Founded by Norman Rodriguez, an ex-Googler who knows the struggle of making it big in an unfamiliar industry, Elevate offers a training program for those looking to break into the burgeoning field of tech sales. Since its inception, Elevate has helped transform the lives of professionals who were previously in dead-end jobs.
But how exactly does Elevate make this possible?
Elevate is a vocational school with accessibility and flexibility in mind. It makes sales careers within reach of everyone, even those with no tech background. Members undergo a 10-week online training to build a solid foundation in tech sales before fully transitioning into the real world.
You’ll learn to make cold calls, seek prospective clients, and nurture sales-qualified leads. Not only that, but Elevate also helps you navigate the job market and increase your chances of getting hired. As a result, many of its graduates have landed jobs even before completing the program. (Read more of Elevate’s outcomes here.)
Given its stellar reputation for producing skilled sales pros, the school has become a go-to partner for employers seeking to boost the quality and performance of their sales teams. But don’t take our word for it. Take Erik Groninger’s and Laura Dufree’s, both employers who trust and hire Elevate graduates.
Elevate provides a 10-week training in tech sales, designed to mold you into proficient and confident SDRs.
Join Elevate and start exploring a career in tech sales.What Do Employers Think of Elevate Graduates?
Gone are the days when employers have to manually scour through thousands of resumes to find the right talent. Aside from integrating AI-powered tools in their hiring system, companies are now tapping into organizations that specialize in honing highly qualified tech talent, like Elevate.
Elevate Graduates Are Trained to Thrive and Succeed
Erik Groninger is eager to form a team of SDRs that can cope with the demands of Sticky.io, a fast-evolving company that provides a subscription and billing platform. To build a sales development team from the ground up, Erik looked for an organization that understands his hiring needs.
“As a sales team, we are the engine that powers the machine,” he says. “Ideally, we want talent who are hungry and driven. I am a big believer of hiring based on personality traits and soft skills as opposed to experiences for SDR roles.”
Speaking from experience, it was only a few years back when Erik realized his calling in tech sales. Since then, he has understood that one needs more than just technical sales knowledge to thrive in the industry. Seeing that the company was looking to add 10 to 20 sales hires, Erik wanted to ensure the right people had access to such opportunities.
Erik came across Elevate’s leadership program in his search for potential candidates. He learned that Elevate was committed to training its program members into well-rounded professionals by providing them with the right tools to succeed. Not just that, he also saw that Elevate members possessed the soft skills required for his team: persistence, consistency, and genuine curiosity.
“They may seem basic, but they’re very hard to master,” he says. One needs to be persistent in their outreach and get to a decision. “If it is a no, you need to understand why.”
“You also need to be consistent in your daily efforts…and make sure you achieve your goals before moving on to the next one. Finally, you must possess a genuine curiosity about the industry, products, and prospects. [This] is essential in determining issues and how to solve them,” shares Erik.
Erik adds that the SDR program’s design shows Elevate members tick all these boxes; they’re consistent, persistent, and willing to put themselves forward. For this reason, Erik is confident that hiring Elevate graduates would help reshape his workforce. In addition, Elevate’s accessibility to any aspiring sales professional allows Sticky.io to hire members who offer different perspectives and creative ideas.
“Having that alignment means Elevate graduates can marry their passion with their profession, which can ultimately lead to success for themselves and the company.”
Elevate Champions Diverse Pool of Tech Sales Talent
Another sales leader who found Elevate to be an excellent training ground for their ideal hires is Laura Dufree.
Laura works as the Director of Talent Acquisition at DNSFilter, a company that offers cybersecurity products focused on DNS security. Because of the demand for such products, the company has relied on organic growth to propel forward.
Five years later, DNSFilter was poised to expand, and it fell onto Laura to build an in-house sales team. “We were moving out of the startup phase to the scale-up phase. When you get to that point, you need great technical salespeople to talk to C-level executives and drive revenue for the business,” she shares.
Among the applicants who caught Laura’s attention was an Elevate graduate who she says was one of the strongest candidates who applied for the business development role. While talking to the candidate, she caught a glimpse of what can be expected from Elevate members. “We thought that if he’s the type of sales talent Elevate has, we need to know more about them and get involved. So I was introduced to [Elevate CEO] Norman Rodriguez, and we’ve built a really good partnership since then.”
Having learned about Elevate’s comprehensive sales training program, Laura was confident that the vocational school could provide sales candidates that fit their team.
For DNSFilter, the biggest sales requirement a salesperson should have is a natural curiosity about the product. “We can teach you all about our product and SaaS sales, but we can’t teach you to care about what we offer. Successful salespeople are naturally curious about technical products. They are interested in the cybersecurity industry or emerging trends within technology,” she points out.
And that’s precisely the type of sales professionals that Elevate produces. Elevate has attracted teachable and naturally curious members who also have the drive to better themselves—qualities further honed in the program.
Laura also notes Elevate champions the same diversity values as DNSFilter. “We love the idea of partnering with Elevate to hire people with non-traditional sales backgrounds. It resonates with the ideals of DNSFilter, championing a non-traditional team and company.”
“We never had education requirements for any of our roles. We also hire remotely all over the US, targeting sales talent with different backgrounds and life experiences. Having that kind of team sparks more creative conversations, which help create better products. And we believe that Elevate shares the same beliefs.”
Join a Network of Successful Salespeople
Thousands of companies globally are looking to hire tech sales pros who can help them grow. However, with many modernizing their hiring processes, it is not enough that candidates count on luck and connections alone. And if you are a sales beginner, breaking barriers can be even more challenging.
With Elevate, you can access immersive training that will get you hired and become part of an ever-growing and supportive community of sales professionals. According to Elevate, their recent outcomes show that 85 percent of Elevate members secured full-time entry-level roles that pay over $60,000 on average.
Given such a solid outlook in this job field, you can boost your chances of breaking into tech sales by applying to Elevate’s SDR training program. You can also check out what other Elevate members have to say about their experience.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
