This week on the podcast, we’re excited to welcome a baller on the sales team at SalesLoft, Jordan Arogeti. She’s crushing it and is here to tell us about how she found her sweet spot in sales, how she picked the right company to work for and embraced their culture. This is one for the reps out there looking to build their career and also the managers who want to hire and retain amazing talent to nurture. Let’s get into it…

In This Podcast You’ll Learn:

Picking your companies you want to work for

Work life balance

SalesLoft’s culture and environment

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Picking your companies you want to work for

John Barrows: What caught your eye about SalesLoft that that made you say, this is where I want to take my next part of my career?

Jordan Arogeti: My whole childhood leading into high school, leading into college, my focus was all about how I was going to be an agent. Or in some way shape or form be in the sports world. And while IMG afforded me incredible experiences, field access, player access, all of these great experiences, what I realized is that I really wasn’t all that fulfilled.

So I was looking to make a transition from away from IMG. I was consulting with a lot of folks and several people suggested, why don’t we get into sales? Which quite frankly frightened me, because the concept of sales and the old dirty car sales men, these personas that for some reason rather have become this stereotype of salespeople. That intimidated me, especially as a woman, but not just because I’m a woman.

And then a good friend of mine said, you know, I think you’d be to be an incredible in tech sales there. It’s incredibly woman friendly. It’s a community that’s very forward leaning. Software sales understands this idea of diversity and balance. And I really think that you would be better off if you start at a smaller company that has funding, but a smaller company and the less that’s willing to take a risk on someone that doesn’t have a direct sales experience but sees potential.

And so I met with SalesLoft over four years ago and I said, look, I don’t have direct sales experience. I’ve never had a quota. I’ve never looked at Salesforce dashboard, but I could promise you that I’m going to work really hard. I’m gonna bring the right attitude and you won’t work on it. And they took a gamble on me.

And the reason why I believed in them so much, but had a lot to do with leadership. It had a lot to do with Kyle. A lot to do with Derek and what I saw in him and the people that were interviewing me. It just felt so natural and I felt I was really myself. I, I wasn’t, it didn’t feel like an interview. It felt like I get to, I got to just have a conversation.

And knowing where I was in my life, I started at sales off a week after I got married. So it felt like this perfect chapter, this beginning of a new chapter. I picked a winner, and they’ve cultivated me, certainly. I’m so grateful for the skill set that I’ve developed here. But it just always felt right. And sometimes you just gotta go with your gut and it’s not a lot of data. It’s just that feeling inside of you that says, you know, at this, this feels like where I should be.

Work life balance

John Barrows: Where do you sit on the whole work-life balance debate? There’s nothing wrong with 9 to 5 but in sales, raging success takes more than that most of the time. So where are you on that?

Jordan Arogeti: It changes and it evolves with where you are in your life. So when I came out of college and I was living in New York, working for IMG, work life balance with very much work and life and that was the grind. Then I moved back to Atlanta where I’m from originally, again, got married, started my job here. And what I realized is that the most important relationship that I have is with my marriage.

That boundary was very important to me. So for me, what it became is instead of this work life balance, it did become an integration. I’m having to take work home, which you always have to do in sales, we are always going to be available to our customers, our prospects in some way.

You know, that has to be something that you enjoy. I leave here about four o’clock and from then I am not available until 7:30. And that’s time that I do reserve. But you know, like we’ve talked about before, once my son goes down, I’m right back on and I’m okay with that. That’s just the nature of my business and how I run my operation. So that’s kinda how I look at it today.

When I first got married, I didn’t care as much about those boundaries because all like the boundary I set was I’m not going to go to every happy hour that they, that they offer. Right? They don’t have to say yes. But then as I became a mother, I realized that those boundaries have to become a little bit more defined or else you are kind of, you’re going to drain yourself.

Culture

John Barrows: This is kinda sad to say, but you’ve been at SalesLoft for 4 years now which is pretty long by today’s standards. Usually in that time frame people churn and leave. But what’s the big thing that’s kept you happy and wanting to stay?

Jordan Arogeti: I kind of look at it from a couple of, of perspectives. When I started at sales off, we were still a very young company and they were really trying to get, not anyone, but it was difficult to get talent in the door. It was a brand new company. Companies like this can take risks on people like myself, but what they did was they create a culture and an environment where you love going to work and you love working hard for people.

Well, fast forward a year and a half ago, you know, I get pregnant and I’m expecting. I remember talking to Kyle and a few other folks internally. I was the first salesperson to be pregnant and that would look a little at this.

And that came with a lot of trepidation because you know, I’ve never seen this company deal with or handle of something like that. And part of the reason why I feel I’ve been so successful here at SalesLoft, it’s not just because I’m good at my job and I work really hard and I’m good at building relationships. So much of it is that I have a company here that understands where I’m at in my personal life and they’ve met me where I’m at.

And I think that’s what sales is often with. So many companies have to realize what’s important to your employees two or three years ago may not be what’s important to them now. Particularly top talent. You have to be able to identify your top talent and you have to say, what can we do to cultivate them? What can we do to continue to develop them and give them the things that there are going to make them feel fulfilled? How am I talking about that a lot?

There’s a difference between being happy and being fulfilled. To be more specific, I was most impressed by the maternity leave policy and 12 weeks paid your supply of diapers, meals, the home cleaning service. So not only did they support me while I was out, they really understood what was going to kit me to be really, really excited to come back in as why I’m having all my babies here.

I’m pregnant again. But my point is so often, we get confused with company culture being ping pong or pool tables.  Or free lunches and free gym workout memberships. It’s okay, that may get you in the door. They may get a good candidate in the door, but that’s not what going to retain them. And I think that is the difference for me, they found ways to be supportive of folks like myself.

I am a minority and they know that it’s good for them. It’s good for the community, that we’re leaders in the Atlanta community from this stand point. And you’ve got people like myself that can’t wait to come back.

That’s a wrap. Join us next time

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