Her Story
About Amanda
Amanda Long brings 11 years of sales experience to her work in professional services and B2B sales training. Her career path includes time as an enterprise account executive, sales leader, and builder of sales teams, before she developed a passion for coaching that led her into enablement. After completing a sales enablement summer course through the Sales Enablement Collective, she advocated for and established the enablement function at her organization. She earned a double major in business economics and psychology from the University of Tennessee in 2015 and has supplemented her education with AI programming and enablement courses. Today she partners with multiple organizations across verticals to deliver customized training programs, recently achieving a 60 percent pipeline increase for one client. She maintains active memberships in the New Enablement Society, the Sales Enablement Collective, and Women in Sales, where she supports the advancement of women in the profession.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Amanda
01What do you attribute your success to?
I have very high expectations for myself. I think a lot of the times I can be my own worst critic, so I have very ambitious goals, I have high expectations, I know what it takes to achieve that, so a lot of my motivation comes intrinsically... I'm relentless in pursuing it, and if I don't have the path there, that's where I seek external resources. So, I read about it, I learn about it, I take courses, so that I can expand and ultimately achieve the goal.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Your worth is not at all tied to the results that you achieve in your career... ride the middle, and to celebrate those as they come, but not let them ride you, and that's the same with the lulls that come through sales, so my advice is the middle, and your worth really is not tied to your outcomes.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Advocate for what you want... If I wasn't advocating for myself, and if I wasn't making my ambitions and my goals known that created kind of a disconnect with my leader... is obviously advocate for yourself, but also take it on yourself. Be active in your own rescue there... If you want something bad enough, I think, one, you have to ask for it, and two, you have to be willing to put the effort behind it to achieve it.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The future is unlimited, really, because Outbound has gotten so much harder, and sales holistically has gotten so much harder over the past few years, because budgets are tighter, there's so much more deal scrutiny. There's more decision makers involved. There's more hoops to jump through... sales training can be done one of two ways... The other thing that is top of mind for me is what the partnership with AI looks like in this space... there still is a human element to sales, so I think it's more of a partnership with AI than a competition with AI.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is really important, and so if you commit to something, I think it's really important you deliver on that commitment, and you do it with excellence as much as you possibly can. I think candor is really important, too... And then I also just think, from a career perspective. I think it's so important that we put our egos to the side, and we lean in, and we grow, and sometimes I grow, we stumble, we fall, but that's where growth comes from. So, if I'm put on it, integrity, candor, and just Being human.
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