From a school teaching to business development and customer relationships

Ranjana started her career as a child psychologist and special educator for children with dyslexia and behavioural issues. She was working in a school with children who had behavioural and academic difficulties. In this role she would not only teach the students, but also interact with the parents- as well as guide and counsel them with the process of parenting.

The company she presently works with was setting up an office in NCR and needed someone for a business development and customer relations management role. Ranjana was hesitant because this was not what she had been trained for. She was not experienced at business development and relationship management in the corporate sector. She puts it bluntly, saying “I was just a schoolteacher- maybe a little more specialised than others.”

But the quest to learn something new got her to explore the opportunity of getting into the corporate world. As Ranjana puts it “It was not easy to move from my comfort zone to an area which was completely new for me. I had to start my career from scratch. However, I used my training as a student counsellor and psychologist in business development, and in connecting with the people I met. As I did not have a typical sales background, my interactions with people to pitch my services felt quite different from a typical sales call. The powerpoint presentation was never used, and we would get into long conversations. I got to hear several interesting stories.”

Ranjana recalls the struggles that came with her shift. Life behind a teacher’s desk involved living with a set routine which never changed and where there were no targets or pressing deadlines, late night meetings and calls. Her previous profession was about going to school and following a set schedule not only for the day but the entire year. She was in control as her own boss, with the children and their parents looking up to her. However, switching to her new role meant just the opposite. She had no control and had to set the rules and play the game right from the scratch. This meant creating a database of clients to target for business development, making cold calls, setting up meetings, pitching the service, and finally signing the agreement. She recalls, “Before one finally got the contract agreement signed, there was so much uncertainty and unpredictability. At times it took 2 years and a million calls to get through to the right person in the company I was targeting to pitch the service to.”

After acquiring a client came the challenge of maintaining a relationship with the client- and at times that meant addressing rather unreasonable demands. The only silver lining was that the service her company was offering was psychological counselling and therefore an area which she was very familiar with. As a counselling psychologist, her training in empathy and listening stood by her in good stead. She not only managed to sign up many clients in North India, but in the bargain, she also acquired some very good friends.

Ranjana signs off with a message for people in a similar situation “If you need to make a change of career to something you are interested in but seems very unfamiliar and risky, my advice would be take the risk!  Jump in and make that change! Of course, be prepared for the initial bumpy ride- but the rough road will lead up to a grand new horizon, and you’ll be happy that you took the risk to move out of your comfort zone. But before you make that change or during the change, do prepare yourself with appropriate training, tools, resources, and mentors.”