From Cheesecake Factory to Tech Sales in One Year (While Raising a Baby)

Crystal Beachum Salako got promoted in tech sales four months after coming back from maternity leave — while breastfeeding a ten-month-old between cold calls. This is how she did it, and what it cost.She spent six months getting rejected from customer success roles before a stranger named Penelope helped her see what she'd been missing: she'd been selling her whole life. Girl Scout cookies. Basketball fundraisers. Recruiting herself to colleges. She just hadn't learned to call it sales.In this episode of Soul Sessions, we sit down with Crystal  to talk about her path from would-be middle school teacher to tech sales — and what happened when she came back from maternity leave to a quota, a newborn, and a laptop she had to operate one-handed. Four months later, she got promoted.