Jessie Andres

I would say there's so many people who have given me mentorship throughout the years, including my customers. My customers have coached me and shown me how to sell - they could certainly pick up when you're green versus when you're tenured. The customers give me feedback on what they're looking for and even give me coaching, like 'Jesse, this is what I want to see in your presentation. This is what's important to me.' The customer's feedback is always telling me that I need to understand their environment. If I want to sell to them, I've got to put myself as if I'm working for their company. I need to understand what their current initiatives are, what their critical applications are, what's driving revenue in their organization, and how I fit into their strategic plan. A lot of it is doing extensive homework on the account before I even approach the account, and that's all because of customers telling me what's the best way to sell to them.

In this industry, I would say it's all about the brand, because if you happen to leave your organization to go somewhere else, there's a very high probability that you're going to be selling to the same exact customer that you sold to before. For me, it's about honesty - you've got to be honest, and you have to be yourself, because people remember. They remember what you sold to them, they remember what's in that contractual language, they remember their journey with you from a selling perspective. In this industry, there could be a lot of deception, and no one wants to be sold to. So for me, it's about fostering the relationships with the customers that you've met with, building on those relationships, and having those business relationships eventually become a business friend. I lead with honesty, and it's pretty remarkable because I know that if I happen to leave my company today, I could go to the next company and call on the same exact people and take that meeting because of trust. Because I built that trust by being honest. Integrity goes a big way.

I would say that when you're entering this industry, we still have to work hard, we still have to study more, we still have to prepare more. But I would just say that when you're entering this industry, think of yourself as building a brand. Build that brand, build that awareness, and look for those groups that are women in technology so that you could all learn from each other. Women in Technology is a powerful forum that comes together - I just did one for the first time back in May, and I was able to bring in 25 different state leaders across Tallahassee to collaborate during a luncheon with no selling. It was all about 'we hear you, we see you, we work hard, we have children, and we have this big career.' My thing would be to receive the mentorship from both a woman and a man, but build that brand for yourself. And we could do anything - I am literally in a man's world. If you look at tech sales, it's 80% men. So believe that we could do anything, and we're better sellers. It's just building that brand. I always say build your brand, and always follow your gut and your intuition as you're entering the industry and beginning to work the accounts.

I would say the opportunity is AI - AI is becoming very big and it's being embedded in technology today. So I think it's being able to understand and use AI, because that is the way that the industry's going. I'm leveraging AI for many parts of my job. Our technology has AI, so if you're not learning and using AI, that's going to be a requirement in the future - it already is now. Companies want you to use Google Gemini to pretty up your presentation, or they want to see how much of AI are you using. I use AI for being able to create my schedules - I have an assistant via AI. I just think that as the industry changes, which is frequently, you have to adapt to the changes right away, otherwise you're going to get left behind. I would just say that it's the whole AI governance thing right now, trying to stay ahead of that and leveraging it as much as I possibly can, because I don't want to stay behind, because technology is constantly evolving.

I'm Catholic, so for me, leading with my faith is critical. My value is integrity - integrity for me is critical, and having the business morale to be able to have customers feel like they're being heard, and also just not deceiving people at all. So for me, integrity and respect is critical, and I lead with that at work, and I lead with that also at home. Integrity, respect, and honesty. A lot of humbleness, because you have to be humble. For me, I grew up very poor, and I changed my lifestyle for myself, but I'd never forget where I came from. I never try to act like if I'm better than anyone else at all, because at the end of the day, we're all the same. So I think humbleness also is just being humble as well.