Does such a job exist? (Networking/relationship building)

SideWinder

SideWinder

SideWinder

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Following on from my other thread, I have been pondering what to do and next steps.

I receive many compliments throughout my career about my warmth and ability to gain rapport quickly with people so I wanted to explore careers that require that. :)

I am 33 and my background is niche (E-Com fashion website, operations team) and if I was to try and summarise it would be 10 years of the below. It started junior and then went up a few levels. I am now 'semi senior' in a start-up where I answer the business phone line, solve customer tickets, handle any sales enquiries from businesses with my Director, help to create improvements on our basic repots as it seems like I am the Excel expert (although I am not the best!), reply to reviews and generally any ad hoc tasks that require doing.

- Workflow management
- Working with key stakeholders to communicate requirements
- Arranging and enforcing KPIs
- Process creation and management
- Holding small presentations/walk throughs to external and internal teams (up to 10 people)
- Creating Excel reports with automation that show patterns and trends

- Customer service tickets and phone calls
- Coaching my team on how to reply/phrase tickets
- Resolving complaints/queries/providing feedback to the team

I feel motivated when I am around people so at the moment, although it is a job and certainly a good salary for my role, I need to think about the future and look at other roles at perhaps a larger business.

My initial thought was Project Manager but I have never actually done this before plus zero qualifications. I am also unsure if I would fully enjoy it as I researched this a couple of years ago in-depth. Second idea is CX...I haven't had a CX role and its more about replying to reviews and sorting out complaints. I was able to help the business grow from 4.4 to 4.8 on Trustpilot as an achievement...hardly a 'CX professional' using special software.

I am looking at fashion due to the 10 years at a large fashion retailer so this would be the 'easiest' step so perhaps roles that could be slotted into there?

Please don't say estate agent as this was suggested to me and I can't drive. :p Sales could be an idea and I did interview within recruitment a few times. I was given feedback that I wasn't pushy enough essentially...so basically not a ****.

Is there something out there that relies on strong people skills?
 
  • Business Relationship Manager (not that dissimilar to what you are doing, but typically with internal rather than external stakeholders). Not that common a job title however.
  • Account Manager / Engagement Manager (may relate to sales but often more about ongoing relationships with key clients instead of just driving new business)
  • The top paragraph of reqs could maybe be applicable to a Product Owner.
  • Process Analyst - perhaps a bit more junior that the above but you would have transferrable hands-on experience

These sort of roles would typically pay 50%+ more than your current role but you might not be able to jump straight in and potentially have to do more of a sideways move into a more junior equivalent to gain experience.
 
Every CEO/Exec spends their time on the phone, requiring high communications skills, networking, empathy and self drive.

A project manager would be useful skill but the same with technical product manager working in an agile way. There's also the financial/commercial side you may want to get experience in as you'll need it further up you go. Hence suggesting those two roles - it will give you the commercial experience, vendor management, risk management etc.
 
To be taken seriously in other industries you'd need to have industry standard qualifications. Project Management, ITIL, Prince 2, perhaps a MBA etc.

Not that you need them in terms of experience. But you'll need to be SEEN to have have ticked some of those boxes. You'll be judged for not having any qualifications.

Unless you can find another startup type of business where they need someone to do a bit of everything.
 
OspreyO said:
To be taken seriously in other industries you'd need to have industry standard qualifications. Project Management, ITIL, Prince 2, perhaps a MBA etc.

Not that you need them in terms of experience. But you'll need to be SEEN to have have ticked some of those boxes. You'll be judged for not having any qualifications.
Click to expand...

That's the issue I have - MBA as a tick box. Although you get rejected for non-MBA roles being too experienced.
 
A lot of these qualifications are the cost of entry to upper positions, or into other industries. You have to look at the jobs market and see what people are looking for. Then try and tick all those boxes.
These days decades of experience is completely trumped by someone who has a recent "exactly right" a paper qualification. No one looks back at experience older than about 2~4yrs old.
 
NickK said:
That's the issue I have - MBA as a tick box. Although you get rejected for non-MBA roles being too experienced.
Click to expand...

You do not have to necessarily disclose the full list of qualifications you hold. It's different to talking yourself up while not actually holding a qual. The latter position is the weaker of the two and will bar you from more jobs (outright fraud generally does! :)).

Seasoned professionals accumulate years of experience, skills, certs, memberships and letters after their name. But just like with the CV not having to be a bible-sized epic, your qualifications should be tailored to the role you're aiming for. Get through the door, interview, sign the offer, and then discuss with HR in due course. For small businesses there may not even be an HR team or person!
 
SideWinder said:
Following on from my other thread, I have been pondering what to do and next steps.

I receive many compliments throughout my career about my warmth and ability to gain rapport quickly with people so I wanted to explore careers that require that. :)

I am 33 and my background is niche (E-Com fashion website, operations team) and if I was to try and summarise it would be 10 years of the below. It started junior and then went up a few levels. I am now 'semi senior' in a start-up where I answer the business phone line, solve customer tickets, handle any sales enquiries from businesses with my Director, help to create improvements on our basic repots as it seems like I am the Excel expert (although I am not the best!), reply to reviews and generally any ad hoc tasks that require doing.

- Workflow management
- Working with key stakeholders to communicate requirements
- Arranging and enforcing KPIs
- Process creation and management
- Holding small presentations/walk throughs to external and internal teams (up to 10 people)
- Creating Excel reports with automation that show patterns and trends

- Customer service tickets and phone calls
- Coaching my team on how to reply/phrase tickets
- Resolving complaints/queries/providing feedback to the team

I feel motivated when I am around people so at the moment, although it is a job and certainly a good salary for my role, I need to think about the future and look at other roles at perhaps a larger business.

My initial thought was Project Manager but I have never actually done this before plus zero qualifications. I am also unsure if I would fully enjoy it as I researched this a couple of years ago in-depth. Second idea is CX...I haven't had a CX role and its more about replying to reviews and sorting out complaints. I was able to help the business grow from 4.4 to 4.8 on Trustpilot as an achievement...hardly a 'CX professional' using special software.

I am looking at fashion due to the 10 years at a large fashion retailer so this would be the 'easiest' step so perhaps roles that could be slotted into there?

Please don't say estate agent as this was suggested to me and I can't drive. :p Sales could be an idea and I did interview within recruitment a few times. I was given feedback that I wasn't pushy enough essentially...so basically not a ****.

Is there something out there that relies on strong people skills?
Click to expand...
Account management and customer success. VPs / directors of these functions tend to get paid very well too once you reach that level.
 
SideWinder said:
It started junior and then went up a few levels. I am now 'semi senior' in a start-up where I answer the business phone line, solve customer tickets, handle any sales enquiries from businesses with my Director, help to create improvements on our basic repots as it seems like I am the Excel expert (although I am not the best!), reply to reviews and generally any ad hoc tasks that require doing.
Click to expand...

No offense intended here but it didn't really sound like the role was "semi senior" nor does your company sound like a startup tbh... on the plus side there are plenty of junior roles in tech firms, IT departments in large companies and within large-ish startups that would pay significantly more.

Someone else mentioned PM qualifications, I don't think these are necessarily needed to actually do the job well but they might be a gatekeeping requirement for some employers, on the plus side they're fairly trivial to acquire and so present only a low barrier to entry - IIRC the first PRINCE2 qual only takes a 2-day course. Lots of PMs are pretty mediocre so you could just grab one of the easy to get qualifications and just go for it... tailor your CV so that your current role sounds like it overlaps as much as possible.

From what you've described you'd probably be quite a good fit for the role, a good PM is generally just someone who is super organised, a good communicator, good at keeping track of multiple tasks and generally doesn't get in the way.

Account manager was mentioned too, that perhaps has more in common with what you're doing at the moment though can span quite a broad range in terms of level/responsibilities. One thing you might look at is "technical account manager", kind of a hybrid role between support/client services and account management can also be a stepping stone towards being the main account manager for a bunch of clients.

Account management is partly a sales/revenue-generating role so can result in higher compensation than PM roles.
 
HangTime said:
  • Business Relationship Manager (not that dissimilar to what you are doing, but typically with internal rather than external stakeholders). Not that common a job title however.
  • Account Manager / Engagement Manager (may relate to sales but often more about ongoing relationships with key clients instead of just driving new business)
  • The top paragraph of reqs could maybe be applicable to a Product Owner.
  • Process Analyst - perhaps a bit more junior that the above but you would have transferrable hands-on experience
These sort of roles would typically pay 50%+ more than your current role but you might not be able to jump straight in and potentially have to do more of a sideways move into a more junior equivalent to gain experience.
Click to expand...

Thank you for listing these. Customer Success/Account Manager (well, Executive) is a role I had tried for previously however I think my current role would definitely help me get into this. I now have actual sales experience whereas before I didn't.

Product Owner and Process Analyst are new ones so I'll take a look. I am aware of a BRM so will do some more digging there too.

@dowie Hello! :) Mm it is more semi senior in other parts of the role so guiding the CS team/being someone they can turn to. Another guy is heading up the logistics/order processing part and I am doing the same for front end so customer facing. Some tasks are certainly entry level so its quite a mixture...which I don't like.

Noted on 'Technical Account Manager' too - interesting that it is a hybrid.

Again thank you all for the advice.
 
SideWinder said:
Noted on 'Technical Account Manager' too - interesting that it is a hybrid.
Click to expand...

It's probably got a lot of overlap with what you do right now... and it likely pays a lot more! Honestly, next time you have a job interview just ask for 50k+ you can justify it on paper so long as you don't reveal your current salary.



 
The TAM role at Microsoft has transitioned to more of a Customer Success / Service Delivery Role. It's non technical by nature (not something I massively agree with) and is largely around understand customer direction and supporting via a range of proactive support services, assessments and engineer resource. This is in pursuit of higher utilisation of our cloud services site as 365 (Teams being the focus), Biz Apps (Dynamics 365 and Power Platform) and all up Azure Consumption.

Here is the Job Description actually:

As a Customer Success Account Manager (CSAM), you are the primary customer facing role responsible for customer success through delivery management of cross-functional programs and strong customer and internal stakeholder relationships. The prevailing business priority is the customers’ successful adoption and productive use of Microsoft cloud technologies. You are front and center with our customers in support of their digital journey and empowering them to achieve more and accelerating customer value.


The CSAM role is a leader on the account team who partners with the ATU to programmatically align the consumption plan to the account plan and leads the delivery execution and support team. The CSAM orchestrates prioritized programs, projects, and milestones for customer business value realization and consumption.
 
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Most of the delivery managers that excel are both understanding of the technology and understand the delivery side. Someone that doesn't understand the implications of what is being discussed with them is a liability and cannot realistically manage up.

The concept of a Technical Product Manager also sits close to this. Essentially a senior TPM would be a product manager of a technical product/service, however the role description also covers people being the technical bod in a trio of commercial product manager and operational programme manager (ie for customer delivery engagements). It just sits on the product side across all the customers.
 
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