Hi, I’m Ryan. I’ve spent 13+ years in the tech startup world.
I started in Sales Development, walking the streets of San Francisco, trying to get in the door of tech startups & small businesses to build relationships and become their benefits broker.
(I was an outbound SDR/AE for my book of clients for whom I was licensed to broker employee health insurance plans and other benefits.)
After 10 months, I quickly learned I wasn’t motivated by the extrinsic value of money, nor the intrinsic value of the chase at the core of the Sales function.
Having invested in networking and informational interviewing consistently, I was referred to Pandora, where I joined as a Coordinator in the Client Services division.
As an energetic new hire at Pandora, I spent much of my free time meeting new people and taking copious notes about different roles & divisions across the company. In meetings and after-hours, I’d sketch my ideas for training content and onboarding processes.
I consistently networked my way across the company, working my way from my immediate teammates to those higher up in the org chart. This included meetings with senior leaders in other departments and divisions.
Often, I’d daisy-chain from one conversation to the next. At the end of each conversation, I’d ask something like “given everything we just talked about, who else do you think I should meet?”
I’d get great advice about who else to talk to, and it would create a warmer introduction when I did my outreach:
“Hey Jordan, Sam said we ought to connect for a coffee chat, how’s next Friday morning?.”)
I learned a lot along the way. Here’s one quote that stands out in my mind:
“I wish half the salespeople on my team had the courage to approach me and ask these kinds of questions.” — VP of Sales
This was an early lesson in the value of:
When the opportunity arose, I pitched my ideas to the VP of Client Services during her office hours.
As a result of that conversation, this VP recommended me for a new Training Coordinator position that had just opened. A Sr. Manager in Client Services had been promoted to build and lead a new team as the Director of Training & Enablement. This\ new Training team would serve the Revenue Operations division, which included Client Services, Sales Technology, Sales Operations, and Pricing & Yield Management.
“You made it impossible to choose anyone but you.” — Director of Training & Enablement
Within 6 months of joining, I was promoted to help build out a new Sales Ops Training team.
In 18 months, we grew the team from 3 to 17 as we proved our value by launching training programs, enabling products, and managing communications for a Revenue Ops organization of 450+.