College Student Gains Professional Confidence and Promotion to Branch Manager

Speaker 0: Hi. My name is Ellie Rauk, and I'm from Alexandria, Minnesota. Yeah. I would say, so my major is exercise physiology and I've taken a bunch of prerequisite courses also to go towards physical therapy as well. And I would say with this job with vector marketing, I've definitely improved a lot with like my confidence and like communication skills because in physical therapy or in healthcare professions, you're going to be dealing with a lot of different people and patients of diverse backgrounds and learning how to adapt to each of their situations. So kind of similar to like the skill sets you learn in training on how to find like the right fit for each of the customers that way. I would say yes. One reason is like we talked about it in our interview, it's just a very well known company and has a great name for it. So that part of it and then also just because of like the skills I've learned from not only like the sales representative side but also from the manager's perspective as well. In the future when I like if I decide to open my own business, how to have these interview skills as an assistant manager, being able to delegate different tasks, manage a team, and coach people as well too. Mhmm. Okay. Yeah. So, like, before I found Vector and then how what was the second part of that question? Okay. Okay, gotcha. So before I started working at Vector, so I actually had gotten recommended to the job through a friend of mine who also went to my college. He had had some good experience with the job and I was willing to kind of try it out over winter break. And before this job I hadn't really had any sort of like business or sales experience. I had worked as a CNA at a nursing home and then as a bartender and waitress at a golf course and then also worked as a sterilization tech at a dental practice as well. And I would say financially like for being like a high school college age student like I was okay but definitely like have more resources now coming in and finances to help fund like my college education and then also some traveling and just participating in some other extracurriculars as well too. Yeah. Yeah, actually my parents, I would say more so my dad, they were a little bit hesitant about the job itself. Like I think they had heard just maybe some like not great things. They maybe thought certain things like weren't true about like rumors and things like that. But after they like saw me have such deep success like within my fast start and like how hard I was working in order to hit my goals, they could see like that I was really focused on achieving that goal and how driven I was. So they saw kind of a shift in like my work ethic that way and ended up being like really proud of me after my first ten days like on the job and even through like the last couple of days. They really understood what it was all about from me talking to it. Now a year later, they support me at all my events and were at Year End Banquet with me, watched me get my branch manager promotion. Yeah, so what made me say yes to vector marketing was the fact that my friend had had good success already within the job and had been promoted to an assistant manager, which I didn't even know initially, but found that out later on. And he had been with Cutco over like the summer and had just awesome experiences, met some cool people, got to go to these cool conferences, winning the trip to Cabo Mexico. I saw that that was super cool. I kind of wanted the opportunity to be able to do that as well and wasn't really doing anything else over my winter break so I decided to give it a shot and see how it went. Okay. Let's see. I'm trying to think, like, a best customer story. Let's see. I'll just say like my first experience of having like a good customer was probably my grandparents on my, they were my second presentation that I had had with the job and I had sold a signature set to them, is one of our second largest sets and had never would have expected that they would even buy anything from me, but that was super exciting and kind of gave me some confidence like right off the bat. Yeah, and they still continue to like buy more cut code down the line here from me. Yeah. Yeah. I would say what really surprised me the most about vector marketing was the people for sure and just how driven every single person was. Like having the community of people who are my college age that already are looking to see how they can develop themselves for the future. Like everyone's just very personal growth oriented and having those people around me that just make me want to become a better version of myself is something I just really love about the company. Okay, I would say it's different working for vector marketing definitely because of the flexibility that you have within your schedule. So there's been times where I've taken maybe months off the job and then I'll come back and work like full time for like two weeks and sell a bunch. So just kind of having that flexibility in that sense too, you really have control over your income. If you're wanting to kind of crank some income up and like you have working to save for a trip or things like that, being able to just have the flexibility like, alright, I'm just gonna make some calls, book some demos, can kind of get that income in within a week. Then two, if you're ever needing to take leave or go somewhere else, like with school when it comes busy during final season, having the flexibility to kind of take a step back and then resume later and take back where you left off. I would say with Vector, like a skill set I've really honed in on is definitely like my resilience. I think that comes from just like the experience of like having customers and like being comfortable with the word no. Like you're gonna hear no, like not only obviously on the demos, but also in life and just being able to take it as like a way to reroute and find a better solution and ways to keep going through that. And then of course you're going to see lots of struggles like within like your fast start or like when you're in big push period competitions things like that. Just being able to have that push muscle and being able to just I've been able to like expand my capacity for what I think is possible and able to achieve. Oh you got muted. I would say the reason I stayed with Vector Marketing is because I just found myself continuing to grow here. Feel like one of my division managers, Dane Espegaard, actually he always says I'll leave Vector when I feel I stop growing. And he's been here for so many years now and I feel the exact same way. Like I just continue to develop here and can see myself growing. I've also just been able to build a ton of close knit relationships, especially at like the different conferences and things like that even though we're all from different parts of like the nation and our division when we all come together at the conferences it's kind of like we never left like that best friend that you just can be away from and you really get to know each other and you just kind of click. So I think that part of it is really awesome and with like kind of deciding to go like the branch manager route I kind of really wanted to be able to challenge myself for what I think was possible. They say it's one of the hardest things that you can do within the company from that position. And I know that I will be able to grow a lot, especially just in that three months period. And I've seen other people have success with it and seen how they've come out at the other end of it. So just looking forward to seeing the person I become by the end of that. Yes. Okay. Okay.