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Why Choose a Sales Apprenticeship at Salesforce

Jhane Gibson

January 15, 2025

Come along as we interview Salesforce Account Strategist and former Sales Apprentice, Daniel Ward, on his journey into tech sales.

“The apprenticeship has acted as an accelerator into a career in tech sales for me.”

In your own words, describe what tech sales is?
Sales in the tech & SaaS sector is a complex process that involves guiding customers through a journey of evaluating different options and vendors to find the best solution for their needs. Our role is to help customers identify and understand the problems they are facing, showcase the value of solving them, and present our solutions as the best way forward.

Tell us about your journey to Salesforce and why you decided to do an apprenticeship.
My journey to Salesforce began when I discovered the Future Pathways Apprenticeship program. Despite not being familiar with tech sales or B2B software companies, I thought why not come along to an Insight Day event to see what it was all about! That was probably the best decision I ever made. I applied and after a couple of rounds was told I was accepted onto the apprenticeship programme!

How would you describe your apprenticeship experience?
The apprenticeship gave me a great platform for success - it provided me with an overall, holistic view of Salesforce, the various departments and how they all tie together to make the company run on a day-to-day.

In Year 1, I got to experience different parts of the business and developed product knowledge to become familiar with Salesforce, the products we provide, and the problems we solve for companies - Big & Small! Then, in Year 2, I became much more sales-orientated. The focus shifted from understanding our solutions and the problems we solve, to speaking the language of the customer and what is important to them.

Can you describe your role now? What do you do and what are your favourite parts?
I’m an Account Strategist for the Retail & Consumer Goods sector. My role is to identify new business opportunities, prospect potential customers and to uncover where we can further expand our Salesforce footprint into our existing customer base.

I help businesses unify all of their data into one single platform and allow them to become more streamlined and operate more efficiently. Usually, these businesses have multiple different systems handling multiple different departments - across Sales, Service, Marketing, E-Commerce, Order Management, and Data Analytics. These systems are usually siloed, meaning that leaders within the business are having to jump from one system to the next to understand business performance and employees need multiple different tools just to have up to date information and visibility into their customers & clients. Providing a solution like Salesforce means we can help consolidate all of this in one single platform, to give them a complete view of their customers and their business.

I really enjoy meeting leaders in these businesses, chatting through their pains and struggles and understand, first off, whether we can help solve this, and second of all, identify where and how!

Over the past few years, I’ve worked with some interesting customers on some impressive deals (including one I sourced for $36K!).

You’ve been promoted a number of times since finishing your apprenticeship. How has doing the Future Pathways sales apprenticeship supported with your career growth?
I think that the apprenticeship has acted as an accelerator into a career in tech sales for me. As an apprentice you get so much more time to learn and develop without the pressure of achieving targets and quotas, and it allows you to build the fundamentals for having a successful career - product knowledge, building a network, and developing sales skills.

Without the apprenticeship, there is no way I would be in the current role that I am in now. It has broken down the barrier in many ways of needing a degree or master's to begin a role in the tech sector, and I will always be grateful for the opportunity the apprenticeship has given me to get started in the world of tech.

Why should someone apply for a Future Pathways apprenticeship and what advice would you give to someone thinking about applying for a Sales role?
I’d recommend a sales apprenticeship at Salesforce to anyone with an interest in sales or business in general. The coaching, teaching, and experience will carry you well into the future and definitely support you in your long-term career.

The 3 main pieces of advice I could give to an apprentice starting out are:

  1. Be coachable and have a willingness to learn. As a company that is always innovating and changing (think about AI for example), having a growth mindset is a real plus.
  2. Be organised. Balancing college with work can be challenging. Have a plan that you stick to every day to make sure that you can manage your workload and complete assignments on time. Salesforce is very considerate and will support you when it comes to your college commitments.
  3. Enthusiasm and positivity! In Salesforce, especially during your apprenticeship you’re offered so many things outside your day to day role. Whether it’s a presentation, joining and shadowing a team meeting, or even getting involved in charitable initiatives, there is so much to get involved in. Looking back I’m glad I took on some of these opportunities and regret the ones I declined.


Ready to launch your career in tech sales at the #1 AI CRM? Learn more about our Future Pathways programs and join the talent community. Take the first step towards a successful career at Salesforce today.