Jasmine Garrett

I would attribute my success to honestly my genuineness of wanting to build community and wanting to help others. A lot of the things I've done in my career, as well as extracurricular activities, has all been around helping people, really being sincere around transformation, and trying to get people the best outcomes, depending on what that is, whether that's a business outcome or a community outcome. I think relationship building, as well as being very genuine in approach has been very huge for me. And then also, just finding my niche in mentorship, as well as self-care. I think over the past couple years, I really delved into always helping others, but finding ways to also give back to myself, and understand how to use my powers and my skill sets to help other people, but how do I do that to help elevate myself as well? A mixture of all those things has been a tribute to my success, and also my mentors and sponsors and advocates who have believed in me and really helped me see myself, believe in myself, and take leaps, get into leadership roles I was terrified to get into, or go to companies, or make big industry pivots I didn't think I could make, due to society standards. And then my mom, of course.

The best career advice I've ever received is to believe in my voice, to own my voice, and to use my voice to show my expertise but also pour into others. This has been probably the most recent and life-changing advice in regards to me just putting myself out there, not feeling cringey for filling out these type of forms, or submitting myself to speak at a conference. It's just about betting on myself. Another piece of advice that has stuck with me every time I'm about to go to a new job, which I got from my mentor when I was young, is that you can always go somewhere, move somewhere for 1 to 2 years. That one I just stick with every time I'm making a career move.

The biggest challenges I would say is AI right now in tech sales, especially because we're selling it, but it's a scary place for some, and the replacements of people has been a really huge challenge. The economic downturns is a big challenge. And then also, being able to translate a solution to a customer's need, and not come off as just a salesy person, wanting to come off as a partner and not a vendor, is a healthy balance that's hard for not everybody to easily achieve or adapt to in the sales career. I would say the opportunity in the sales space is room for more sincerity. I think coming over to the tech sales space, it's been amazing, life-changing, but I think it's very competitive, and so you kind of lose that partner-vendor relationship because there's a lot of salespeople that are just trying to check the number. So that sincerity, that relationship building, that partnership, I feel like a lot of that is missing. You find that when meeting customers and hearing about either their previous experiences with a rep at your current company, or in previous experiences with a competitor, a lot of people are just feeling like they're getting tossed aside as soon as they buy something, and not really getting that true partnership and executive presence necessary.

I would say integrity is one of the biggest values for my work and personal life. Family as well. I would also say resilience and dedication are big things that I'm very big on, just to keep trying and keep putting your best foot forward, and the outcomes and what's meant for you will be.