#LifeAtUdemy Spotlight: Meet Our Global Sales Development Organization
Our sales team helps companies solve their critical skills gap and improves millions of learners’ lives. As our team grows worldwide, we sat down with three teammates in our sales development organization to talk about their roles, impact, and the opportunities to develop their careers at Udemy.
About our sales development organization
Our global sales development organization is a great opportunity for those just starting out or are early in their sales career. This team focuses on both inbound and outbound sales to increase and build revenue for the sales team. Our teammates support all employee segments, from emerging to enterprise throughout the world.
With roles like sales development representative, account development representative, and management, we give our teammates the tools, resources, and support they need to grow their careers within sales or to use the skills they gain to pivot to another career path.
Meet Pearl Dhingra Prabhakar, an account development representative in Melbourne, Australia
What’s the most exciting opportunity of growing Udemy’s reach in the APAC region?
A recent Mckinsey study on building 21st-century companies in Asia highlights how the pandemic completely changed the business landscape in APAC. In this neo-post-pandemic world, companies have to rethink how they do business in the region. There’s pressure to reinvent and build new capabilities, otherwise, they risk falling behind and becoming stagnant. That’s where Udemy comes into play. Companies need help from platforms like Udemy Business (UB) to bridge the skills gap, build capabilities to be efficient, and reinvent and bring in innovation.
Our customers have said that Udemy helps them stay ahead of the curve by enabling the most important currency: people. Udemy is a one-stop-shop for not only tech content, but also soft skills and leadership content. Our unique marketplace model provides fresh and relevant tech content – such as our ChatGPT courses – to the APAC market in real time, which can otherwise take six to nine months to publish through traditional methods.
What’s an interesting aspect of working with our APAC customers?
Post-pandemic evolution and innovation have displaced jobs while creating new ones. With the constant changes in workplace dynamics and pace at APAC organizations, reskilling and upskilling are urgent priorities and endeavors that require a coordinated effort. It’s no surprise that UB’s English language, personal development, and leadership courses are heavily consumed by the SEA/APAC audience. To accommodate the pressure of displaced jobs, it’s important to upskill and reskill regularly or your skillset can lose its relevance.
The world of work has changed, and so have the needs and expectations of employees. They want a renewed and revised sense of purpose in their work. I tell my customers that one way to do this is by ensuring lifelong learning opportunities and by building a learning culture into their organization. Udemy helps make that a reality. I’m really proud to help companies achieve these goals.
Meet Carmen Gonzalez, a sales development representative in San Francisco, California
How are you supported in your career here?
My team is very supportive. I was only one of two Spanish speakers on the team initially and the only one based in San Francisco. The rest of the team spoke Portuguese. Because they had something that connected them, I worried I might be left out. However, I got lucky, landing my first big tech job at a company with an inclusive culture like Udemy’s. My teammates reached out to me and forced me to be more involved (in the best way possible). Any questions I had, they’d answer or help collaborate on. Now, we have a great relationship and even hang out outside of work!
My managers have also been great. My previous manager always helped me when I fell behind, asking how we could fix it and worked with me to build a strategy going forward. My new manager is all about learning opportunities. He creates weekly sessions with the team to teach us things like the basics of technology (e.g., how to use the internet) to more advanced topics like ChatGPT. Since we’re talking to people who are IT leaders or are heavily involved in tech, he believes this insight will help us have more organic conversations so we can build trust. I appreciate that he goes the extra mile to ensure we feel confident and successful.
What’s the most meaningful aspect of your role?
I’m a first-generation Mexican American. Although I was born in the United States, I was raised very Mexican. I know that in LATAM and where my family is from, there are very underserved areas for education and job opportunities. I’m not embarrassed to say I cried the first few calls I had with prospects in the region who shared how they’re offering Udemy to their employees who didn’t go to school or didn’t finish their education.
My parents never graduated middle school, so I am very proud to be part of a company that can provide learning opportunities. It will significantly impact people’s lives and generations to come.
Meet Aoife Corbett, a senior manager for sales development in Dublin, Ireland
Why is sales development at Udemy a great opportunity for career development?
Sales development is an excellent option for both early careerists and professionals making a career change. My own career is varied. I worked for a retail brand for over ten years as a leader and country manager and left it all behind one day to start over in tech sales. I started in business development and quickly moved through the career ladder to account executive. When I joined Udemy, I married my love for tech sales with my leadership experience and was recently promoted to senior manager for the sales development team in EMEA.
This is what sales development does; it helps you grow quickly even if sales isn’t your background. On our team, we’ve had nurses, chefs, and even Montessori teachers. The career pivot is easier if you are willing to learn, can hit your targets, and live our values. This helps you move up throughout the organization.
Udemy is an amazing place to develop people. We’re good at recognizing talent, and we set them up for success from the start with a robust onboarding program. We continue that support throughout their journey because we understand the sales development team is an excellent pipeline for developing internal talent. That’s why managers and leaders work to keep a transparent culture. It’s not taboo for our employees to discuss their career goals openly and honestly, even if it’s outside of the sales org. The more our teammates share with us, the easier it is to identify interests and strengths so we can develop a structured plan to help them follow (or create) a career path. I’m proud to say this has led to a handful of our teammates getting promoted this year already!
What makes someone successful in this role?
Authenticity, curiosity, and a willingness to learn. We want someone who is switched on and curious. Whether you’re getting inbound leads as a sales development representative or building your own as an account development representative, you need to think holistically about what Udemy offers and how it can support the people you’re talking to.
It’s less about getting caught up in the process and more about being proactive and learning about your prospects. Research the company and the people you’re talking to so you can figure out the persona that best aligns with them. Use this to prepare your questions and listen – really listen – to what they’re saying. You want to understand their pain points on a deeper level so you can offer a solution that will do incredible things for their organization’s goals and their employees’ lives. After all, that’s what we’re doing here. We’re not here to sell a product; we’re here to care about our customers’ problems and solve them the best way we can.
Lastly, if you join our team, it’s essential to understand our values as mentioned earlier and see if they align with yours. Even if you’re a stellar salesperson and exceed your quota consistently, you won’t be successful here if you don’t connect to our values. We really believe in them and live by them. That’s what makes Udemy a truly special place to work.
Let’s revolutionize learning. Check out our open sales roles worldwide here and apply today!