Is Embracing Change the Key to Unlocking Your Career’s Full Potential?

Marina Hubenova is the Director of Sales at Rexera. Like many of us, she was on a journey to find her true passion. And, like with many of us, it turned out to be something she had never expected.

Life may not always go as planned, and here is why it might be the best thing for you like it was for Marina.

Throughout her studies, Marina wanted to become an investment banker. But life happened, and she started working as an Operations Specialist at a Financial Services company. The job was tedious and repetitive, so she optimized it and replaced most manual tasks with tech solutions.

Process optimization and high performance brought her to a Product Specialist role. And here is when the magic happened. 

Marina realized she was great at understanding the clients’ needs and sparking their interest in the product. She discovered something new about herself:

“I’m very analytical and at the same time, I love talking to people. And I actually enjoy helping people.”

Sometimes, things just feel right. Marina never expected her calling to be Sales, and she never planned to get into it. But she was really good at it—so good that she quickly became the Head of North American Sales for one of her company’s products.

 “Sales is my way to help clients solve problems and figure out the best way to approach a particular issue that sometimes they don’t even realize they have. Discussing with them what their experiences are and challenging them to think about how things can be done differently has a very positive impact. They see how they can be more efficient and service their clients better.”

Through years of experience, Marina learned that sales is a challenging process, and not all of it is sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes, people are open to trying new things, and other times, they are resistant to change and find a million reasons to stick to the old routine. 

What’s the key to being successful in sales? Being a strong communicator and listener, keeping control of the conversation, and not being afraid of rejection. 

“Rejection is an inevitable part of sales.  What I have found is that when you plant a seed into somebody’s brain that there’s a potential solution out there but they’re not ready to buy at that particular moment, after some time, and that time could be years in certain instances, the seed eventually turns into a plant and they do come back. My longest sale took me four years from start to finish.”

Marina had been working in Financial Services for 10 years, when she made another big change – the industry. She joined Rexera, formerly InspectHOA, which operates in Real Estate.

“I chose to work at Rexera because I really believe that the real estate industry is ready for change and digitization. I have seen a version of such transformation play out in front of me after 2008, when I was in the Financial Services space, and how far it went.

And especially now that the market is down, I can see how in the next few years people are really going to embrace change and look to catch up with other industries and become more digitized. I think that Rexera is a great partner for that, our company is solving a real problem and is very customer centric which are qualities that I love.”

A piece of advice

Whether you are starting out in sales or taking on a new career path, there are several crucial things for you.

Be into it. You can succeed without loving what you do. But as we saw above, when you love what you do, your career becomes your passion. Everything clicks. 

Have mentors.  It’s great that you can do everything on your own, but it is much better to have somebody to teach you. We live in a fast-paced world, so you can’t keep going through things by the book. You will end up trying out new things in any case. But have someone to show you the basics and founding principles of your field. It will help you be more creative, and it will allow you to try new things with confidence.

Surround yourself with people who are better than you in certain things. These people will help you propel yourself to the next level. They will support and challenge you to become better. You won’t have to do all the heavy lifting on your own; instead, you will all drive the change together. And when you all push in the right direction, great things will happen.

And this is why Marina chose Rexera, formerly InspectHOA:

Our team always looks for solutions and ways of improving our products. There’s very open communication, people always look to be better, and they’re very receptive to feedback. We keep pushing each other to do different things and to hold each other accountable.