Meet Ali, our zealous Mid-Market Sales Executive and most dapper member of the IRIS team.
How would you describe your role at IRIS?
My role is Mid-Market Sales, but it’s very fluid in terms of my day to day tasks. I have full reign over the Global mid-market territory, but I also get heavily involved with Partners and support them in managing existing and onboarding new clients.
My day will begin by creating and reviewing my checklist for the day, I’ll then drop into our database to review my current and new deals and my email inbox to check responses from clients and anything generally important.
I then spend a few hours prospecting and conducting research for new clients to onboard. I may have leads I’ve already prepared so I’ll book/conduct introduction meetings and pitch IRIS with a view to take them into a short trial. This will then naturally translate into commercial discussions and contract T&Cs to then request sign off.
All in all, no day is typically the same; calls, meetings with clients, research & prospecting, discussions with our technical teams and management meetings.
Tell us a bit about your history, how you got into your role?
I’ve always been in the world of sales from a young age. From getting involved with selling sweets and fizzy drinks during break/lunch at school, to being around my dad who ran a successful restaurant. I spent almost a decade in corporate sales in CCaaS, UCaaS, and working directly with vendors and resellers across the UK and EMEA.
I wanted to shift from selling a whole tech stack to becoming a specialist, so when IRIS was pitched to me I instantly fell in love with the product, mission and was very interested to take advantage of a big gap in the market.
You’ve recently returned to work after having your second baby - how are you finding looking after baby number two whilst smashing it out the park for IRIS?
It’s definitely been a journey.. But it’s just made me far more resilient and realise that I only need about 4 hours sleep to function!
Being able to juggle young children whilst maintaining a good standard at work is certainly something I am very proud of.
I have a great support system both at home and from IRIS so it’s made things far easier.
If anything I’m even more motivated now to keep smashing it!
Some quick fire questions:
App you couldn’t live without? Spotify
Your favourite song? Gang Over Luv - Brent Faiyaz
Least/most favourite noise? Least favourite: People eating. Most favourite: Ferrari F12 Berlinetta
Funniest sales story? Not exactly hilarious, but visited a potential client for a final presentation with the FD and CEO. I took a hardcopy of the contract with me hoping somehow we were successful and it would be signed (even though we were told the final decision would take a couple of weeks)...
Long story short, it went so well that the FD was adamant we go for drinks with him after the meeting, and after quite a few drinks I was feeling a sense of bravado and decided to whip out the contract I had crumpled in my bag and try my luck. The FD was taken aback but he took out a pen and signed it there and then!
Something your colleagues don’t know about you? I used to model for high fashion brands which helped pay my way through university
Check out some of the other rockstars we have working at IRIS by searching I in IRIS in our blog search.