My first job as a research technician barely paid me $50k annually and I was stuck in the mouse house!

That’s right, translational oncology sounds fancy, but that just meant I was injecting meds, measuring tumors, and figuring out what dose worked best. I’d lead presentations in lab meetings sometimes but other than that, my job felt like an assembly line. Once I was done with the mouse studies, a new one started and I had very little involvement thereafter.

If I asked, I was made to feel like I should just do my job and that I was asking too much. I was also led to believe that if I ever wanted to break a six-figure salary, I needed more years of experience, a master's degree or a PhD.  For the record, I got into a master’s program in molecular biology program and dropped out because 1) time & energy, and 2) I told myself I wanted to get paid to learn.

So my career trajectory led me to cell therapy clinical research where I specialized in quality testing and technical writing. But still I was stuck in the lab or on my computer writing up reports. I missed my kid’s first steps because I was working on a weekend for a scheduled experiment!

Work-life balance failed and I felt unfulfilled with my career. I was good at my job but I wanted to connect with others and I wanted to help people at a deeper level - sales always called out to me. 

Salespeople (aka account managers / specialists etc.), visiting my labs led to my curiosity. They’d tour our laboratories, provide insight on how to improve our workflow, lead presentations, take me out to lunch and I learned they not only had fancy cars but also had families and a ton of work-life balance. They always looked so happy, energetic (like there was a fire within them and I was like “Give me some of that!”) and while some were kind of pushy, I knew in my heart I could do what they do - help people by connecting versus being pushy / a sleazy salesperson! But I wasn’t exactly sure where to start.

My curiosity led me to do some research and networking, because damn it! I didn’t want to go back to school, I wanted to get paid to learn and that meant getting paid to learn in a new sales job where I saw myself as an asset, a scientist with lots of laboratory experience. I knew how to talk the talk because I walked the walk, and it was just a matter of learning the sales side of things once I got my foot in the door. 

A few months after hustling and applying for a few sales jobs, a woman of color I used to work with reached out and asked if I was still looking as a sales position was open because she was on her way to a new opportunity. I read through the job description and everything checked out except for the sales experience section. Though, I learned that my first job at Things Remembered and then at Guess Inc., counted! (LOL! I know!)

Fact. You don’t have to have sales experience on paper to start a career in sales. Many employers with sales job opportunities actually require you to have some laboratory or technical or user experience before you sell their products because there’s no better person who understands the applications you’re trying to sell than YOU!

Plus, scientists LIKE talking to scientists. I found that out when I started introducing myself to my customers back in 2015 (Oh yeah! I landed that job and over doubled what I was making as a scientist!!!). They loved to hear my experiences working at various institutions and experiments I was a part of. They felt like I understood them and the truth about sales is that in order to thrive, you just have to know how to connect with others and if you are already stellar at connecting with various stakeholders and personalities within your organization, well, you can sell! Because getting sh*t done at work means you are internally selling the value in working together to reach common goals! Boom! That’s super-duper transferable to external selling as well!

I’m so thankful I took the leap in 2015. Since then, I have worked at the top biotech companies in the world, I’m constantly connecting with people, helping advance science (which is my ultimate “why” in my career), I have so much fun, have increased my salary and commission from each job (one commission check can far exceed my first salary in translational oncology! and there are four quarters to a year, sis!), have bought two homes and, most importantly, I feel most rich in time, health and joy.

I feel so honored to be able to treat my parents and family to new experiences; whether that’s traveling to a new place or just covering the tab for my dad’s bday dinner. I’m living a life I used to wish for and all those habits and actions aligning with my heart led me here. Now, I want to do the same for other women of color who want to break into the sales industry because I believe we are an asset to the industry. 

We are able to see the missing pieces quickly, we don’t stop at “I don’t know” because we’re resourceful as heck and we genuinely care about others, not just from a sales perspective, and therefore communicate with authority, sincerity, and respect. That fire and that heart make others want to buy from us. So why not rack up the paper by doing what we’re already amazing at?