“I always wanted to make a change work-wise but never knew what to do. I needed some direction.”

Like many of Bandalier’s team members, Alex built his experience in the retail and hospitality industries. After a few years, he was ready for a change. He didn’t see a clear path forward – until a friend recommended he apply to Bandalier.

At first, Alex was skeptical at the idea of joining a sales team:

“You know, I wasn’t so sure about it. But I gave it a couple weeks, finally looked it up, and I was like, “oh, this is awesome.” You can look at different paths based on your interests.” 

After going through our data-driven interview process, Alex joined the team as an outsourced inside sales representative in early 2022. As he grew into his new role, he had a lot of changes to adapt to:

“Biggest change was having a set schedule. When you’re working retail or at a bar, you’re working late hours, you’re working odd hours. A big part too was that I would talk to people from all different walk of life in the store – but I wasn’t selling them anything. So the shift where you’re looking to sell definitely took some getting used to.”

Though the conversations were different, Alex knew he could leverage his existing skill set to drive more results:

“What I always had was just being good with people – always wanted to talk, wanted to learn. Whether it was on the team, whether it was somebody in a different field, you can always learn from other people, and it never hurts. The learning curve was steep, but I definitely got help from other people.”

As he hit the phones, he continued honing his skills. Alex was calling into a tough industry, speaking with financial experts about adding new software to their tech stack. He quickly learned how to make the most of his shortest conversations:

“The people on the other line are never going to see you. So they’re probably going to forget about you in a week, or even that day. If you end up saying one good thing on the phone, that gets locked in their memory. It will stay with them. So you call them in a week, call them in a month, they see your name pop up, and they see something interesting.”

After only a few months with the Bandalier team, Alex moved on to his next role. Unfortunately, he was impacted by the waves of layoffs that swept through the tech industry later that year. Alex faced the adversity head-on:

“It was my first SDR role, and I learned a ton. Now I can grow with it, and really kill it at whatever I do next. Anything’s possible. You know, when you’re doing something for so long, you think that you’re kind of stuck. But then you realize when you get out of that there’s a lot of things you can do with your life. It’s just about doing it.”

Alex didn’t let himself get stuck – he leaned on the relationships he built to keep moving forward. He reached out to past colleagues to explore new roles, and started a new SDR role within a few weeks. 

Before long, he was ready for another opportunity to grow. He spoke with his team to identify opportunities that would play to his strengths. Six months after joining them as an SDR, he moved into his current role as an onboarding specialist.

Looking back on his journey, this is the advice he offers to folks who are preparing to start down a new path:

“Don’t wait. There’s nothing wrong with trying something. You don’t know if you’re going to be good at it. There’s nothing wrong with failing. If you find interest in it, you don’t know where it can take you. You can do it. Take the opportunity and build relationships. If it’s not right for you, that person you built a relationship with knows somebody else – they can say “let me do a favor.” That’s what relationships are for. It’s what life’s about. Helping out.”