POA’s Rebekah Nelson has no regrets about the road not taken after putting grad school on hold more than 15 years ago.
Rebekah Nelson started the millennium with a difficult decision to make. She’d just completed an unusual double-major at Whitworth University—business and psychology—but she wasn’t sure if she saw herself going into psychology research or clinical work. Either path would mean more schooling, a big investment in time and money, particularly if she wasn’t sure she’d made the right choice. And what about the business side? While working typical recent-grad jobs like waiting tables, patrons frequently suggested she try sales. That seemed like a good idea to Nelson, just for a few years at least, while she made up her mind about grad school.
Her first sales job was for an office equipment dealership based in Bellevue, WA. As things turned out, Nelson had a knack for sales and what was supposed to be a few years in sales before enrolling in grad school has stretched out to fifteen years. Nelson now heads the only all-woman sales team at Pacific Office Automation (POA) in Oregon where she serves as field sales manager. Though she started at another dealership, POA was always on her radar mostly because it was a formidable competitor.
“Pacific Office was the industry leader in my territory,” she said. “I could never get their customers to switch when I was competing against them. When I was interviewing it was kind of a no-brainer for me because I already wanted to be there.”
It’s easy to stereotype sales jobs as being interchangeable. The cliche that once a rep builds a rapport with clients and learns to manage a territory, what does it matter who their employer is if they are on the road most of the time anyway? But corporate culture mattered to Rebekah, and POA offered something special in that department.
“Sometimes it’s hard for people who start at Pacific to know what they’re getting,” said Nelson. “Having that experience of a couple of years somewhere else that was more of a corporate culture where you don’t have as much control and ability to make things happen for your customers made a huge difference for me. I wanted a company that stood by its promises. I don’t like telling customers ‘yeah we can do this’ and then we can’t do it.”
Now heading into her fourteenth year with the company, Nelson has risen to become a field sales manager, a role that combines her sales experience with new leadership challenges.
“I’m a selling manager, so I do more adventuring with my team than I did when I was starting and focusing on establishing my territory,” she said.
Even in 2019, female sales reps are less common than men, but Nelson likes to focus on her team’s strengths, like organization and learning quickly rather than their gender.
“Yes, there have probably been a couple of instances where you know they’d prefer to deal with a male,” she laughs, “but they’ll put up with women. Most of the time people are fine dealing with males or females. I think being female is an advantage.”
Though women in leadership roles weren’t common in the industry when Nelson started, she was lucky enough to benefit from working with a woman manager early in her career.
“She was a good leader. She was also a selling manager, so watching her do what she did is what I’ve tried to emulate. She was very passionate and empathetic but also knew it’s a choice. You either do the job or you don’t. It’s not going to happen for you.”
Any woman in a role that’s mostly filled by men must give some thought to the pressure of being a role model, but it’s not something that weighs heavily on Nelson’s mind.
“I don’t wake up and think ‘ooh, I’m an example.’ Even if you’re not in a position of management, if you have any amount of experience compared to the person next to you, they’re looking at you,” she said. “I’m friends with my team as well, so it’s that line of management and also friendship that’s sometimes challenging, but I feel like we have a really good flow to it. There’s mutual respect.”
Good team chemistry starts at the recruiting stage, which is why Nelson takes an active role in scouting and interviewing candidates, though she’s quick to point out that good candidates can come from anywhere.
“Sometimes it’s people you meet just out and about,” said Nelson. “Occasionally I’ll get leads from my customers, just good people, whether they were in the industry or not, just people who are out cold-calling. It’s really important to have a good team fit because you spend so much time together and you have to work well with each other if you’re going to have a successful career with someone. You need a similar style.”
Part of finding the right combination of qualities in a recruit depends on understanding the human side of business relationships, which is something Nelson’s education made her uniquely prepared for.
“When I picked my major in college everyone thought it was odd to pair the two, business and psychology, but now I think it’s more common,” she said. “They go hand in hand, because in business you’re dealing with people, and psychology is the study of people. Anybody interested in sales is also interested in people.”
Many schools now combine the two disciplines as a specialized major, focusing not only on the dynamics of client relationships but the way individuals and teams work together within organizations. It’s a more modern approach that retains focus on the fact that any business relationship is still fundamentally a relationship between human beings. Though women are often cast in roles as nurturers both in and outside the business world, there are only upsides to embracing this
more “feminine” approach, especially as younger generations, who are less tolerant of boiler room hard-sell tactics, move up into roles where they’re responsible for purchasing decisions.
Another hallmark of the modern way of doing business is respect for work-life balance, which is something that women, who are frequently expected to take on a “second shift” of domestic duties after leaving the office, are more comfortable talking about openly. It’s an area where Nelson tries to lead by example, even though the demands of the job can make it difficult.
“Sometimes that’s a hard one. For me, my commitments and work come first. If I’m busy I will work way too much, but it’s also an ebb and flow,” she said. “If you have a big account that you’re installing or you’re selling, you’re potentially working a lot more for a season, so that it can balance out. It’s important because if you’re in a high-stress environment job you have to have personal time and have to have friends and family and life outside of work. At the same time, you have to honor your commitments to your customers or they won’t stay customers, so it is a struggle, especially as the more successful you become the more demands you have pulling you in that direction.”
With a busy job, Nelson understands that it’s important to take any opportunity to refresh, large or small. “I love to travel, so I try to take mini-vacations throughout the year, and every couple of years I do a longer one.”
Nelson understands the importance of taking time for her own personal interests and encourages her staff to do the same.
She also stays energized by looking to the future. There’s a lot of growth potential at a relationships-focused company like POA where employees may enjoy a tenure of twenty or thirty years or more.
“I have great relationships with my customers and I like my team. I enjoy going to work right now, so there’s not anything I want to change in the immediate, but obviously, in time it would be great to move up,” said Nelson. “We don’t have any branch managers that are female right now, so that would be a good challenge.”
Access Related Content
Visit the www.thecannatareport.com. To become a subscriber, visit www.thecannatareport.com/register or contact cjcannata@cannatareport.com directly. Bulk subscription rates are also available.
