A day in the life of our sales associate Loeke Clynen

As a sales associate, Loeke Clynen manages everything from first contact with a potential client until closing the deal. He might be fairly new to the job, but Loeke isn’t afraid to go after a lead. In fact, since joining the sales team in October of 2021 — Loeke previously worked as a business developer for Ziggu —, he has signed up multiple customers. But what does his job entail? What’s on his daily to-do list?

The rush of getting a meeting

Checking his emails and Ziggu’s internal communication platform is Loeke’s first task of the day. If there are any urgent messages, he tackles those immediately. If not, he carries on with his next to-do: cold outreach. “I look for companies that I believe would benefit from using Ziggu, and then I contact them directly. I spend a big portion of the morning either qualifying leads or emailing and calling people to try to get a meeting. It gives you quite a rush when you can get that first meeting booked,” Loeke smiles. 

While some people might not be jumping up and down at the thought of cold calling, Loeke will jump right in. “I’m a big fan of calling people,” he laughs. “Some people prefer email and have success with that, but for me, just picking up the phone and calling people up is what seems to work best. The great thing is that we are allowed to experiment at Ziggu — the founders let us figure things out, test new approaches or new tools to reach leads and get those meetings.”

Loeke usually plans his meetings in the afternoon. “If I do cold outreach in the morning, then I make sure I have the afternoon freed up for meetings or vice versa. It’s important to dedicate enough time to both aspects of the job, so I make sure that I don’t mix those up too much in my diary. But again, at Ziggu, we get a lot of freedom. So people can plan their day the way they feel is best or most productive.”

“It’s exciting to see your work contribute to the success of the company”

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Boring? Not at all 

As enthusiastic as he is about his job, Loeke sometimes feels that people have the wrong idea of a sales job. “They either think it’s all about getting the product sold and nothing else, or they think it’s boring.” It’s neither, he immediately adds. “We sell technology, but we’re a very human-oriented company. So we go for great and long term collaborations with customers; we make sure they’re happy users— and that starts at the beginning of the sales process,” Loeke explains.

And as for the boring part? “It’s incredibly exciting to see your work contribute to the success of the company. At Ziggu, you can actually see the results of your hard work. That gives me a lot of energy. And when you close a deal and tell your colleagues about it, they all cheer with you, they’re all happy for you. You can’t deny that that’s just a great feeling,” Loeke says. “And we’re also starting to tackle a few new markets. That’s always a challenge, but a fun one. It makes our job never boring,” the sales associate concludes.