I Interviewed Big Red Jelly’s Business Development Strategist
What are some of the steps you took to get into this position that you’re in?
Nathan:
Well, I have been here at Big Red Jelly since October. I’m fairly new. I have been in the sales world, the door-to-door sales world the last three years, and I started my own company a couple of years ago. It was an eCommerce business, and I always really loved the marketing and web design portion of that business, so I always thought it’d be really fun to work at a marketing company.
So, after my third summer of doing sales, we had a little baby girl, and me and my wife both wanted to settle down and have a little bit more of a stable lifestyle, so I was literally looking for sales jobs at a marketing company. I found Big Red Jelly, and I actually recognized the name Big Red Jelly, because they had designed one of my friend’s websites. And then I applied, and now we’re here.
How is it working with the business development team?
Nathan:
It’s good. Yeah, there’s a lot of flexibility, and it kind of feels like your own business at times. Like, there are not a lot of people. No one’s holding your hand and making sure you do all these different things. It’s just like, “Hey, you know how to close deals. Do your thing. You’re going to get leads and have some free time, and figure out what you want to do to get more leads.” So it’s kind of fun, where it has that entrepreneurial aspect to it.
How much do you rely on other teams at Big Red Jelly?
Nathan:
Yeah. I mean, obviously, I don’t have all the answers for the clients I’m talking to, in terms of web design and branding, and the other teams are the experts. So I rely on them pretty heavily, and whenever I have a big client, I’ll talk to Zach, talk to Josh, talk to Naomi, or talk to Lindsay, or whoever.
I’ll kind of ask them questions about this, what their thoughts are, what their recommendation is because I feel like for clients, a big thing that gets them excited is hearing the strategy behind it, so being like, “Hey, I chatted with my team. We thought this would be fun for you. We thought this would be really cool. We thought this would be really cool.”
That gets them really excited and shows that we put a lot of thought into it, and that’s kind of a big reason why they’ll end up going with us versus all the other people they’re talking to, so yes I definitely rely on those other team members, for sure.
What excites you the most about your job?
Nathan:
I do really enjoy just going through the process with clients, where they book a call with me, I do a 30-minute to an hour kind of discovery session, just talking about their business, learning more about their business, and then going into a pitch and trying to solve their pains and get them excited about their future. And it’s just fun to learn about tons of different businesses.
Like, I’ve met with companies that were doing granola bars, and companies that were doing dental implants, and I’ve just learned about so many different kinds of companies. I know a little about a lot of different fields, so I can have conversations with a lot of people, and it helps a lot with networking and just kind of the general expansion of business and knowledge.
What’s next for your dream?
Nathan:
I think for me, a lot of it is taking the things that I’m learning and then kind of doing my own businesses, and kind of going from there. Obviously, I want to make sure I’m hitting my goals every single month with Big Red Jelly, like hitting my revenue goal every single month and scaling that, and seeing how that grows Big Red Jelly, and what opportunities come from that.
And then I also want to, on the side, be working on my own business, because I’m learning so many different things, and I have so many different connections. It feels like a waste if I’m just focusing on one area. Let me also take this knowledge and apply it to my own business and see where that can take me.
