“It sounds really cheesy, but if you’re selling Israeli tech, you’re doing something to help build the country. I passionately believe that.”
Israel is renowned as the Start-Up Nation, but it is not quite as adept when it comes to selling its hi-tech wares to the rest of the world. Berger concurs and says that many jobs in sales go unfilled. “We have a job board on the Nefesh B’Nefesh website. Look up ‘sales,’ and you’re going to see job after job after job.”
The downturn in the economy caused by the COVID pandemic has put many people out of work. Entire segments of the workforce, including tourism and many home-based businesses, have been severely affected. Berger explains that in today’s job market, companies are looking for people with specific competencies and abilities. It is not easy to pivot to a new career without having the necessary skills. So, when Jake Levant, a veteran oleh from Calgary, Alberta, and a marketing vice-president at Lightico, a Tel Aviv-based software company, contacted Berger and told her about the great need in Israel for sales development representatives, and his Salesclass retraining course, it clicked. Levant joined forces with Nefesh B’Nefesh, and together they have been operating a course to help train English-speaking olim in the art of hi-tech sales.
Levant made aliyah in 2003 and, he recalls, would spend time on the phone each day while driving into work, networking, and talking to people to help find them jobs. Yet, it was not enough. “Networking is not the same as re-skilling,” says Levant, who needed sales personnel for his company. “I was hiring at my company, but instead of hiring locally, I was hiring people back in the States. It’s absurd. Here, we’ve got international people, network people, business-savvy people, and experienced people. They just need a little bit of re-skilling.”
Levant explains that Israel’s emphasis on technical skills has excluded many from entering the world of hi-tech. “We’re so focused on tech here, and we’ve got great training programs, but what percentage of the world is tech-savvy or able to code? There aren’t retraining programs to get you into the business side.”
With the assistance of some fellow hi-tech sales professionals, Levant independently organized a six-week sales training course for people who wanted to retrain and enter the field of hi-tech sales. The second cohort, which began in early April, is being offered in conjunction with Nefesh B’Nefesh and is provided free of charge. The course teaches the art and science of selling, beginning with fundamentals, progressing through finding, prospecting, and qualifying leads, and ultimately, learning how to close hi-tech sales.
Berger says that the current course, which is free and offered online on Zoom, appeals to a variety of olim, from lone soldiers to tourist professionals and people with home businesses whose livelihoods suffered during COVID. “So far, with this initiative,” says Berger, “we have been able to re-skill 50 people and get them an entry point into the workplace.”
LEVANT TICKS off the advantages of sales jobs in hi-tech for English-speaking olim. “Tech salaries are strong, and that’s not just on the developer side. You control your destiny. You get a practical course that can move you into a sales career – into entrepreneurialism and into technology in a growth engine. You can work in your language. We’re not counting what you don’t have. We count what you have. You have English. You got the network, and you’ve got experience.”
He says that the ages of attendees range from newly arrived olim in their 20s to people in their 50s who are retraining from previous professions. “We’ve got everything,” he smiles. The only prerequisites for taking the course, he says, are that students have not had previous experience working in business-to-business software sales and must be willing to begin working in sales in six weeks, immediately after completing the course.
The target audience for technical sales from Israel is customers in the United States, so the work hours are in the afternoons and evenings in Israel. “It’s an incredible job that you can do from anywhere. It doesn’t matter when you work. It’s when your customers are available.”
Sales is a meritocracy, explains Levant. Qualified and talented salespeople will succeed and can earn even more money. The product is good – “we make amazing products” – and salespeople need to know how to find prospective customers, how to talk to them, encourage them, and ultimately make the sale. For those who are wary of technical terms, he says, reassuringly, “You don’t need to know bits and bytes. It’s not a tech position. It’s a sales position with a technology company.”
Levant adds that adding sales jobs in hi-tech in Israel has strategic value to the country and for the industry as a whole. “Helping improve our sales strategy in this country is very important. We don’t want just to create and produce the tech, and then have the tech industry export the sales jobs. Why can’t we sell unto the nations?”
Jake Levant is a pretty optimistic fellow, and he answers his question and says, “Israel can sell unto the nations, and it doesn’t take so much to re-skill because people are coming with personality, network, language, and computer skills. All you need to know is a little bit of how to use email, phone, LinkedIn, and those types of things. You’re learning practical, practical stuff.
“I think we have an incredible talent pool,” he adds. “My grander hope is that things are taken in a broader way and that people are made aware that they have better options and a great way to make a living. They don’t have to remain in a profession that may be dwindling, but they can rescale and get on and become a growth engine. What happens quite quickly is that when you do this, and you’re in sales, you eventually open your next company because you realize, ‘Oh, I could do that.’ I want people to understand that this is an empowering opportunity.”
Both Rachel Berger and Jake Levant would like to formalize and expand the sales training course, with students taking the course, receiving job placements, followed by more groups of students who will take the course and be hired by Israeli hi-tech firms. “I’d like to really create that energy,” says Berger. “For Nefesh B’Nefesh, that’s our angle in terms of creating human capital solutions for the needs of the Israeli market.”
This article was written in cooperation with Nefesh B’Nefesh, in conjunction with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah & Integration, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth Le’Israel (KKL), and Jewish National Fund-USA.