When I came here to the Bay Area in June of 2015 my goal was to get into tech sales and make something of myself. I left Ohio to pursue a dream that many found to be impossible. It didn’t help that I was nearly penniless with no job prospects or any stable housing (both are hard to find in this area). All I had was an unrelenting drive to somehow, someway make it. It was all tougher than I had imagined and after a few months I was still jobless and being overcharged for an unfurnished room because I had no other options at the time. Even my family wanted me to give up and come home since the future didn’t look so good for me but I still couldn’t give up on myself and my goals. I knew if I did I would never have a chance at them again. Gabe at AlwaysHired gave me a call one day while I was in the city hitting the pavement. He told me he was launching a tech sales bootcamp to train a group of people to land jobs in tech sales and asked if I was open to interviewing for an opportunity to be trained. I hesitated for a moment before saying yes. What I came to realize upon thinking about it was this: I had failed on all of my attempts to break into tech sales at that moment, I had no job in the most expensive city in the nation and no strong job prospects or any connections. I had to take this guy’s offer because I had nothing to lose and everything to gain from it. He was the only person in this city that offered me a chance to prove myself. I said yes , I’m glad I did and I’m glad he took a chance on me. For the next several weeks I along with the rest of the class were trained in the fundamentals of sales, how the tech industry functioned in regards to culture, interviews, how they hire, and so on. It was a totally different system and culture than I was used to back home and I was focused on learning all of it…quickly. Being trained in Salesforce and putting our sales skills to the test by selling Bannerman (a Y Combinator company) gave me the confidence needed to ace the interview process. Eventually, I landed an account executive job at Yelp ( a company that I already applied to multiple times, but couldn’t get into before being trained by AlwaysHired ). I am now with a company I enjoy , with great people and a great culture. All of this would not have been possible if it weren’t for everyone from the AlwaysHired team for never giving up on me and helping me every step of the way. I came here with nothing and in a short time I was able to be in an industry that I love . Couldn’t have done it without you guys. Thank you for everything :) -David Cantrell, Graduate from AlwaysHired, AE at Yelp (Originally posted on Medium) We have free online sales training videos available on our Teachable. The online sales training videos will help you learn some sales skills as well as give you a preview of what our bootcamp training is like. And if you're asking yourself: "How can I find a boot camp near me?" Our real sales bootcamp that includes live, instructor-led curriculum from former SDRs at Salesforce, Linkedin, and IBM, can be done virtually!
When I came here to the Bay Area in June of 2015 my goal was to get into tech sales and make something of myself. I left Ohio to pursue a dream that many found to be impossible. It didn’t help that I was nearly penniless with no job prospects or any stable housing (both are hard to find in this area). All I had was an unrelenting drive to somehow, someway make it. It was all tougher than I had imagined and after a few months I was still jobless and being overcharged for an unfurnished room because I had no other options at the time. Even my family wanted me to give up and come home since the future didn’t look so good for me but I still couldn’t give up on myself and my goals. I knew if I did I would never have a chance at them again. Gabe at AlwaysHired gave me a call one day while I was in the city hitting the pavement. He told me he was launching a tech sales bootcamp to train a group of people to land jobs in tech sales and asked if I was open to interviewing for an opportunity to be trained.
I hesitated for a moment before saying yes. What I came to realize upon thinking about it was this: I had failed on all of my attempts to break into tech sales at that moment, I had no job in the most expensive city in the nation and no strong job prospects or any connections. I had to take this guy’s offer because I had nothing to lose and everything to gain from it. He was the only person in this city that offered me a chance to prove myself. I said yes , I’m glad I did and I’m glad he took a chance on me.
For the next several weeks I along with the rest of the class were trained in the fundamentals of sales, how the tech industry functioned in regards to culture, interviews, how they hire, and so on. It was a totally different system and culture than I was used to back home and I was focused on learning all of it…quickly. Being trained in Salesforce and putting our sales skills to the test by selling Bannerman (a Y Combinator company) gave me the confidence needed to ace the interview process.
Eventually, I landed an account executive job at Yelp ( a company that I already applied to multiple times, but couldn’t get into before being trained by AlwaysHired ). I am now with a company I enjoy , with great people and a great culture. All of this would not have been possible if it weren’t for everyone from the AlwaysHired team for never giving up on me and helping me every step of the way. I came here with nothing and in a short time I was able to be in an industry that I love . Couldn’t have done it without you guys. Thank you for everything :) -David Cantrell, Graduate from AlwaysHired, AE at Yelp (Originally posted on Medium)
