There are no rules, as long as you make great deals: An Ynvolve 15-year anniversary interview with Maxime Bellanger

Maxime Bellanger
Cisco France – Former employee

‘Don’t follow the money, follow your heart.’

Maxime Bellanger

‘It was my first job. I was young, didn’t know anything about computers, let alone about IT, but I have a French father and a Dutch mother, speak both languages and that’s what they were looking for at Ynvolve.

It started with an internship for a management course I took in France and it was exactly what I sought. I may not have known much about IT, but I did know sales. I loved sales – still do. Our department had five people, managed by Antoine Molinari. He’d fire us up, pulled us all the way to the top. That was needed, me being a conceited little guy as I was young and new to the business. And a bit irritating, too.

After six months I’d completed my internship and Antoine said: this is your market, this is your quota, this is what is expected of you. Wow: within half a year I’d grown into a mature salesperson. I continued working there for another half year, did some lucrative deals for the company and learned how computers, servers and networks operate. I was taught to stand on my own two feet. Not by Antoine alone, but by everyone involved. I may not have worked there for a long time – I still had to graduate – but I owe a lot to that period. At Ynvolve I learned above all that sales is not an exact science. That knowledge boosted my self-confidence. If I thought up something creative, out of the box, they found that fantastic. Don’t follow the money, they said, follow your heart. Momentarily I am at a company with a $50 billion turnover annually, but I always stayed true to myself. Ynvolve modeled me into the salesman that I am now.’