Out of my depth

This week I am going through a weird training session – it’s 90% sales, 10% relevant to me, but it’s been really interesting to see how they train up the sales force, and how we are supposed to communicate the brand to the market, so it’s been good. The only strange thing is the other people who are going through the training with me.

            Every single person who works for the company has to go through training – either sales or ops focused, and as the training occurs once a month, you are bundled into groups with anyone else who might have been recruited during that time. For me, it seems I joined the same month as a number of sales powerhouses! There are four of us going through this rotation – the MD of Australia, the new strategy lead for New York and a new head of sales too.  Some people get the gentle intro to this company – that’s not what I was destined for apparently, which is half scary, and half really interesting. I’m definitely in over my head with these guys though.

            I’m just about keeping up with everything (and I’m using all lunchtimes when we’re together and not receiving extended training, or evenings when I am able to join them for dinner to fill in any of the gaps), but the one thing that I am really worried about now is “the pitch”.

            The idea of the pitch is simple enough – you spend a week learning the company inside and out, and then you spend half an hour on the final day of training presenting it back to the senior staff here. If I was going through this with a load of other newbies / non-sales people I would be feeling a lot more confident about this. Not to mention the fact that the last female they sent out of the Singapore office for training actually got the sack when she failed to pull of her pitch. And she had the full training rather than the reduced week long session that we have (due to a conference next week).

            A small part of me wishes that I hadn’t packed out my week with so many social and additional work functions now, but what the hell – I suppose I am just going to have to crack on and hope for the best! At least the diet doesn’t start until next week. For now, comfort eating will see me through!