Iman Bahrani

I attribute my success to teamwork and being part of a team. My motivation comes from working with other people and getting respect from them. I like to be a valuable person who can help others. Teamwork is my motivation - when I see I can work with other people and be an effective person, that drives me. I don't like to work separately or alone. Even though as a salesperson I can do a lot of work individually, I prefer teamwork because I like to help and be an effective person. I also love learning new things, traveling to visit customers and new places, and meeting new people. Being with people, meeting them, traveling, doing business, helping them, and being a helpful person - that's what motivates me and drives my success.

To be honest, I never really got specific advice from someone else. What I've learned is that I never give up. I exhaust all opportunities and I'm very assertive - I don't take no for an answer. I always try to continue to get something better. My managers have told me that I never stop trying, and that I'm very good with communication with my customers because I try to help them in what they need. That's why they love to work with me. I believe that if you can achieve something in an uncomfortable or difficult environment, that's more distinguished than achieving something when everything is perfect. I remind myself that iron has to go through harsh conditions to become stainless steel, and carbon has to go through a difficult process to become diamond. They have the same elements, but the process they go through makes them valuable. We have to make the most of whatever we have to get to what we need. I don't like to complain - I always try to look at the bright side and see what I have and what I can do with it.

I would tell young women to never let anything limit their growth or their goals. They can do anything they want, they can be whoever they want to be. All they need to do is their best. I believe if each person does the best of themselves, that's enough for them to achieve their goals. If they cannot get to 100% of their goal, I believe they can get at least to 80% of what they wanted. All they need is to not give up on themselves, to believe in themselves, and just do their best. If they can do the best, I believe they will achieve what they want. As they say, aim for the moon to get to the stars. They have to believe in themselves and not give up on themselves.

In sales, the work is always challenging because sales is about competition. No matter where you are or what you sell, there is always competition. The biggest challenge I face right now is the unstable market economy, which makes my job unpredictable. The most challenging thing is to see stable conditions in the environment so we can grow and extend our business. Another challenge I've observed, though I don't like to emphasize it too much because I don't want to disappoint women, is that society has different expectations for women. When the same results are achieved, if a man does it versus a woman, women always get less compensation for that. I have seen that reality - we always get less compensation compared to whatever we do compared to men.

I have two main values that guide my work and personal life. The first is to be a person that I would like people to treat me like. I want to be a good person. Whatever I do in work and personal areas, I always remind myself that I shouldn't do something that I don't want people to do to me, or I would do something for people that I would like them to do for me. This means not hurting anyone and not making wrong decisions for anyone, because I always remind myself what I would want if they were doing it for me. The second value is to always empower myself and learn new things. I believe if we don't learn, we will become stagnant - like water that stays still in one area gets bad and smells bad. Water has to run and be in movement. We have to be the same way. We cannot be the same person - we have to be better, we have to improve ourselves. Every day we have to have a difference from the previous day, learn something new, do something better. We can't stay where we are. That's how we can be a better person, and that's what I expect from my work and my personal life - to always learn something new and be a better person for other people around me.