Meet another member of the Get in the Loop team - the Assistant Captain (and master of all things sales and marketing) Jamela Van Steinburg!
The cool thing about our team is the diverse backgrounds, some being heavily educated and others, like myself, having been focused on real life experiences. The school of hard knocks, per se.
Beyond being on my own and working at a young age, I have also been a single mother for the bulk of my career. These experiences alone had accelerated my drive to succeed.
I grew up with hippie parents; not just the smoke-a-bit-of-ganja-on-a-Friday-night-hippie. I’m talking the move off the grid, no electricity, or running water in the house kind of hippie. These provided me the opportunities to not only think outside of the box, but rather, not to even realize any boundaries of where my thinking, ideas, and visions ended. I knew no limitations.
I started the beginning of my career in marketing and advertising as the visual specialist for 20-plus retail stores in B.C. and Alberta. After the retail crash in the early 2000′s, I learned to adapt, adjust and survive in business; which I think is the essence of an entrepreneur.
Through early 2000 I went from being a marketing and visual specialist and dove headfirst into 100 per cent commission sales. I truly got a taste for “you earn what you kill”. This led me into a 10-year career with Standard Radio, Astral Media and Bell Media as an advertising and marketing consultant. I excelled in promotions on air, but never felt more at home than working as an advertising rep.
Ad salespeople are terrible at selling a package and showing a hard-working business owner the value of a cluster of ads that may or may not work. I took a whole new approach to this, and after my first terrifying week, one of the senior sales reps said to me; “If you work 51 per cent for your client and 49 per cent for the company, you’ll be alright.”
That’s when I knew that this was part two of the school of hard knocks.
I took this opportunity to reach out to a city full of amazing entrepreneurs. I learned about their journeys, business models, margin costs and goals. If knew if I could get three more people through their door or sell two more deals a month, I would be a valuable asset to their team. At times, I could not do this, but for most I could perform, and thus is why I was one of the Top 15 reps in the country in my last year with the company.
Although I have not received any formal university education, as mentioned earlier, I have had great learning experiences with four years of extensive sales training with Sandler Sales Training. This system took the values I believed in and fine-tuned them to make me the best consultant I could be. The same year I finished in the Top 15, I also won “Sandler Sales person of the Year” as recognized by my peers.
Now, you might be wondering why I jumped ship and left such a successful life behind.
I had come across Getintheloop.ca and wanted to reach out to Matt Crowell and learn more about the company and see if I could help. When I learned about his business model, it was perfect. All amazing business owners that I have been working with for the last 10 years could finally have a tool to reach their audience.
Getintheloop.ca supports businesses that believe in quality, value and experience. It rewards these businesses with a tool they can control, use when they need it, and drive business. For the Members, it is such a unique membership, where you get offers from places that don’t typically do deals and you choose what interests you! No more cell phone case promotions, just good deals to places you love. Now that’s worth the $29 to me!
I never thought my journey would have me diving into the world of tech, especially as someone who is not tech savvy. However, I recognized the asset Getintheloop.ca is as a tool that can be utilized by companies everyday. For me, this is lesson three in the school of hard knocks…tech! Bring it on!
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