Greetings!
The sales workshop we hosted at Corvinus University last week was a highly productive affair. We at Infinityn are proud to have had the opportunity to meet a group of such engaged and motivated AIESEC students from Hungary, Brazil, Serbia, Russia, Egypt and across Europe. Thanks to our own Eva Eperjesi for organizing the event and to our partners at Corvinus for hosting. A great turnout and we hope to have another workshop as soon as possible to connect with all those who want to learn more about becoming a sales professional.
Why did we get into sales? It’s a rewarding career for people from all walks of life who are looking to have an immediate impact, to grow their professional networks, to develop themselves and their entrepreneurial instincts.
While some of us came to Infinityn as experienced salespeople, many of us joined as former academics, after serving in the military, having spent some time running our own businesses, after lengthy periods of travelling abroad, while we were completing our university degrees and of course shortly after graduating. We all recognized the sales profession as a fantastic launching pad to reach our personal goals and we saw Infinityn as a place where we could thrive.
Working in sales teaches you a lot—from how a business operates and generates revenue to how decisions are made, how people communicate and how to negotiate. Cultivating the skillset necessary to succeed in this world opens doors for all future endeavours.
Sales is an integral part of every business and the people there are hailed as the revenue generators of every company—the success of a sales department funds all other business operation. If you can be successful in this space, then you have a valuable skill and coveted experience that you can bring to any company in any industry.
Obviously, there’s a very traditional, tangible reward—commission structures give you the opportunity to make more money the harder you work—but many top salespeople express that this career is meaningful to them on a deeper level. It’s about helping people and being able to find companies who need to have their problems solved; about the relationships shared amongst businesspeople and assisting them to achieve their goals, out-maneuver their competition and bulldoze through their obstacles. You get a genuine feeling of being useful to people.
What are the characteristics of a good salesperson? While people who thrive in a performance-based sales environment often come from different backgrounds they generally share a few qualities: intelligence, curiosity, being coachable, resilience and solution-oriented mindsets. The best people working in this space excel at listening and being able to give thoughtful recommendations based on analysis.
All that being said, we’re so glad to have met with a bunch of people who possess these abilities and are looking to take the next steps in refining their skillsets. Just to recap some of the topics discussed:
In this photo, you can see Priscila explaining the nuances of engaging C-level executives (CEO, CRO, COO, CFO etc) and presents an overview of the various sales methodologies utilized by technology companies today. The goal here was to humanize the sales development process and highlight the impact of human connection and how it drives businesses.
She also covered how her interest in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) sparked her initial interest in pursuing a sales career, a path which has taken her to multiple different countries in different types of industry.
Here, Nora and Valerio discuss the modern-day sales technology stack and how a team of reps utilize the tools available to reach out and engage prospects on a global level.
Together, their joint presentation offered a comprehensive overview of how salespeople utilize modern digital tools to assist in their sales processes.
Rapt attention from the audience of sales-developers-in-waiting as Nora gives a first-hand account of how she utilized all available communication channels to engage, qualify and gain commitment for next-steps from the CEO of a major European chemical company in a deal worth over a half-million British pounds.
During this portion of the presentation, Nora highlighted the #1 factor for success in sales prospecting: being able to engage your prospect with knowledge of their company’s culture & industry and being able to have discussions based on their KPIs (key performance indicators).
Valerio takes a seat and updates listeners on the technological innovations that have made outbound prospecting a completely different game than in years past.
His presentation covered nailing the nuances of targeting the right people, how to leverage referrals and positioning the call-to-action by bringing insights and demonstrating value to your prospect. Additionally, he also discussed how sales professionals in the digital age must develop professional brands in the online space in order to distinguish yourselves.
In this phase of a lengthy presentation, Ron takes the audience through a deep dive into the various levels of communication. The main focus of his talk was the way in which the sales profession has evolved over the years and how to blend ‘hard’ selling tactics with ‘soft’ selling techniques.
Ron covered quite a lot during the workshop, much of which revolved around the tangible aspects of sales craftsmanship: the importance of tone, mirroring & body language; how to generate enthusiasm in your prospect; and understanding how to think about your product/solution/service in order to best position it.
Lorena presents a day in the life of a sales professional and offers a few anecdotes about how her experience as an actor correlates with the performative qualities required to succeed in sales.
During her presentation, she took a moment to explain to everyone what makes sales an attractive profession—flexibility, commissions, opportunity to develop professionally—and really highlighted her own personal journey to illustrate these points. Plus, she shared some of her videos as a professional actor, which is always fun to watch.
Our company’s founder Robi takes a moment to explain ‘the art of Infinityn’ and how our sales development processes stand above the rest.
Sales is as challenging as it is rewarding and we at Infinityn are keen to have met with students who are interested in choosing it. We believe that it’s not only an excellent path for new graduates but something that whole careers should be dedicated to.
Everybody sells! Just not always at the professional level. The people of Infinityn chose it because they wanted to develop their business acumen, and their resilience and to position themselves to have a direct impact on operations around the world. Hosting this workshop has been a great opportunity for us to meet people who also have these priorities.
To summarize, we all at Infinityn had a wonderful time speaking with future sales professionals, learning about their career goals, and sharing our experiences to help them get started on their journeys! We hope to see you all again the next time around.