Rai Sengupta joined our founder, Jeremy Ruch, to share her experience launching a career in tech sales with Bandalier. Watch the video below to learn how she leveraged her experience as an athlete to accelerate her growth as an inside sales representative.
Rai joined the Bandalier team in June of 2022. As a former Division 1 tennis player, she was used to being challenged. But breaking into tech sales as a recent college graduate put her on a new playing field:
“I had done about 50 interviews. I knew that once I was in the role, I would do great.”
After a stellar interview with Bandalier, Rai joined the team and jumped into training. Within a few weeks, she launched into her first sales role. She quickly recognized that she wanted to keep learning:
“One of the challenges was trying to figure out how good I’m going to be and what I need to work on in real-time. Once I started those conversations, I realized how terrible I was at it. I was the last rep to book a demo. I felt like I was falling behind.”
Rai isn’t one to stay behind. She used every resource she could to sharpen her sales skills:
“Three things that really helped me. One was the core Bandalier training that I got. And then with Brenden, our program leader, he would constantly be open to roleplaying and helping me with tonality, and pacing, and different types of scripting. And the other thing I found was cold-calling on YouTube. So I started listening to that. I would maybe mirror the way they talk, their messaging and scripting. And one big thing was testing – Bandalier really inspired that for me. That definitely helped me figure out what’s working, what’s not working, or what’s working better.”
Her hard work paid off – by the end of her first month on the team, Rai was consistently at the top of our leaderboards. She kept up that momentum and found her groove, staying at the top of the team in the following months.
Though she hoped to join her client’s team, her status as an international student presented an obstacle. Rai’s experience is unfortunately common – many international students encounter unique challenges during their job search. Undaunted, Rai continued finding opportunities to advance her career:
“I could totally understand. I was working as a contractor with another company, and I had become a top firm rep there as well. A couple months later, someone who used to work at Bandalier reached out to me. He just landed a Head of Sales position, so he wanted to onboard me and bring me on as their first rep.”
With two new sales roles, Rai continued learning. On top of selling into new industries, she’s studying for her master’s degree. It takes some careful time management:
“Time management has been one of those things – I’m not the best at it, for sure. I read in The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes. Essentially, plan out the next day, add up the hours, and execute on the plans you make. If you just keep making plans, nothing is going to come of it. Every single day, pen and paper, I would write down what I have the next day, pan it out into slows, and then just execute and stick to it.”
Looking back on her growth, she offers one key piece of advice for people who are ready to break into sales:
“It’s very cliche – but don’t give up. Before I landed my first role, I did about 50 interviews. I believed in myself. I know I would put in the work, put in the hours to get to the level. Just getting someone to take a chance on me was a huge hurdle. But you just need one.”
We’re excited to see Rai keep growing! Connect with her on LinkedIn, or get in touch with Bandalier to learn how we help fresh talent launch their careers in sales.
