Dana Donovan knew she was in trouble. COVID-19 would soon hit the states, and as a restaurant group business developer, her meetings were already focused on cost measures by January 2020. “We were cutting down to the bare minimum,” Dana explained. Her last day came as no real surprise, but she still needed a plan—she had no idea a home warranty career would soon check all the boxes for her.
“I was very specific on what I wanted,” Dana said, explaining that she had been in management her whole life in sales and, frankly, she wanted to be able to sleep at night. “I wanted to be able to work on my own terms. I’ve always been lucky to sell things I believe in, so it needed to be something I could get behind.”
Then she found her position as a Houston Area Sales Manager (ASM) for America’s Preferred Home Warranty (APHW).
APHW checks all the boxes
“I had always been responsible for a staff of people before; now I only have to be responsible for myself, which is a nice change,” Dana said. “I get to work from home and set my own schedule, and I’ve been here for a year and my goals have always been very realistic; I’ve never not hit one.”
The support from the company made a big difference to Dana as well. “This company does some unique things to support their salespeople that I’ve never seen before,” she said, describing a team of Inside Sales Managers that assist with calling the agents in her territory. “That’s pretty awesome.”
Dana has a great team of support in her area, too. “The Texas team is amazing, and we are so supportive of each other,” Dana said. “I’ve been in situations before where it’s dog-eat-dog—it’s not like that here. I can call anybody, and we help each other out. It’s been really awesome!”
Dana recommends APHW as an employer
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t recommend it,” Dana stated. “No company is perfect, but this one does a really good job of supporting their salespeople, and I would definitely recommend APHW. As with any sales job, you get out of it what you put into it.”
Dana joked that the trainers try to weed them out with a firehose of information at the beginning. “You get a ton of info up front,” she laughed, “But all the trainers were amazing. And looking back, the order of how they present the information is very well thought out. It seems like just when you need it, there’s another layer. It’s amazing.”
APHW’s CPDSO-certified training flipped the sales script a bit for her, Dana recalled. “It was a little hard for me in the beginning. The sales I’d always done had been, ‘Here’s a contract, sign and sold.’ Here you don’t know for sure if that agent will start using you until they actually do, but it falls right in line with the relationship selling—I get to be that person who’s helping them with their business. So, I would recommend it to anybody that’s going to work hard; it pays off.”
Join the team
APHW is actively hiring Area Sales Managers in locations across the United States, along with several other career opportunities. Visit our Careers page or call 800.648.5006 ext. 236 today to discover your next career move!
Visit us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram to tell us your thoughts!