Impossible Foods – Apprenticeship Week 2

I officially have two weeks under my belt as the new Inside sales rep at Impossible Foods, and it’s more than safe to say I am genuinely excited to keep diving into the work and the culture that surrounds me. I finally made it through all of the necessary training/orientation sessions and can completely dive into my actual workload. Outside of work, I’ve nailed down my commute, I’m getting to know my roommates, the area (where the grocery store is, bank, gym, etc.), and am beginning to mark my place out here in Silicon Valley.

I spent most of this week shadowing my coworkers and taking time to roleplay common scenarios with my supervisor. It’s been incredibly valuable to be a fly on the wall while my team works through their daily tasks – I can be told something and get a fairly decent grip on what it means, but seeing it in action contributes significantly to my comfort level. The only thing that’s better than watching people handle different calls is handling them myself, which I began to do at the end of this week!

Once I’m fully up to speed, I will be a “closer”, meaning I pick up the leads about halfway through the sales process; however, most of what I was doing would be considered qualifying, meaning I’m making introductory calls (caused by being a new addition + an influx of leads this week). It’s definitely helpful to see how the first half of the process flows, so that when I pick up where the qualifiers left off when I’m closing, I know what things to look for and how to identify what stage of the process each lead is at. I am motivated to know my role 110%, but knowing how the gears shift around me is incredibly important as well.

I don’t quite feel as if I’m completely in the flow of daily operations, but each day I get a little closer. Working through different tickets has helped me get more comfortable with the different software programs we use, and my confidence both within our systems and actually on the phone with clients rises every single day, and honestly with every single call. Everyone has always heard that practice makes perfect, but perfect is unattainable. I’m much more comfortable with the idea of practice makes awesome — although I’ll make mistakes, as long as I work ambitiously towards efficiency and with a strong passion for what Impossible is doing as a whole, I know that everything else will come to me in stride.