From Car Sales to Tech Sales: Flockjay Spotlight with Tavner Dunlap
Here at Flockjay, we’re celebrating the graduation of our first cohort! We are making tech more accessible and helping students launch new careers. Each week, we’ll spotlight a graduate, dive into their Flockjay experience, and catch up on what they’ve learned since starting new sales roles. Our first alumni spotlight is Tavner; within our Flock, he’s known as Tav.
Tav enrolled in Flockjay School because he knew that the skills he gained from selling cars and owning a business could translate into the world of technology. After graduating from Flockjay’s comprehensive Tech Fellowship program, Tavner is now a full-time Development Representative at OutMatch.
By Yemi Olorunwunmi
What are the challenges of a sales career? What are the opportunities?
One of the biggest challenges, and fear, of people in sales roles, is volume: each quarter we worry about the 800–1000+ people that we’re in contact with. This can be really overwhelming. But, the opportunity within that challenge is creating a pipeline of prospects that are value based. Good salespeople are in control of their pipeline and can sort through the numbers, but most importantly they focus on customer needs. The tools we have are so powerful — Outreach is a dynamic, changing animal — so I ask myself, how can I be successful doing less? How can I prioritize value over volume?
Put that into context for me?
Something Flockjay helped me with was that I used to be really obsessed with knowing as much about the product as possible. And now, I see beyond that. Companies always want employees to understand the science of their product, but the customer might not care. Their priorities are different.
Recently, I had one conversation go off the rails. I got a ton of information from the customer and was able to get her to admit to a pain, but for an area our product didn’t serve. It wasn’t enough to ask open-ended questions, I needed to ask the right questions that moved our conversation forward. I needed to listen and steer at the same time.
People won’t just give you information, you have to urge it out of them. People also won’t give you pain, you have to urge it out of them. You need to ask open-ended questions that somehow lead into admitting to a pain and priority, which revolves around the service your company offers.
Once you know the product well, you can tell stories about it. You can get a customer to admit to substantive pain, then you can ask them a more generic question like, “If we could fix that and make your day to day better, would you be interested in our product.” That’s a question they can’t say no to because it’s value based.
How has Flockjay advanced your career?
Honestly, Flockjay teaches you so much good stuff. You’re able to analyze the flaws in an existing sales process. I now know about the art of sales: having good conversations and crafting persuasive emails. With Flockjay, I also learned how to differentiate myself during the hiring process. With the training and preparation, I knew what my competitive advantage was.
How have your past experiences prepared you for a career in sales?
When you tell people in tech you’re in the car business, it’s not considered a real thing. But then you get into tech sales and the characteristics of that environment are 100% relevant.
Car sales can sometimes be a terrible business. People show up to a car dealership and have their guard up; they’re typically angry when they go shopping for cars and hate the process of dealing with car salespeople. I thought I’d never want to do sales again, but I realized I loved the thrill of selling, but needed to find the right environment.
Can you think about where you were 5 years, or even 1 year ago? Did you imagine the career you have today?
No. I go to an amazing office in a massive building. I’m learning so much. I have a nice parking spot that’s there every single day. (Laughs) I can’t believe Flockjay helped me do that. It’s really crazy. To give context, I did the construction business for 3 years and when you’re an entrepreneur it can be lonely. Before that, I was a car salesman.
When in the car business, I had to keep my own spreadsheet of deals, because they’d try to say you didn’t have as much money in a deal as you actually did to cheat you out of your earnings. It was ridiculous. Sometimes, you don’t realize how good an opportunity is until you realize how bad it once was. What I’m doing now is absolutely more fun.
Any advice for people transitioning professionally?
These days companies are changing and growing so much. When thinking about what company to join, it’s important to consider the changes that have occurred or will occur within the year: whether that’s new acquisitions, incoming heads of departments, additional locations, or updates to the software. Think about how this is relevant to you and how you fit into a company’s growth story. For instance, this quarter, my company has the strongest value statement in its history. I’m going to leverage that to reach my sales goals.
There’s one other thing! People don’t always prioritize joining a company or team with people who are good at teaching. As a new hire you try to balance the dichotomy of asking questions versus doing personal research, but consider the learning atmosphere of a company. Think about it this way — if you’ve ever played sports before. Let’s say that sport is softball and you had a coach who could hit the best swing because they were a natural. Well, that swing might not translate to other members of the team. Prioritize managers and organizations that intentionally focus on teaching.
In your first three days, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned?
If you want to start a sales career, you can’t enter into it looking for the next best employment opportunity. I think people fail at this job when they don’t treat it like a career. You have to get nice and comfortable because it takes effort. You can’t bypass the time it takes to learn. The sales role has so many points of data and the day moves quickly, but you have to remember to work on your craft. Meeting quota is important, but you also need to be getting better. One thing I did was to strategically organize my calendar so that I was in charge of my time. You can get rattled the first few weeks, but you have to remember the fundamentals and track your time.
What do you want to say to future Flockers and the new generation of sales professionals?
Focus on sales as a career, understand how you get paid, know how to manage your pipeline. The sales profession is one where you have to generate and produce. There’s the metrics aspect, but don’t ever forget about the emotional aspect. Alongside your quota, work on your style and your storytelling. You can’t always follow directions on how to pitch properly or ace the discovery call, you just have to start. The scenarios won’t always be perfect, but trust yourself and go.
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At Flockjay, we are proud of how far our students have come, and we know this is just the beginning. If you want to launch your own career in tech, submit an application. (app.flockjay.com)
