What I Learned My First Week as an Executive
And the path I took to get there
I started working in the corporate world when I was 19 years old. I worked as a Cancellation Clerk for Brink’s Home Security. I was at the bottom of the barrel. I stayed with the company for 7 years, and during that time I had received various promotions and moved around in different departments. It was during my employment at BHS that I decided I wanted to run my own business. I went to school to work towards my degree in Business Administration where I learned different aspects of accounting, statistics, human resources, and other important key factors that are involved with running a business. I set the goal for myself to obtain a management position by the time I reached my thirties and an executive position by the time I reached my forties. Little did I know how quickly I would advance in my career.
I ended up leaving BHS in 2009. I felt that I needed a change of pace. But while there I learned that in order to effectively run a company, I would need to know the different aspects that were involved with the business. A couple of areas I needed more expertise on was sales and customer service. I went on to work for Gold’s Gym as a customer service representative. It was the perfect place to get the experience I was looking for because it was a high volume call center. I wasn’t there very long, less than a year, but I still was given the opportunity to become an interim supervisor while the supervisor went out on maternity leave. Given that experience confirmed my ambition for management.
After leaving Gold’s Gym, I went on to work at AccuConference as an account manager for 3 years. This experience gave me the skills I needed in sales and helped improve my selling abilities. Near the end of my tenure, being 31 years old, I was given the extraordinary opportunity to reach the goal I had set to reach while I was in my forties. The business owner for a company called Juris Doc Prep, which I had offered my services to part time to help the newly found company get off the ground, had called me into his office one weekend and offered me an executive position. I was floored. Not because I thought I didn’t deserve it, but that someone else actually saw the potential I had. He told me I would basically be running the company myself and would only report to him.
It didn’t take long for me to make my decision. This was something I had wanted to do for such a long time. And now I would be able to prove to myself that I was fit for the job.
Last week was my first full week working as an executive for the company. And it was different than what I had pictured, but in a good way. With JDPrep being a company only 2 years old and processes not being perfected, I had envisioned my first week would be filled with chaos. I pictured my phone ringing off the hook, my email exploding with questions I couldn’t answer, and the company owner firing me for not doing a good job. Of course, I was wrong.
My first week went smoothly overall. I was introduced to our clients and vendors and was able to learn quickly who my point of contacts would be. I also had to allow myself to ease into the position. Before I started my first day, I had all of these ideas that I thought would help with the growth of the company. However, I wasn’t able to express those ideas off the bat because I had learned that there would be a lot of clean up involved with a particular department that was created a few months ago. I took that week to learn the process of that department, clean up the mess, and decide how I wanted to improve the process so the mess could be avoided in the future.
I also learned that there was very little employee moral. Mainly because the company is so small but is rapidly gaining a lot of business. So the staff feels overworked and under appreciated. Luckily, at the start of my first week, another new hire started as a processing clerk. Also, to my advantage, the new hire proved to be a fast learner and has taken on the challenges very well. This has helped relieve the work load from the other employees. But, as I was talking with the Director of Operations, she informed me that they don’t do anything for birthdays, holidays, or expressing to employees that they are appreciated. I told her that would most definitely change. One thing I have learned working for so many years is that you have to keep your employees happy to keep them working for you. Little things like a gift card to Starbucks, Amazon, or their favorite department store shows that you care that they are your employee.
I realize that I have a lot of things to learn with my new position. And that this journey will open many amazing doors. I would have never imagined that at the young age of 31 I would hold this kind of position within a company. But looking back I see that my work ethics and experience has made it possible for me to get to this point. What’s next? Possibly owning my own company is in the works. We’ll see!
