In episode one of NextRoll’s Career Advice podcast, Unstoppable Growth, Graham Byrne, Senior Director of Sales for the AdRoll product at NextRoll speaks with Tara Ryan from the NextRoll Talent Acquisition Team. Read on to hear Graham’s tips for growing your sales career.

Tara Ryan, Talent Acquisition Manager: Welcome, Graham! Could you tell us about your role at NextRoll? 

Graham Byrne, Senior Director of Sales: As you mentioned, I'm coming up to 10 years in the company, which is crazy to think. I first joined the company in 2014 as an Account Manager and have had many roles throughout my career here. I went from Account Management into NBS (New Business Sales), from there into sales management, and directorship. So I've worn many hats over the last 10 years and loved every bit of it.

Tara Ryan: What led to you getting to take on these new opportunities in different parts of the organization, and who helped you along the way?

Graham Byrne: I had fantastic managers who taught me ways to succeed in my core role, as well as taught me about things like stakeholder management and dealing with people on an individual basis. What attracted me to NextRoll from the start is that it’s a perfect sized company - not too big, it's not too small. Everybody knows each other, and that company size enables you to progress your career because there's a lot more transparency. At AdRoll (a division of NextRoll) if someone launches a big deal or gets a big upsell, they'll get kudos from the likes of our CEO or the President, through our Slack channel. There's really good visibility.

Tara Ryan: What are ways our listeners can build a positive personal brand or be more visible to leadership? 

Graham Byrne: There are four things I’d recommend you focus on, to put yourself in the best position to get promoted.

1. Consistent Performance

An Account Executive could hit a 300% quarter, but then they might miss the next quarter. I think the most impressive is someone who's consistent. To be consistent you need to know what the goal is, and reverse engineer that goal for the quarter or or the semester or the year to determine the work you need to put in day to day.

2. Cross-functional Relationships 

After making sure you're performing in your core role, it’s about stakeholder management. Invest time in getting to know people from other parts of the business and in a really authentic and inquisitive way, ask to learn what they're doing and what their challenges are. I found that doing this allowed me to identify problem areas in the business that correlated to Sales and I turned these into side projects for myself. Building up that kind of body of work that will position you to be viable for a promotion when those opportunities come up. 

3. Visibility

Look for opportunities to get on stage at events. We have a huddle every Monday, where the entire office comes together and I always ask people from different teams to present what they're working on. Even if it’s uncomfortable, you should get out of your comfort zone for that visibility. 

4. Social Selling

Lastly, social networking and social selling are important. Be visible on LinkedIn, share literature that's coming out, give your two cents on top of that, and position yourself as a thought leader to the external markets that you're selling into. Internally, people will see that and see you’re really bought into the mission of the company. All of this will help you be top of mind for your leadership team when promotion opportunities come up.

Tara Ryan: Was there a time in your career where you had to overcome a challenge or a setback? 

Graham Byrne: When I started my career at NextRoll I had some poor health, and it took time for me to start seeing success. I needed to build up my confidence and I did that by aligning myself to other people in the business who were overachieving. I needed to try to replicate the actions and behaviors that they were demonstrating daily. Once I did that and really doubled down, that enabled me to overachieve. I noticed there was a direct correlation between the level of focus and input I was giving, to my performance.

Tara Ryan: Any last tips you'd like to share with our listeners, something they could do today to get themselves in the position to be promoted?

Graham Byrne: When we're recruiting for new Account Executives, we're always talking about resilience and grit. Success is about being able to persevere. If you're having a tough quarter, keep controlling the controllables. Those are the kind of characteristics that I see in folks who are constantly getting ahead in their career and standing out from the rest.

Tara Ryan: You’ve shared a lot of actionable tips our listeners can use for their own career growth. Thank you so much. 

Listen to the full episode here:

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