Sorry for neglecting my blog so much but I have been so busy at my new job at ShoreTel! ShoreTel is doing incredibly well and along with that comes a ton of customer reference requests! In fact last Monday before even getting into work I had received seven reference requests! The good news is I work at a company I love, with coworkers who are awesome and customers who are incredibly happy. The challenging part is that I have to manage my time well or it can be very overwhelming and I will work 24 x 7.
One part of my job I enjoy quite a bit is when I get to put on my detective hat. This can be with reference requests, PR requests etc. For example, if we want to do a press release around a certain industry I will need to go out and research who the top customers are in this industry, which ones have the best brand and then find out which ones are willing to be references. Another one of my favorites when I get a specific request for a customer in a certain industry who are running a certain scenario. One of the biggest tips around this is to learn all the various resources that are available to you including people, systems, data etc. One of my first tasks at ShoreTel was finding customers to mention on our earnings call. To do I gathered data from various sources including sales reps, sales managers, closed win reports and e-mails. And by next quarter when I need to get this information again, I will have more ways I have found to help me get this information or maybe someone else I have gotten to know who might be able to help me. It's so much fun being a reference manager, I love it and out of all the hats I wear as a reference manager, my detective hat is one of my favorites!
Happy referencing!!!
