Introduction
Zac Ticehurst has gone on to be promoted 4 times and is now holding the position of an Account Executive Lead at Meltwater, where he is now leading a team of Account Executives and Business Development Representatives across Australia. He now smashes his targets regularly selling to the largest commercial and enterprise clients and has been at Meltwater for close to 4 years. Way to go Zac! We are so proud of the milestones that you’ve achieved so far, joining as a Business Development Representative fresh out of school, and moving up the ranks to your current Account Executive Lead role!
Where did you grow up?
I grew up 50 minutes west of Melbourne in Bacchus Marsh and have always had to travel quite a bit for school, sports and university between the city and Ballarat.
My favourite and probably the most impactful stage of my life was my experience studying abroad while at university. This was a four-month experience, predominantly in Beijing, at Peking University. Being placed in a foreign environment in a completely different culture was great. This led to a solid understanding of what will become the largest economy, and places me in good stead no matter what career path I continue down.
How did you get to your current job position?
Broadly, I think the reasons I got my role are threefold.
Firstly, I’d clearly shown I was brought into the company’s long-term direction. A company is more willing to invest time in you and your development, if they believe you will be there long-term.
Secondly, I showed a strong fundamental interest in what they do now. If you can connect the vision of the company to the day-to-day of the role, you will always be motivated to work hard.
Lastly, I needed to be a culture fit. This can be broken down into a few facets, but essentially it is a drive to continually improve yourself as a person, shown through initiative in other positions, leadership roles within local communities, at university or in sports teams, and so forth. This also includes the ability to understand what your weaknesses are and times where you’ve failed, and what you’ve done to improve on this for next time.
I am approaching my 4th year mark with Meltwater and am still very excited about what’s to come!
How did you choose your specialisation?
Almost all commerce and business students dream of working at a Big 4. To begin with, I was no different. Having particularly strong results at university, I knew it was an option to explore. However, I went for sales at a global tech company and haven’t looked back. Here is a quick snapshot into why.
I decided pretty early I’d rather progress quickly in a role I enjoyed, have global travel as an option early in my career, and – if I worked hard – flexibility to enjoy all other aspects of life (sports, socialising, weekends, etc) rather than spend a decade moving up the chain at a Big 4.
Another thing to seriously consider is the role that disruptive technology is having on the workforce and the jobs of the future. Being confident in choosing a role that would future proof myself, to an extent, was really important.
What was your interview process like?
The interview process was rigorous and really challenging. There were a lot of opportunities to decide if the company was a good fit for me, and if I was for the company.
There were many behavioural and situational questions, but it was a great chance to meet the faces of Meltwater that they put forward to make an impression on you.
You will get stumped on a few questions, but it is important to quickly take on the feedback and improve for the next question. The company hires on potential rather than experience, so don’t worry if you make any mistakes – but steer clear from them if possible! Most people get jobs at Meltwater straight from university and they completely understand the position you are in.
What does your employer do?
Day to day, Meltwater is the largest media and social intelligence provider globally. Currently, the company services across every industry you could think of – big names like Google, Amazon and Alibaba, to large finance and law firms and government, down to small NFPs.
Over the next few years and decade, this will change though. The company has been up against other global tech giants in the race to acquire AI tech start-ups, which is really exciting. We are at the forefront of educating different industries on how to make better business decisions by looking at different types of external data together, rather than in isolation with internal data.
What are your areas of responsibility?
Currently, my responsibilities include winning large and enterprise accounts in Australia as Meltwater focuses on moving upmarket globally, to win more premium and global accounts. This means I get to be the face of Meltwater to the biggest businesses in Australia, and position us as a key tech partner and consultant that should be used by their own in-house Marketing and PR teams, by getting meetings, research and pitching ideas and solutions to them.
Another aspect of my role is management, from interviewing and hiring, to ensuring talent development in our team. Here there is a focus on finding highly motivated people who can be groomed to become leaders internally, and be the face of Meltwater to large accounts we have long-term potential with.
Another great part of the role is representing the Account Executive team in conversations with the Country Manager / Area Director, to ensure that we can remove barriers to successfully do our job, and find ways we can be more targeted in our approach and successful in our roles. The above means we will keep on track on what we need to achieve, in particular, with a focus on what we need to achieve in the next 2-3 years to support the company as best as we can.
Can you describe a typical work day?
There are 3 things I need to keep in mind each day: culture, people development and sales results.
With culture, it’s all about making sure people feel like they belong, are a part of the team and enjoy work each day. Typically, this begins by aligning a career at Meltwater with someone’s goals, to ensure they are always motivated and helping others.
People development is always quite interesting, because different people always want to develop in different ways. So, ensuring each person in your team has a plan, focuses on something you can measure each day, week or month, is key to keep them on track day to day.
Lastly, sales results. I still have a revenue target, and so does my team. So, each day we aim to do calls and meetings, write proposals, and I also need to make time to support others as well. Helping others get success is definitely one of the more exciting and rewarding parts of the job!
The last thing I worked on, was a plan for the team with our Area Director, which is an on-going conversation on how we can ensure culture, people development and sales results all improve over time.
What are the career prospects with your job?
There are a large number of career prospects within the company!
Internally, the organisation is scaling significantly across new business, account management and client strategy, in different business divisions across every continent. Also, with a lot of recent acquisitions and new, large government contracts, we are creating new business lines and client specialisations that didn’t even exist when I joined the company.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Absolutely. Simply, you just need to be smart and good with people. I work with people that have finance, neuroscience, accounting, marketing, legal and arts backgrounds. Ultimately, you’d just need to be able to demonstrate that you can learn quickly and have a passion for sales and the company vision.
What do you love most about your job?
Hands down it is the people I work with. They are all people who are extremely driven, really smart and love to socialise. It is a bit weird telling mates that I grab a beer with everyone I work with – they don’t really get it. If you decide to interview at Meltwater, I am sure that after meeting a few people who might be in your team, you’d agree.
The tasks I enjoy the most are those that clearly generate a tangible outcome. Everyone has targets and smashing them feels amazing, but because of the flat structure, there are a lot of opportunities to show leadership, which is just as rewarding.
What’s the biggest limitation of your job?
You get out what you put in in a sales career.
Sales is quite unique relative to other fields, because you determine how you spend your time, what you work on, and how you learn fastest. Given this, there is a lot of responsibility to perform well and become autonomous in your team as quickly as possible, so you can start coaching others.
Do I have to work on weekends? Not a chance. To live the lifestyle I wanted, I made sure that I chose a place that would make me work hard Monday – Friday and have the weekend for myself, my sports, mates, etc. That being said, you get out what you put in. So, if you did want to go above and beyond, it is up to you how you spend your time. There is a big focus on prioritising how you spend your time, so you never feel you need to do work on the weekend anyway.
Which three pieces of advice would you give to a current university student?