From National Telco to Creative Technical Agency 

Before coming to Enlighten, Jean worked for many years in the sales space before finishing off her time with teclo in a recruitment role. She believes her years of experience honed her natural skills and prepared her for her new role at Enlighten, with the HR role highlighting the value of listening and encouraging others to talk about themselves and what they were looking for. 

‘For me, it’s all about the conversations with the customer.’ – Jean Lim, Enlighten Designs

Working at the telco company also gave her insights into keeping up with changes in the enterprise technology landscape. At a certain point, Jean says sales moved away from product-based selling and towards solution-based selling, recognising customers’ needs for a more holistic service solution, offering all the things they needed (mobile, broadband, and data), rather than just trying to sell a single product.

Sales representatives also saw their roles changing; customers began looking to them as trusted advisors. "Clients can find 75% of the information they’re looking for online." Jean says. "It became the salesperson’s role to tell them what they don’t know and what they cannot find themselves. "

This is a large part of what an Account Manager at Enlighten does - become a trusted advisor and fill in the knowledge gaps.  "For me, it’s all about the conversations with the customer," Jean commented.

When her friends saw an advertised vacancy at Enlighten, they thought it would be an excellent fit for Jean’s skills and a natural progression for her career. She submitted an application, and the rest is history.

 

Jean’s Approach to Working with Clients 

Because she’s new to Enlighten, Jean’s approach to working with clients takes that into account. "My tactic is owning up to being new at the company," she admits. "I tell clients I just want to know about their business."

Jean admits to being 'old school', bringing pen and paper to every client meeting and taking careful notes to better understand the client’s needs. Jean finds this is a great way of picking up what she calls ‘golden nuggets’ about the clients' business as they talk and these details help her ask follow-up questions to gain deeper insights.

‘I tell clients I just want to know about their business.’ – Jean Lim, Enlighten Designs

Rather than having a specific agenda, Jean treats every client meeting as a chance to not just get to know them but also an opportunity to share more about Enlighten. She first asks them to share what they know about Enlighten, and after they tell her, Jean fills in the gaps. 

 

What Jean Loves about Working at Enlighten

There are several things Jean loves about working at Enlighten. One of them is that her teammates are talented and highly collaborative. 

Enlighten team getting down and dirty at the Sustainable Coastlines HQ

At Jean’s previous job, she noted that sales staff had to be subject matter experts. They didn’t have the support of their colleagues who were involved in solution delivery until much later in the sales process, so salespeople really needed to impress leads with their knowledge. 

That’s not the case at Enlighten – Jean praised her colleagues for volunteering to develop solutions for customers early in the process. 

"As soon as you've identified an opportunity, there's hands going up [from the team] to say 'Look, you know, I'm happy to come along and have a chat with you' " – Jean Lim, Enlighten Designs

Moreover, they come up with impressive solutions to solve customer pain points. When I ask a question about 'Can we do this for a customer?', the ideas that come out of some of the team is beyond my comprehension of what can be achieved." Jean says.

In addition to her creative, supportive colleagues, Jean also enjoys Enlighten’s new location. The company moved offices recently, shifting from a two-level office environment to a one-level, open workspace. Everyone enjoys the improved collaboration that comes from all working on the same floor. 

Because Enlighten is still located in the centre of Hamilton, there's still easy access to the excellent cafes and restaurants just a few steps away from the office - and the short commute for Jean and most of her co-workers is another benefit of the location.

 

Innovation at Enlighten

Another aspect of working at Enlighten that Jean loves is how the organisation creates highly innovative solutions for internal and external use. 

Jean recalled that managers at her last job used Power BI to show 2D representations of sales benchmarks - but when she came to Enlighten, Jean was ‘blown away’ at what the Data and Analytics team regularly do with the business intelligence software. The best example comes from her client, Port Otago.

‘Enlighten brings data to life.’ – Jean Lim, Enlighten Design

Enlighten created a Power BI solution for Port Otago (the primary export port for the South Island) that shows how busy the port is at any given time. Not only can users see port activity in real-time, but they can also look at past and future activity to understand historical and future trends. For Jean, the project encapsulates one of Enlighten’s core strengths: "Enlighten brings data to life," she remarked.

 

New Opportunities for Enlighten to grow in 2021

Jean believes that in the coming year, there will be four areas customers will focus on: 

• Data
• Data visualisations 
• Data storytelling
• AI

For Jean, data storytelling ‘captures your attention right away.’ Looking at data in a spreadsheet doesn’t have the same capability to grab the audience. Data storytelling is a way to make sense of the information and explain its importance. It also helps you ask the question "how should I act on the data I have?" and determines the next best step for the business. 

Jean added that AI has a number of applications that she's excited to see grow in popularity in 2021, including chatbots, customer engagement, and robotics.  Jean explained that AI's versatility makes it far easier to utilise it in making customer dreams come true. 

 

Enlighten Designs: Delivering Amazing Client Experiences through an Excellent Team 

For over two decades, Enlighten Designs has been delivering amazing digital experiences. We’re able to do that because of the people we hire – people like Jean, who put customers first and focus on building long-term relationships. If you'd like to learn more about working with Enlighten, visit our Join page to see what's currently on offer.