Cali Nehrlich

I can't contribute my success to one thing - it's been a combination of people throughout my life. My sister was a big part of it. When I was younger, I started running with the wrong crowd, and she really pulled me up from my bootstraps and kicked me into place, helping me pivot into a professional career. I probably wouldn't be where I am today without her. I also had teachers throughout my life who made a huge impact. I had one teacher in high school who, when I was struggling or coming to school with no lunch money, would give me lunch money out of his own pocket. He's the reason I graduated high school because I was going down a very bad path and really struggling. Then after high school I started going down another bad path and my sister pulled me out of that. I've had managers and mentors too - the president of my first startup and my direct boss from that company. I'm still friends with them today, 12 years later. I still see her when I go up to Portland and see her kids. She's actually now the VP of one of our competitors, so we're in the same industry 10 years later. What's helped me keep track of all these impacts is journaling every day, being able to look back and see the small impacts and changes you can make every day to change your life professionally or personally. When I set goals, I focus on what can I change today, what can I change tomorrow. My current director told me to ask: How can you improve by 1% today? I live by that.

I have to go with what my president said: stay young, stay hungry, stay curious. What he meant by stay young was stay curious, have that child's mindset where you ask questions, you want to learn more, you want to be involved. It's funny because my current team members, when I first met them in person, they all thought I was much younger than I actually am. I told them, you know, I like to stay young with my mindset. It all comes back to the mindset - be curious. That's been my biggest achievement in the sense of throughout my entire career, because I've worked at 3 startups and a large corporate job for almost 7 years, but through all of that, the one common characteristic was my attitude and my approach to any account that I was working.

Don't listen to the noise. I got very caught up in sales thinking I needed to be that pretty hot woman that was a booth babe, that I needed to look a certain way, and that all my deals that I won was just because I was a pretty young girl. I lost a lot of internal confidence because of that, because I thought it was tied to my looks. Once I got to a point where I was able to drown out the noise and say, no, I am good at this because I am good at this, because I follow up with people, I stay consistent, I show up when I need to show up - those are the things that are important, and those are the reasons that I'm successful. It doesn't necessarily matter about my looks. I really figured that out because of COVID. Not being face-to-face and still being able to win deals and close large strategic accounts because I was doing the steps that mattered. Once I just drowned out the noise, I was able to build that confidence in myself. I think that's really crucial that a lot of young females getting into sales can easily get sucked into.

The biggest challenge is I don't come from this industry, so I don't have direct experience with earned wage access benefits and financial health benefits. However, that is also one of the best opportunities, because if I'm willing to just learn everything, I don't go in with any preconceived notions, which can definitely happen when you're in an industry for 10 plus years. So it's a double-edged sword there. Another challenge and opportunity is we're a startup and we're growing really quickly, but that's only if you choose to put energy into it. I'm seeing a lot of success, I'm working long hours - some days I work 7 to 7. But the company does not push me, my boss does not push me to do that. Everyone in my organization is amazing about pushing for work-life balance. The beauty of it is I'm choosing to do it because I enjoy it, I love it, and I see what potential we have. I'm getting those wins and compliments from clients saying it feels like family. That makes it all worth it. So it might be long hours now, but it doesn't feel like that.

My work and my personal life need to align. What I'm selling needs to align with my goals and what I believe in. I've worked at a couple roles where what I'm selling I have no interest in, and I wasn't very successful in that. Belief is really important to me - I have to believe in what I'm doing. Empathy is really important to me. I need to have not only an empathetic manager, but somebody that also pushes me. Structure is important - I need structure within my personal life and my professional life. Individualization matters too - I need to be allowed to be myself and have that creative freedom, especially because I don't feel like I work in a typical fashion, but I've been very successful. Either personal or professional, I need you to just trust me that I know what I'm doing. Maybe I'll take the longer route to get there, but I might want to take the longer route so that I learn something new. Ultimately, in everything that I do, just being truthful. When you speak with salespeople, there's this long-lasting stigma of a car salesman that will lie to sell you anything. With my sales, I just don't take that approach. I'm very forthcoming. I'll tell you if something isn't a good fit. I recently had a client tell us that it felt like family, that it's rare to work with somebody that feels like family. That's a testament to how I function in my professional life and my personal life - staying true to myself.