From Customer Service To Sales Career At International Software Company
How Gianluca Fazio found his calling after 5 years in customer service.
Uni grad?
No
Prior sales experience?
No
Professional background
Customer Service
I was trying to get a job that would make me really good at sales. And I didn't know that tech sales had so many opportunities.
The Challenge
In 2017, Gian started his career in customer service.
Throughout his time in the industry, Gian discovered his passion for people-facing roles.
He enjoyed the outgoing, interpersonal nature of his role, and looked to take things to the next level in 2022 when he founded his own media agency.
This is where he discovered sales and the satisfying nature of growing a business.
Through this experience, Gian discovered his enjoyment for sales, and looked to harness this in a more structured environment, where he could learn from high-level sales leaders.
However, when he took action to make the move towards a formal sales role, he found the roles he had success applying for didn’t align with his values or long-term ambition.
There wasn’t a personal approach to the sales process, and there weren’t very attractive pathways for his personal career progression.
He thought there must have been a better industry and kept researching.
Check out Gian’s thoughts below👇
I was trying to get a job that would make me really good at sales. And I didn't know that tech sales had so many opportunities.
The Solution
After feeling out a number of different industries, Gian came across the business-to-business software sales industry.
After chatting with a few of the Earlywork fellows, he saw that he could develop his sales skill in an environment that offered powerful career progression, all while selling a product he believed in.
Here’s more context.
In Australia, entry level software sales roles earn an average of $95k per year*.
Within 4-5 years of starting in software sales, you could be selling to 1000+ employee companies and have a total package north of $250k+ per year.
But why are packages in software sales so high?
It all comes down to what you’re selling - business-to-business software tools (ie: UberEats).
The increased adoption of software in recent years has seen employee count in the software industry grow twice as much as any other industry in Australia during the last decade (Tech Council of Australia, 2023).
Sales is the second most in-demand role for software companies (behind engineers) as reps are responsible for finding new business customers to adopt their tools.
Yet, there’s a distinct skill shortage as many job seekers think they require a technical background or previous sales experience to get started - which simply isn’t true.
Here’s a clip from one of our free live workshops explaining career progression in software sales👇
I was looking for somewhere that specialised in training salespeople. BrightHR has been the perfect company for me to start my sales career.
I was looking for somewhere that specialised in training salespeople. BrightHR has been the perfect company for me to start my sales career.
The Results
Gian joined us as a fellow in our FEB’24 cohort of Earlywork Academy.
He progressed through the three weeks of live workshops and decided that he wanted to proceed with software sales roles.
To conclude his job search, Gian was tossing up between multiple offers and decided to join global human resources software giant, BrightHR.
Where to from here
Unsure if software sales is for you?
Continue your learning journey with Earlywork by attending one of our free live workshops run for 30 minutes and we’ll help you learn if software sales is the right career for you.
Fellow Admissions Manager, Ben Horwitz, will take you through all things job security, career progression and compensation.
Hosted every Monday from 5:30pm - 6pm (AEST).
> Save your spot <
NOTE: Also check out our Wall of Love to see 100+ other graduate stories from our school, such as Gian.
.jpg)
