Today we’d like to introduce you to Vinh Nguyen.
Hi Vinh, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I have done construction sales for eight years. I got laid off for the second time in when COVID happened.
I decided to take a salesforce admin bootcamp after four months of being unemployed.
I still couldn’t find work as a Salesforce Admin without experience. So, I first joined an automotive company as a data entry clerk.
After two months, I applied to a software company as an inside sales rep. I felt that was the only way to get in. I needed to enter the software industry and then network my way there.
After three months, the position of Salesforce Admin opened up. After a year of working there, the company was sold to a private equity group, and upper management was leaving.
I then applied to Informa where I am at today. I am a Salesforce and Sales Apps Product Owner now.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Some of the struggles along the way: Asian Parental guidance, Prejudice and Racism, and a Lack of experience. Honestly, it’s a long story. I do not even know where to start.
Definitely not. A little background. I grew up Vietnamese Catholic; my mom divorced and remarried when I was 12. I have was a UT Accounting Graduate who failed his master’s classes and I was unemployed when I graduated. I learned I did not want to be an accountant when I did the internship. When I tried to accept a job as a credit analyst out of college, my mom threatened that she wouldn’t go to my graduation if I accepted that job. She recommended I move back home in California and study for the CPA while unemployed.
After six months, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I stopped studying for the CPA. I wanted adventure and a job that would allow me to be outside of an office. I decided to join the sales profession. Companies judged me for my accounting degree and would give me a hard time for wanting to enter into the sales profession. I finally got a position in sales with a carpet company in Dalton, Georgia. The idea was to go through their training program for three months, interview for a position back home, and then get hired.
I didn’t get hired as a sales rep for one year. I spent nine months in Dalton, Georgia as a “trainee” and then three months in Texas as a “sales marketing assistant.”
After a while, I got my first opportunity in Wisconsin. This was after I called out the hiring manager for hiring people based on stereotypes. After all, I noticed that people of color tended to get hired later. About ten years later, I would find out that people aren’t racist, but rather racist adjacent. I can explain that if you ever want to hear about it. The issue is that people don’t want to face their biases. They’d rather just move passed it. People think that hiring a person of color or gender solves the problem, but it’s more than that. Anyways, going back to the hiring manager.
I told him I can do this job and that although you haven’t had an Asian sales rep, I have had plenty of training. I have the pedigree. I grew the territory by 15% during my first full year there.
The pay was not great during all these years. As a sales trainee, it was $35k and a requirement to buy an SUV for storing carpet.
When I landed a job, the pay was about $45k.
Forward past two years. I was a wine stocker/salesman in Texas and then an epoxy coatings sales rep for two more years. Within construction, I can tell you all the racism that went on. It wasn’t direct toward me necessarily, but in Texas, it was very apparent and full of the kind of nepotism you wouldn’t believe.
I hear stories about successful Asian sales reps in America, but most of them were in software. I’m not talking about a business developer or a sales engineer. When I say sales rep, I mean cold calling from door to door at factories.
I learned how to adopt the construction culture, and I even dressed in cowboy boots to blend in. I have talked to many business owners, their sons, and sons-in-law. One example of this racism was when the owner talked to his crew and said, “My tools are in truck, and I better not see a missing CD Player out of the dash”. Another one was when they talked to a black employee and joked that he should go to the back of the line.
It has been a very bumpy road. I kept trying every which way to climb up. But in sales, it wasn’t just about increasing sales. If you wanted more money, they would just tell you to sell more. That has its limitations based on the territory you are given. I was eventually making about 110K per year. It was nice, but it was never a sure thing. I did this until 2020.
Flash forward to 2020. I was laid off. I could not find a job as a sales rep in construction. I was tired of the lack of job security. I knew this was going to be a huge salary cut. I had a friend tell me that he started doing software certifications because he didn’t have a college degree. His background was a bank teller, and he got hired by Trend Micro as a software sales manager.
After four months of unemployment, I decided to switch careers. I was always tech-savvy. Salesforce was the platform that I had experience with. I was so frustrated in the construction industry how the sales managers made us enter in the information but didn’t care to read what efforts we were making with it. They gave merits to the seasoned sales reps that didn’t ever fill out the pipeline, but they didn’t bother to measure the efforts of us new sales reps that were actually trying. Just because we hadn’t made sales did not mean we weren’t going out and making calls. If the manager actually paid attention, they would be able to distribute the territories in a more efficient manner. I have always been about efficiency and truth. I felt salesforce changes were easy when I would google them. The sales manager and the salesforce admins always shut me down.
This was a hole in the market. I felt this system wasn’t being utilized to its full potential. The salesforce admins were often receptionists and executive assistants that luckily fell into the role. The sales managers were happy as long as their sales reps were selling.
I signed up to a bootcamp. I was running out of money. I planned on buying a house before the layoffs. I wanted to take advantage of rising housing gains. Since I was without a job, I had to figure out how to get back in. This time it had to be more secure. I took the bootcamp for 8 weeks, and then I passed the exam.
I applied for salesforce admin positions, but no one would take me without experience.
Four more months had passed, I was running out of money. I decided to take an inside sales job at a software company for about $60k. There was pressure and there were quotas. There was a set amount of cold calls we needed to make each day. But I was all too familiar with this. My boss was great. This software company was also more progressive. There were more female managers and diverse backgrounds. My boss Lisa Wegmann was a UT alumni and she saw I had a salesforce certification. She utilized it to ask me what kind of changes we could make.
When the salesforce admin of this software company left, my inside sales manager recommended me. I was offered the position, and I was so excited.
I made about 10% more, and I figured they are taking a chance with me. I have to start somewhere. People in the company would praise me as they found I made changes fast and that I was very helpful with the recommendations for best practices. They signed me up to a project management course at the University of Dallas.
After a year, the company was bought out by a private equity firm, and managers were leaving left and right. My manager was looking to leave as well. I decided it was time to move on, and I gave an appreciated farewell to my team. I didn’t want to, but that’s the way it goes.
This time when I was applying, I decided to go back to my dream of working outside of an office. I wanted good benefits and a progressive global company that I could grow with. I wanted a supportive boss like the one I had.
When I got here, I was surrounded by a team of salesforce admin and developers. The company pays for my exams when I pass them. Since I have been with Informa, I have passed the platform application builder exam as well as the PSPO 1 Product Owner exam. They even sent me to Dreamforce in San Francisco, which is the largest event hosted by Salesforce. I was ten feet away from Jane Goodall, Rainn Wilson, and Dave Mathews.
It has been three years since I passed the first salesforce exam. It has been a journey. My salary hasn’t recovered to when I was a sales rep, but it will. I am in a better place, and I now recognize we ought not to fear giving ourselves 2nd chances.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a salesforce administrator. I specialize in managing the database that houses sales information. I am most proud of the fact that I was able to successfully switch careers. What sets me apart from others is that I have been an accountant and a sales rep before I joined the software industry as a database administrator… I did eight years of sales before I switched.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you, or support you?
They generally teams me and ask me questions about what the system is capable of. I propose some ideas and suggestions. It helps that we meet and talk through their problem and figure out a solution together before they submit the proposal.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: VincetheMandalorian
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/vnguyen1089
