Leah S. Moore

To me, the biggest compliment and achievement is when I get a referral from someone - when someone reaches out to me because someone I have worked with and supported spoke about me in a positive light and passed along a referral for someone else who needs support. That's happened to me a dozen times throughout different clients I've worked with, and I honestly feel like there's no greater compliment than just knowing that there are people in a different state or different company saying positive things about working with you and their experience with you. That's the biggest compliment and achievement I think I can receive. I also attribute my success to always saying yes when opportunities are presented to me - whether that was moving from Florida to Boston for school, or accepting relocations to Houston and Ohio with Apex. Having that confidence that I can move somewhere completely new and be successful on my own has opened a lot of doors and shows that team player mentality and doing what it takes to get the job done. I think it's most important to fully immerse yourself in each new customer, to be like you are an employee of that company, so you become that person where clients are coming to you because they know you are speaking with people across the organization and know that company inside and out.

Nothing good happens in your comfort zone. When you're young and starting out, you're going to be meeting and trying to get in front of these very technical, high-level people, and I think it's important to always remind yourself that at the end of the day, they're just people. They might have a fancy title, and we're there to help. As a salesperson, sometimes it can be annoying cold calling people and people don't want to hear from you, but at the end of the day, you're not there to twist anyone's arm. You're providing a service, and if that service fits for them, then that's great. Push yourself to be uncomfortable daily, weekly, all the time, because that's where you're really going to be able to connect and talk with the people that you need to be speaking with, and how you'll grow and develop as an individual and contributor.

I would say now, even though AI is such a blessing in so many ways, I think it's also made people a bit more closed off. It's definitely harder to get that in-person interaction with folks, which is definitely where you're able to build relationships with customers. I think it's a lot more difficult getting in front of folks because they're so bombarded with random spam and messages and things like that, that it's harder to get that initial connection with folks. That's definitely been more of a challenge I've seen with things evolving over the past two, three years. On the opportunity side, there's so much new happening with AI, there's so much new things being developed in all the data centers, and there's so much opportunity out there. My career goals are about continuing to develop myself and my specialty within those areas. I don't necessarily chase titles - for me, it's about just personal development and expanding my knowledge.