The story started
About Daniel's Experience!
After losing my partnership offer for the Summer of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was eager to gain sales experience. I was fortunate to learn about Pearl Lemon Group from my best friend, Ben, who had partnered here earlier this summer. When the position of a US-based commission closer for the US market opened up, I quickly reached out to Deepak.
Deepak had me pitch myself through WhatsApp voice-notes. That was definitely a first, haha! From there Deepak interviewed me in what was my most interesting partnership interview to date. He had me pitch various objects to him that were in the camera background behind me. This definitely caught me off guard. I asked Deepak for feedback and applied it towards each subsequent attempt during the call. Two days after the interview I found out that I’d be joining the team and I was ecstatic!
The First Week
I took the first week to learn about our service offerings. I went through about 5 hours of SoundCloud FAQs and took notes. I also did the same for our informational videos on YouTube. This gave me a solid baseline understanding however I would continue to learn more with each sales call as I continued with Pearl Lemon Group.
During this week I was also tasked with sending voice-notes to Deepak about any topic of my choosing. This was to practice my tonality and being more expressive on sales calls. This was an area of improvement that Deepak identified from our interview.
The First Month
After that first week, I was to begin taking sales calls. I woke up on the Monday of that week to see a message from Tenny, our Head of Research. He told me that he booked a prospect into my calendar that came in through Drift, our website chatbot. With less than an hour of forewarning, I was both nervous and excited to get thrown into the fray.
That very first call went less than smoothly but each one got easier from there.
I continued to take sales calls and asked Deepak and Ion, our Head of Business Development, frequent questions. This helped me better understand what we offer and how to sell it effectively.
The Following Months
Around October, Deepak suggested that I take part in the Pearl Lemon Group partnership program in addition to my sales position. This seemed like a good idea because it would expose me to the other sides of the business and allow me to better explain what we do and how we work to prospects.
I began with working in Public Relations. Heather served as my mentor and during this time I mainly wrote pitches for HARO. I never knew about that website before but it serves as a great way for building backlinks and gaining media exposure.
I discovered that I had an affinity for this and it was cool to practice my research and writing skills by answering queries. In the two weeks that I did this for I was able to get us mentioned on multiple websites, Forbes even being one of them!
After I wrapped up PR, I moved onto social media management. This entailed me assisting with the social media for Plant Sumo, Deepak’s vegan food delivery service in London. This was also cool but I enjoyed it less than PR.
I really liked doing the two-week partnership rotations however I found it to be too time demanding. Between virtual college lectures, schoolwork, and my sales responsibilities I just couldn’t balance the partnership on top of it.
Deepak was super understanding and I’ve just been focusing on sales ever since.
Nowadays my typical week mainly consists of reaching out to leads, taking sales calls, sending out proposals, and speaking with potential clients on LinkedIn.
Looking Back
Reflecting on my time at Pearl Lemon Group, I can’t be more grateful for Deepak giving me a chance.
I’ve learned a ton about sales and I’ve felt my confidence increase. It’s been really cool to see how I’ve improved from my first sales calls to now.
This experience has given me insight into the career of sales and what it takes to be successful in it. I’ve also been able to see how a marketing agency works and Deepak’s entrepreneurial spirit has been inspiring to say the least.
All in all, Pearl Lemon Group has been an amazing experience and I’ll always look back at it fondly!