapt to a different situation.
3. Have a mature reflection on your failures. How would you speak about them using the STAR framework?
4. Quantify your success, use numbers and data to show your direct impact on the result.
5. Be specific and concise- 1-2 sentences to each part is enough!
6. Do not memorise the answers; learn how to answer questions using the technique!
7. Practice, practice, practice!

Have you applied for a sales role and the recruiter has reached out to you inviting you for the first stage interview? You haven’t been interviewing for a while, and you don’t know what type of questions you can expect? Feeling nervous? Of course, more you prepare- less nervous you will feel on that day. I’ve been interviewing for sales roles for almost 2 years, and here come 5 tips that can help you prepare for the first round of the interview process:

1. Read about the company.

Always come prepared to the interview, do research about the company and have a good understanding of the company’s culture and mission. A quick look over the company website isn’t enough. Know the product and service that they offer- you don’t have to be an expert but be capable of having a good discussion around it.

2. Understand the role.

Remember to read the job description carefully and be able to discuss it. If you are interested in more than one role- that’s perfectly fine! But be familiar with both of them! Map your skills against each of the job descriptions. Think about why you want this role, and why you think you are a good fit.

3. Be able to sell your previous experience.

Usually, you have only 30 minutes to make your first impression and make sure that you sell yourself as a solid candidate for the role.  You need to have a story to tell about yourself. We want to know what was your sales cycle in the past. Have you been in a farmer or hunter role? Did you focus on net new business or existing accounts? How big were your customers?

4. Speak about your targets and previous deals.

The best way to show your success in sales is your previous metrics. Be ready to walk the recruiter through your previous KPIs and most successful deals that you’ve closed. Any deals that you are proud of?

5. Ask questions.

I love questions, and I ALWAYS leave some time in the end for a candidate to ask them! Have a good set of them ready.

If you haven’t been interviewing for a long time, remember, practice makes perfect! Here comes a list of most common sales job interview questions and how to answer them.  You can ask someone to help you practice answering them!

My journey towards becoming a recruiter wasn’t the straightforward one, and I haven’t followed the traditional career path. I have graduated from Environmental Engineering and Spatial Economy at one of the Universities in Poland. During summer break at my college, I went for an adventure to Ireland and, after spending summer in Dublin, I’ve decided to stay here. I didn’t quit my university. I kept studying in Poland part-time (I was flying over to Poland every second weekend to complete my courses and exams over the time of 3 years) working full time in the Insurance sector here in Dublin. I’ve never enjoyed that industry, and I found the industry and product uninspiring and outdated.

At that time, Ireland was stepping into a deep economic crisis with limited graduate job opportunities for environmental engineers.  Chances to move into that field very relatively small for me, so I started thinking about shifting my career path into a different direction. I felt unconfident and unsafe but seems like I wasn’t the only in this world, making a career shift. A recent study at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2019 found that only 27 per cent of college graduates work in a field related to their major.

One of my lecturers during college spotted that I might be good at recruitment. I wasn’t sure if that will be something that I like but to get some better understanding of it, I signed up for CIPD Diploma in HRM at National College of Ireland. I have quickly realized that it is something that I’m genuinely passionate!

Quitting my stable and well-paid job, especially during the crisis and starting my career from scratch, was not an easy decision. But sometimes taking a step back is as necessary as moving forward.

I’ve kicked off my recruitment journey at Microsoft, first as a recruitment coordinator then as a recruiter. For three years, I had a fantastic opportunity to be a part of Microsoft’s Graduate Recruitment Team- discovering the wonderful world of Tech Industry, hiring grads across EMEA. However, it was time to say goodbye or perhaps hello to a new adventure in Cyprus and be a part of the Global TA Team at Wargaming leading recruitment for Development, Technology, Finance and HR. Ireland has been always home for my family and me, and after 18 months of spending in Cyprus, we have decided to come back home.  Since 2019 I’ve been working as EMEA Recruiter searching for sales professionals across the globe.

Challenges at the recruiter job.

Recruitment can be challenging at times, especially in such a competitive market, that is changing incredibly quickly. For some of the roles, I still get lots of applications; however, not all the candidates have skills and meet the requirements for the position. Finding qualified talent can sometimes be very hard. I help candidates prepare for the interviews through different stages of the process. Before their initial conversation with me, I usually send them a few tips on how to prepare for the discussion. During the call, I guide them if anything is missing in their CVs. After each stage, I provide them with constructive feedback together with the short prep session for the next step.

Recruitment can also be rewarding, especially when a candidate is saying; thank you for offering them a dream job.

Advice to your candidates.

Always come prepared to the interview, do research about the company and have a good understanding of the company’s culture and mission. Think about why you want the job and what do you have to offer. Be enthusiastic; try to bring lots of positive energy.  If you haven’t been interviewing for a long time, remember practice makes perfect! Ask your friend to help you practice answering the questions! I love questions, and ALWAYS I leave extra time in the end for a candidate to ask them! Please have a good set of them ready then.

If I weren’t in recruitment…

I would be a Personal Trainer. I love sport, and when I was in school, I’ve been training gymnastic at the competitive level. For the last couple of years, I’ve been very interested in mix martial arts.  Sport still plays a significant role in my life as it helps to keep my mind and body healthy and make my day to day life more stress-free.