How the relationship of Sales, Resume Writing, and Personal Branding launched my Business

11 years ago in 2012, when I entered my career services office at the University of Arizona, to get feedback on my resume, little did I know that the seeds of entrepreneurship were going to be planted in my head.

I was informed that my resume is comprehensive and I don’t need to make any changes, which usually is very rare for a freshman to hear. To test my resume writing skills further, I started helping out friends on campus, not only were they thankful but it opened a revenue stream for my campus expenses.

Fast forward to 2016, I was able to crack 400+ interviews in 4 years. The process of job hunting is frustrating and fatiguing, when you are not getting an interview, similar to cold calling in sales but not getting a meeting. This made the dopamine rush of getting an interview equivalent to picking up money from a client.

I realised job hunting and sales are very similar, and it started to make sense to me as to why my high school teacher said “Rohan has an innate ability to convince people”.

This was the moment I realised if I strategically put my mind to “the ability to sell” that I might be able to create a business out of it. And guess what, 5.5 years later I formally launched Build Your Own Brand (BYOB).

1. What does a resume writer and a salesperson have in common?

Attention to detail i.e. they invest a lot of time before getting to the point quickly.

When you’re designing a resume, it can take you hours but it’s necessary to put in those hours because the reader i.e. hiring manager glances at it for a mere 6 seconds.

My resume :)

When you pitch a sales product/service, you have your prospect’s attention for about 3–4 minutes, so researching them before the meeting and initiating small talk can result in a sale.

In both these scenarios, one major commonality I discovered was that the entire experience if made about them i.e.

1. Focusing on the client
2. Focusing on the “job seeker’s” journey

Gives you enough information to design the perfect resume and also make a high value sale.

2. What does Personal Branding have in common with Sales?

If you have ever worked or interacted with good salespeople, you will not see them missing an opportunity about name dropping a “client”

Through my journey of sales across Dineout, MTV and Zomato, where I met a lot of restaurateurs. I understood how personalised sales, startups, running a restaurant and entrepreneurship in general is.

A lot of people

• Who worked at these startups
• Ate at these restaurants
• And my clients who were paying me

Were in some capacity doing it because they believed the founder’s vision, felt connected to the restaurateur’s passion and trusted me with the money

These experiences are where I actually connected with the words “Personal Brand”.

Using my personal brand if I was able to pick up 6 figures in sales for my employers, what’s stopping me from doing it for myself?

3. The union of Sales with Resume Writing and Personal Branding

Combining this understanding of the concept of a “Personal Brand” with systems to handle scale was the next step I needed to take.

But here’s what convinced me to take the leap and give it my 100% once and for all:

1. First paying client, without a website
2. Creating an Instagram page that garnered followers and interest
3. The biggest VCs agreeing for a meeting and one coming super close to signing the cheque
4. Last but not least, receiving a highly lucrative job offer to put me in a spot where I HAD to make the choice

Currently BYOB is easing the anxiety of a job search and helping CXOs build their personal brand in a structured manner. It’s not been an easy year 1 and there are definitely some key learning for entrepreneurs that I would recommend.

I hope my structured approach of taking a risk 10 years later after I got the idea to start my entrepreneurial journey inspires a lot of people to start up but with a proper plan