8 April 2024
Day in the Life: Sales Placement at ProspectSoft
Hello! I’m Yamin, one of the Sales Assistants at ProspectSoft. I am writing this blog to share with you a day in the life so you can better understand what your placement year would entail if you took on my role! I will highlight what a typical morning in the office looks like.
Hi, I am Rohan, another Sales Assistant at ProspectSoft, and I will be discussing what a typical afternoon looks like in the office.
Setting up for the day and sales catch-up:
8:30am
I start my day by setting up my desk and prepping for our first meeting.
I also like to open up Prospect CRM (our customer relationship management software), to check any updates and overnight activity. I also like to chat with my colleagues in the office to get the day off to a good start.
9:00am
In sales, we usually commence the day with a ‘Sales Catch Up’ Teams meeting; this is an excellent opportunity to voice any concerns with specific tasks and customers. These meetings, led by the Director of Sales and Marketing and the Sales Manager, provide helpful advice for the problems we may be facing. I take down any advice and information that will help me progress; this way, I can refer to it if I face the problem again. These meetings are invaluable for a placement like me so I can;
- Catch up with managers and sales consultants
- Help keep me in check
- Ensure I am doing the best work possible.
Additionally, the meetings allow placements to sit in on day-to-day sales conversations, giving us a broader understanding of what different jobs within the department entail. This has helped me gain more insight into industry terminology that I can use in my final year of studies and future career.
Checking the sales inbox and intercom:
10:00am
We finish our first daily task after the morning meeting. The first order of business for a Placement is to check the sales inbox. This is the general email inbox that customers send their queries to; I scan through the inbox, reply to relevant emails, delete junk emails, and redirect any that do not apply to the sales team.
This is an integral part of the role because I must ensure customer questions are answered or directed to the correct person. If forgotten or ignored, then we may lose potential customers and sales, so it is vital that we keep on top of this.
Being punctual with replies is essential because it reflects on the company; this sales inbox is monitored and kept up to date throughout the day.
Alongside the sales inbox, we stay up to date with the intercom system, a live chat system customers can use to talk to different departments within the company; I scan through the intercom, aiming to answer questions directed to the sales team.
As a placement, I aim to approach the sales inbox and intercom confidently to help improve the customer experience and help where I can. I am reassured by the sales team’s experience, who can provide assistance and advice if there are questions we don’t know the answer to through Microsoft Teams.
Keen to find out more about what other ProstpectSoft placement students are up to? Click below to read more.
Lunch Time:
12:00pm
During lunch, I relax with my colleagues and my placements in the canteen area. We eat lunch and socialise for an hour, which helps me feel re-energised for the second half of the day and remain productive.
Finishing CRM task list and calling lists:
1:00pm
After returning from lunch, we get straight into work again. I like to finish most of my CRM tasks by this time to focus on more self-generated opportunities.
This includes working through calling lists for upcoming webinars, calling new opportunity customers for free trial demos, and chasing customers for payments. We use our calling lists from the CRM and begin to call prospects we believe are an excellent fit.
Usually, B2B businesses sell physical products and have integrations with our partner software.
I will thoroughly work through each list to encourage each prospect to sign up for our monthly free webinar. At the same time, I take down any notes on the CRM and clear up any missing or invalid information to help us improve the accuracy of our data.
Completing this task typically occupies a large portion of the afternoon, as its success can vary depending on the day. Achieving our personal daily goals is subject to the customers on the calling list, and this can make calling tasks difficult as the targets can be inconsistent.
End of the day and US calls:
4:00pm
As I mentioned earlier, I like to finish most of my tasks by the end of lunch. However, a few have to wait until later in the day due to the time difference for customers abroad.
These calls include customers in the US, Australia, and South Africa. For customers in the US, I can make calls around 4 pm as this is the time they are most likely to pick up. So, I will fill the last hour of my day with US calls and making appropriate updates to the CRM with new information.
5:00pm
After finishing the US calls, I can usually wrap up for the day and head home. However, Yamin and I must make calls twice a week during out-of-office hours to take some hours of rest instead.
Evening Australia calls:
10:00pm
After a few hours of rest, I’ll be gearing up for my calls with clients and prospects in Australia and New Zealand. I prefer conducting late-night calls over early-morning ones at this time of the year. Around 10 pm, I’ll set up and get ready to engage with Australian clients and prospects.
While it can be demanding working at this time of the day, capturing their interest in our system and witnessing future sales transactions is always gratifying. Working these late hours also gives us the flexibility to adjust our schedules during the day and take time back, an aspect of the role that I genuinely appreciate.
Overall, our days as Sales Placements are hectic, but it feels great to hit our targets and improve at what we do every day. Being able to work in such a supportive and hands-on team means that we are constantly being pushed to excel and learn new things from people who have the best experience and advice.
Our role is integral to business growth, so we take great pride in our work. Our placement year with ProspectSoft has been great so far, and we’ve been lucky enough to work with a highly motivated, energetic, and productive sales team.
If you are interested in becoming a Sales Placement at ProspectSoft, hope on over to our placements page to find out more.
