Career Journey

My mom always joked that I needed to become an attorney because I was so competitive and asked so many questions. I played basketball from the time I could bounce a ball until I graduated from high school and was awarded many MVP awards, and in the end, my jersey was retired and now hangs in the gymnasium lobby, but my competitive nature and inquisitive mind lived on.    My mom passed away with breast cancer right after I graduated from high school, but in her honor, I remained focused on my education and started college the following Fall.  I set my sights on the very thing she thought I was was born to do, and I plotted my path to becoming an attorney.  The thought of trial law and arguing cases to a judge or jury was the only thing I could see myself doing passionately, so I was going to do it.  

I graduated from the University of Tennessee with a major in Criminal Justice and a minor in psychology.  During my four years in college,  I married my high school sweetheart, and was also working close to full time hours at Belk department store.  It was a lot of for college kid and required a lot of dedication and effort just to get to and from work and school.  I lived in a very rural area at the time, so I spent between 2-3 hours every day just for my commute.  I started at Belk as a temporary gift wrapper during the holidays and was quickly hired permanently and promoted to work on the sales floor as a fragrance consultant and eventually was promoted to a manager for the Tommy Hilfiger shop inside Belk.  This job gave me fundamental skills in sales, specifically customer service, accountability and management.  

With my plans for law school still intact, I made a strategic decision to move away from retail and to go work for an attorney as I was approaching my college graduation.  I was offered a position as a legal assistant for Harold Johnson, aka "Mr. J", Attorney at Law.  Having a financial responsibility to my household,  I had to work full time, so I studied for the LSAT during lunch and every night after I made the commute home from work or school.  The determination and hard work paid off, and I passed the LSAT on the the first take. Since I didn’t have the luxury of quitting my job and being a full time student, I applied and was accepted to Nashville School of Law because they offered night time classes 2 nights a week.  The trade off was that it would take 4 years instead of 3 years to complete my Doctor of Jurisprudence degree, and for me personally, it meant a whole lot more windshield time to the tune of about 4 hours commute time on school nights.  On the days I had classes, my day started at 5:30am to go to work and ended at 1am the next morning when I got home from class. I slept 4 hours and got up to do it all over again the next day. I studied during lunch and on the nights I didn’t have class. I was obviously burning both ends of the candle, but I was determined and willing to make the sacrifices to reach my goal.  

I maintained this routine for two years and was passing all my classes.  However, after completing my 2nd year, I went through a divorce and decided to take a temporarily step away from law school and unfortunately never could afford to go back after my divorce. My job with Mr. J taught me a lot about business and even taught me what I later identified as foundational sales skills.  I learned the art of negotiation and building relationships since one of my responsibilities was to negotiate pre-court settlements with opposing attorneys.  If the opposing attorney didn't like you, you were not getting the deal you wanted.  I also learned the importance of being impeccably prepared for presentations (or court trials in his case).  He accepted nothing short of perfection.

 With my goal of a law degree now outside my reach,  I had to set my sights on a new career path.  While I loved working in the legal field, I knew that I was never going to become financially independent as a legal assistant and even if it met my financial goals, it still fell far short of my passion and dream of trial law and arguing cases in court.  I began researching careers and was desperate to find something that I would love doing the rest of my life.  My new path  started to become clear and all signs were pointing to outside sales.  When I compared the job of a trial lawyer to that of an outside sales rep,  they were fundamentally the same thing!!!!!  Trial lawyers essentially are glorified salespeople who sell their side of the story to a judge or jury.  Yes!!!  I was so excited again!!  So, I set out on a search for an opportunity to break into sales.  However, I quickly realized that passing the LSAT was proving to be an easier task than finding a company that would give me a chance in outside sales with no experience.  After months of being passed over,  I finally found my entry point.  I was offered a position selling yellow page advertising in Memphis, Tennessee with a company called McCleod, USA which was later bought by YellowBook.  I packed up and moved to Memphis to start my new life.   I did well at Yellow Book and made some lifelong friends as well.  I actually met my best friend working at YellowBook.  I learned solution and consultative selling in this role and also learned the importance of ROI and how to present it.  There was a LOT of travel with this job.  I lived in a hotel room 3-6 months out of the year and after 3 years, it started to wear on me, so I decided to make a change. 

 I was given a tip about an opening with Birch Telecom.  The role was to sell DSL and POTs voice lines (an ATT reseller) and at the time, I was so technically challenged, I could barely figure out how to operate a computer, but it was more money and something different, so i applied, interviewed and got an offer.  It required aggressive cold-calling and follow up skills which was a new approach for me, but more importantly, it was my first taste of technology and I fell in love with it.  Birch started having financial trouble 3 years later and ultimately filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Thankfully, I had already been heavily recruited to  work for a different telecom company,  Network Telephone, so after Birch announced the bankruptcy,  I made the move. 

Network Telephone came with an opportunity to learn a whole new set of products.   This job is responsible for the bulk of my growth as a sales person in the technology space.  I had huge success and eventually went on to earn many top performer awards and the most money I have earned  to date (Dec 2020). I was promoted multiple times and ultimately ended up staying with this company for the next 13 years.  After a number of acquisitions, this company eventually became what people know today as Windstream Enterprise.  I am so grateful for the years I spent at Windstream and for the professional growth I gained during those 13 years.  I learned strategy sales, presentation skills, how to engage with the C-Suite and gained a much deeper knowledge of many technologies during my tenure.  I was introduced to data center services, cloud computing, network security, unified communications, SIP,  MPLS, Ethernet and the list goes on and on. 

After being persistently recruited for several years to leave Windstream and join CenturyLink, (now Lumen), I was finally presented with an opportunity as an Account Director at CenturyLink.  After a long internal struggle about what I should do, I decided to accept the offer.  This was the hardest career decision I ever had to make, but it was the right move for my career.  The role was good for my resume as it was more strategic with fewer accounts.  There was a lot of untapped opportunity within my assigned accounts, and I now had a portfolio of solutions at my disposal that went far beyond anything I had ever been able to offer customers before; things like Big Data, Edge Computing, CDN, extensive security services,  professional services and consulting services, all backed by one of the largest global fiber footprints in the industry.  Needless to say, CenturyLink provided an abundance of new opportunities for me to learn and grow both in sales skills as well as increasing my knowledge of new technologies.   

Unfortunately, Lumen recently restructured their sales division and my position in Memphis was eliminated due to overlapping of sales teams, so I am now in search of the next step in my next journey.  I am so excited to see what the future holds and cannot wait to get started on a new path of career growth and development