Sonya Love

Honestly, the village around me - my husband, my children, my friends - they continue to empower me and keep me focused on positivity. When I get tired and want to give up, they help me see things from a different perspective. That's my driving force. I'm not a quitter by nature, I've always been a driven person, but I can tell you I don't know if I would have stayed in the same area for 25 years without that support system. There are pros and cons to staying with one company that long. Back in the day, it showed commitment and looked great, but now when you're looking at different opportunities, people like to see diversity across different platforms. My diversity comes from my third-party partnerships and the different software I work with, rather than moving between companies. But having that village around me to encourage me and keep me going has been everything.

The best career advice I've received, and this was recent from my mentor, is to not limit myself to what I know now, but to open up the scope. I've been in medical software sales, but the advice was to not compartmentalize myself in just that area. Sales is across the board, right? There are so many different verticals out there, and I need to continue to open up and not just look in one area of knowledge - it all transcends throughout different industries. That's what my mentor told me not too long ago, and I'm continuing to push towards that mindset of expanding beyond my current expertise.

First, you have to be very confident. This is a male-dominant field, so you need to come in ready to learn as much as you can, as fast as you can, and be confident in what you know. Even if you're wrong, it's okay - don't be afraid to speak up. Second, and I hate to say this, but don't stay within the same company for an extended period of time. Make sure you stay maybe 5 years and then move to other companies. It just makes you more well-rounded. If I could do it all over again, I would do that. And finally, get a mentor - I can't stress this enough. Mentor, mentor, mentor. When people leave my company, I keep all my C-suite connections. I can call them at any time and they mentor me. I have them on rotation quarterly. Always keep those connections open, because those relationships are invaluable.

The biggest challenge right now is getting the team on board with change. I have people who have been with the company as long as I have - 25 years - and getting them to understand and embrace new systems is difficult. Everyone wants to stay with what they're used to, like Excel spreadsheets, but we're transitioning to Salesforce because it makes running reports so much easier for me and the C-suite. The team sees it as more work initially, so changing that mindset is hard. The biggest obstacle is when the person everyone looks up to in the sales department isn't on board - that makes it very challenging. But I've found that if you put them in charge of the process and make them the lead of the whole initiative, they eventually come around, even if they're slow about it. The same thing is happening with AI implementation - we're bringing that in and I have to help them understand how it's going to fit into their new world. But honestly, I enjoy that challenge. I enjoy the opportunity that comes with it, even if the ambiguity can be difficult, especially when you're the leader trying to drive change.

My core values are trust and integrity - I would put those two at the forefront of everything I do. You have to have trust in your employees, your reputation, your intelligence, everything. If you were to define who Sonya is, she's trustworthy, and my integrity transcends throughout everything I do. Everyone knows that if they come to me, they're going to get the truth, even if they don't like it. Sometimes that doesn't work from a pure sales perspective, but it works for me. My clients always know they can come to me and I'm going to tell them the truth - what's the best solution for them, even if it's not what they want to hear. I don't know about all that sales talk sometimes. People want the truth, they really do. So trust and integrity are what I stand on, both personally and professionally.