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The Sales Circle: Transforming Training and Recruitment in Tech Sales

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Above: Tommy French (left) and Eoin Murphy’ (right),  founders of The Sales Circle

Anna Lelashvili

While business students often hear all about the glories of working in finance, consulting or accounting, most of us have probably never considered a career in tech sales. Tech sales is becoming increasingly popular in Ireland, with the rise of multinational technology companies establishing offices in Dublin. Tech sales offers great career progression and earning opportunities with graduates earning an average salary of €60,000. 

TBR’s Chief Finance Officer Anna Lelashvili spoke with Eoin Murphy, co-founder of The Sales Circle, to learn more about a career in tech sales and how The Sales Circle can help people looking to break into the field. 

The Founders

Co-founders Eoin Murphy and Tommy French met as business development associates at Salesforce, a cloud-based CRM company. According to Eoin, the two clicked instantly due to their aligned vision and aspirations of being successful. Both Eoin, who studied Business at DCU, and Tommy, who completed a Masters in Finance at Trinity, planned to work in Finance. They both gained experience in the finance field with Eoin completing a 9 month placement in banking and Tommy working as a financial consultant.  

After a quick Indeed search for summer internships, Eoin came across the Salesforce sales development internship and applied to it, not knowing what either Salesforce or sales development was. Although Eoin started working in sales at just 15 years old, helping his father at trade shows, he didn’t know it was a career you could pursue post-graduation until he started the Salesforce internship; a great example of what is meant for you, will not pass you. 

‘When I went into college it was never even a consideration of going into sales. I had never heard of tech sales. I was always going the finance route, same with Tommy. We never envisioned going down this route but I stepped in on the first day (at Salesforce) and said ‘this is what I am doing after college’. It was a hidden gem’.

The Sales Circle Origin

It all began when Eoin started posting content on TikTok, showing viewers the behind the scenes of cold-call filled ‘Day in The Life’ videos and being transparent about the salary in tech sales. In only 9 months he has amassed over 7,000 followers on TikTok and 4,000 followers on Linkedin due to his transparency and love for tech sales.

‘I always had the itch to start posting content. Being in Ireland I always had the fear of judgement, but when I moved to Australia I said ‘look I’m away from everyone, I’m gonna go for it’.

Following Eoin’s success on TikTok, an overwhelming number of people started reaching out to him wondering how they could get into tech sales and find success. While Eoin tried to juggle content creation with working and advising others, he realised that there was an opportunity to create something. He turned to Tommy, and the two started The Sales Circle, offering two-day intensive boot camps once a month. Each bootcamp sees 10 people receiving training and one-to-one support in their journey in breaking into tech sales.

The Sales Circle is unique as it not only helps participants get a job in the industry but also provides them with the resources to excel in their new role. Tommy and Eoin were both very high performers, citing ‘what we teach, we know works’. The Sales Circle is ‘hoping to change the recruitment space, creating a model of recruitment where people are trained by high performers in the industry’. As a result, participants are not only landing jobs quickly, with an average of only 30 days, but are also excelling in hitting their sales targets.

Eoin emphasised the importance of standing out and making yourself ‘the most obvious choice for the role’. At The Sales Circle, they ensure that participants do one thing to set themselves apart at every stage of the recruitment process. As well, they have created a partner network of companies who are interested in hiring high quality talent and hopefully secure your spot at a partner company. 

The Sales Talent of Tomorrow Programme for College Students

After seeing the huge demand from college students looking to get into tech sales, The Sales Circle is launching a new programme called the Sales Talent of Tomorrow Programme, which will see small, monthly cohorts of students receiving two weeks of intensive upskilling sessions on the fundamentals of being a high performing sales and business development representatives. They will also learn how to outshine the 200+ applicants they will find themselves competing against. 

Unlike most careers that students pursue post-graduation, there aren’t many graduate programmes in the tech sales sphere. Instead, there are entry level positions that graduates can apply for. This role is typically the Sales Development Representative role but the name varies across companies. As a result, most final year students begin applying to jobs towards the end of their degree in April. But not to worry, The Sales Circle ensures that “when you get to the end of your college year and you’re looking to apply to jobs, you are so far ahead of others,” according to Eoin.

A Career in Tech Sales

For those of you who have never considered a career in tech sales before, here are some benefits of working in the sphere:

  1. Earning potential and career progression: On average, graduates can expect to earn about €60,000 in their first year as an SDR and can progress to an account executive role earning €100,000+ in 2 years. In contrast, the average graduate salary in Ireland is around €35,000. 
  2. Soft Skills: Sales helps you develop resilience, confidence and communication skills, with Eoin describing it as “the single greatest job for building resilience”. As an SDR, you speak a lot to business owners, learning about their business models and pain points, which could be very beneficial to those considering starting a business themselves. You also face a lot of rejection from prospects and learn how to handle rejection. 
  3. It’s fun!: Speaking to Eoin, you can see how much he really loves his job.

 ‘I was so worried coming out of college, especially when I was in my finance role, that I would hate life working and I could say with complete confidence that every single day, even if it was a tough day, I absolutely loved doing what I was doing in Salesforce, and tech sales in general. I loved the people, the job and everything that came with it. There wasn’t a day I wasn’t grateful that I went down that route.’

Tips to Break into Tech Sales

If you’ve been convinced to break into tech sales, here are some tips from Eoin to help you (as well as joining the Sales Talent of Tomorrow Programme, of course):

  1. Reaching out to people: Reach out to people on LinkedIn who are in tech sales and have conversations with them! You learn so much and also make amazing connections in the process. Eoin suggests having a conversation a week with an SDR/BDR/Account Executive. By the end of the year, that’s around 40 connections! When it comes to applying to jobs, you have a network of people who can help you whether that’s through a referral or some tips and tricks for the interview.
  2. Listen to podcasts: Recommendations from Eoin include 30 Minutes to President’s Club, Outbound Squad and Outbound Kitchen (formerly SDR Game). 
  3. Read books: Recommendations from Eoin include Gap Selling, Never Split the Difference and Problem Prospecting.

Follow Eoin, Tommy and The Sales Circle!

TikTok: @eoinmurphyyy, Linkedin: Eoin Murphy & Tommy French, Website: The Sales Circle 

Driving Sustainability in SMEs: A Conversation with PlasTrak Co-Founder Finn Howley

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Petro Visagé

As small and medium enterprises (SMEs) grapple with the growing demands of corporate sustainability reporting, PlasTrak, an innovative Irish startup, has carved out a niche by demystifying complex EU regulations. This initiative provides SMEs with tailored, easily digestible guidance to enhance their sustainability reporting practices. Deputy Editor Petro Visagé sat down with Finn Howley, co-founder of PlasTrak, to unpack the origins of this transformative tool, the challenges they faced and their impact on the Irish SME sector. 

Can you give a brief overview of what PlasTrak does. How does PlasTrak specifically address the needs and challenges of SMEs in becoming more sustainable?

Howley: The mission of PlasTrak is to guide Irish SMEs through the transition to full plastic waste reporting and measurement. SMEs, by 2028, will have to track a huge amount of data points in relation to their sustainability footprint under CSRD. While not directly in scope of the directive, SMEs will be affected by the upstream and downstream reporting requirements of corporations above them in the value chain. For instance, for Musgraves to be able to comply with the directive, they will need to provide data on things like packaging waste that goes out the front door of every retailer that they supply to. Thus, there is a massive challenge for SMEs to start developing the infrastructure to record and report on their sustainability impact. What we do is provide SMEs with their reporting requirements in simple and digestible terms, in stark contrast to a 200 page EU document that is full of legalistic and technical language. We know that time is the most valuable resource for small businesses, so our aim is to create value for them by saving them hours and hours spent understanding their requirements under CSRD. 

Could you tell us more about the origins of PlasTrak?

Howley: So, we started working together as a trio in October 2023 when our lecturer paired up Robert and I with Maïlé because of our similar research interests in our capstone. It’s a very practical capstone where the first semester is spent doing primary research on a challenge, and the second semester is all about implementing solutions to that challenge. We were all interested in the implications of the new CSRD legislation so when we went and carried out our research, our biggest finding was that Irish SMEs needed help in the transition to sustainability reporting. So, when it came to taking action in January this year, the PlasTrak Initiative for Irish SMEs was born based on that finding. 

Could you tell us more about the founders?

Howley: I’m from Balbriggan in North County Dublin, Robert’s from Ashbourne in County Meath and Maïlé’s from Bali, Indonesia. Robert and I have been close friends since we were 12 years old, having gone to the same secondary school and playing rugby together in CUS. We’re both studying BESS, while Maïlé is in Computer Science & Business. 

What inspired PlasTrak and how did your personal and professional experiences shape the company’s mission?

Howley: So we were inspired to start PlasTrak when we were nudged by an Audit Partner that we interviewed in one of the Big 4 firms to look into Europe’s new sustainability reporting regulation, the CSRD. He described it as the “biggest change in company reporting in 40 years”, and when we did look into it, we found it to be a really interesting opportunity. 

From a personal point of view, we’re all passionate about sustainability. Robert and I have been involved in our local tidy towns committees for a number of years and Maïlé was part of the Bali’s Big Clean Up while at school in Bali. We’ve also all done internships in financial services firms, and studied in financial reporting modules, so I think we all kind of had an interest in the technical side of sustainability reporting – the whole aim of the CSRD is to bring sustainability reporting up to the same level of credibility and usefulness as financial reporting.

In launching a sustainability-focused startup, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?

Howley: I think that growing the initiative at the beginning was challenging as people didn’t take us seriously, perhaps we were initially perceived as inexperienced university students attempting to tell business owners how to run their businesses. This might have been the viewpoint of the people we intended to work with but declined our help. We moved away from the identity of college students working on a project, which might carry connotations of temporariness and lack of practical experience. Instead, we positioned ourselves as informed experts in the field of CSRD, letting on that we could “walk the walk” and not just talk about it. This repositioning helped in building trust and respect in the business community.

How important are partnerships and collaborations to PlasTrak, and can you share examples of successful collaborations?

Howley: Partnerships played a huge role in our initiative, we couldn’t have done it without our industry, government and academic partners. We collaborated with businesses across the sectors of healthcare, agriculture, construction, clothing retail, and food and beverage. Collaborating with Honey Truffle was a really fun experience, Eimer (Chef and Owner) is so nice. She gave up a lot of time out of her day and provided us with a lot of helpful feedback. 

In terms of the government side, the initiative was supported by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. They invited us to Local Enterprise Office events where we were able to network. We met a really cool entrepreneur at one of the events who then became one of our SME website users. We also collaborated with TBS faculty to share our insights and to both give and receive feedback. 

What are some of the biggest challenges currently facing the sustainability sector, and how is PlasTrak addressing them? 

Howley: Well certainly the first things that come to mind are costs and regulation, which is exactly where our business model fits. There’s no doubt that most business owners welcome the idea of sustainability but the question is to what extent are they willing to implement sustainable processes within their businesses? Sustainability initiatives often require substantial upfront investment. For instance, transitioning to renewable energy sources, upgrading facilities to reduce emissions, or adopting advanced recycling technologies can be expensive initially. The financial return on investments in sustainability could take several years to realise and the long payback period can deter businesses who prioritise meeting short-term demands. 

I think the initial success of PlasTrak stems from us providing our service for free. Our toolkit was created out of passion for the SMEs that keep the Irish economy ticking. By removing the cost barriers, we make it feasible for even small to medium enterprises to adopt sustainability measures that they would otherwise deem too expensive. Additionally by educating both the business community and students about the long-term cost savings and brand enhancement benefits of sustainability we encourage investing in sustainable practices and being prepared for the regulatory changes down the road.

What are the lessons you learned through this experience and what advice would you give to entrepreneurs looking to start a sustainability-focused business? 

Howley: We’ve learned so much already but to boil it down to key points: 

  1. You’d be surprised how willing people are to help if you just take the first step and ask.
  2. Being a college student makes for a great opportunity to use the free time you have to help others who are time and resource constrained with their challenges. It’s also a great chance to bridge the gap between the theory you learn in the classroom and the real challenges like climate change that are taking place in the world. 
  3. Resilience is key – the more comfortable you are with rejection and setbacks early on the better. It was the setbacks in our initiative that allowed us to step back and rethink. Being resilient actually allowed us to expand the initiative in new ways as we stopped worrying so much about following our plan so precisely.

An Interview with Clive Bourke, EMEA & APAC President of Daon 

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Fiachra Mooney

About Daon 

Nestled in Dublin’s eminent Docklands one can find Daon, a digital identity trust company. Focusing on the Business-to-Business-to Customer (sometimes even B2B2B2C) and Business-to-Government-to-Customer sectors, it provides the backbone for many of the services you likely use on a regular basis. 

You would be forgiven for not being too familiar with Daon, as you’re unlikely to see their brand name plastered around the internet. It generally provides the software and processes for its customers to integrate into their own apps and websites. Daon instead grows through its reputation of excellence and referrals and word of mouth from happy customers. TBR’s Chief Strategy Officer and Editor-in-Chief Sean Smith sat down with Daon’s EMEA & APAC president, Clive Bourke, to learn a little more about the firm and its contributions to the growing identity proofing and authentication industry and its implications for the future business landscape. 

Origins of Daon 

Daon derives its name from the old Irish word for person, similar to the modern word for people, daoine. The company was started in order to predict and provide the technology necessary to bring biometric authentication to the masses and reduce the need to memorise complex pins for multiple services and accounts. 

Clive spoke about the importance that Enterprise Ireland (EI) played in helping the company to expand its global operations. EI missions in Japan and the United States offered a great pathway to meeting potential clients and partners, and to help the company maintain sustainable foreign expansion. 

What started off as a small company in Dublin’s IFSC at the turn of the millennium has grown to a global operation with 17 offices spread throughout the world. Daon now has offices from Virginia right across to Canberra. While it is now a global operation, their headquarters and R&D remains in Ireland, as does their Chief Technology Officer. Their office in the IFSC remains the headquarters for EMEA. 

Bread & Butter 

Daon’s services provide the security underpinning for many financial institutions personal banking apps, enabling biometric authentication to facilitate new customer account opening and secure transactions for existing customers. There can be up to 50-100 different identity workflows between a customer and their service provider such as a bank. In the past, B2C firms would have had to design and implement all of these identity journeys themselves, but now Daon can provides a low code platform with configurable workflows that don’t require a lot of software development for not only financial institutions, but areas like travel and hospitality, telecommunication and social platforms.

Emerging Challenges & Areas of Interest 

Voice to text 

Clive discussed the popularity of voice commands that Amazon Alexa brought posed a new challenge for biometric authentication. If people wanted to conduct shopping with their Alexa devices, a problem arises as to how banks would be able to authenticate the purchase without forcing the customer to go onto another computing device. Voice commands for payments on home devices proved not to be as prolific as was originally expected however.

Deepfakes 

Another relevant phenomenon for Daon, as Clive noted, is the advance of deepfakes in recent news. Despite the development of this deceptive AI over the last few years being rapid, their risk to biometric authentication certainty is minimal thanks to the work of companies like Daon. Firstly, deepfakes require a screen to be displayed, and Daon’s software can recognise when a picture is being shown on a screen. And while phones can be broken apart, and devices used to trick the phone into thinking that a deepfake is coming directly from the phone’s own camera (so called injection attacks), the multi-factor authentication imposed by Daon has limited the possibility of such a breach being successful in committing fraud for a long time. As such, consumers can rest easy knowing biometric multi-factor authentication is a fortified wall of security against deepfakes being used to access personal information. 

AI 

While AI has become THE technology of 2024, Clive said that prior to the current onslaught, Daon had already seen a 3-4-fold increase in accuracy of models in machine learning. This has also been seen with facial recognition systems, run at airports and by agencies like Homeland Security at border crossings to quickly confirm a person’s identity. 

COVID 

One of the ways you have probably interacted with Daon’s service unknowingly was via their VeriFLY service during the pandemic. Developed with limited time, it allowed the return of international travel by allowing online check-in that verified and kept up to date with COVID vaccination certificate rules between countries. Over sixteen million people used the service successfully, and it gave Daon experience in dealing directly with consumers and building consumer facing apps. This was the closest that Daon had gotten to being a directly consumer facing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business, and they carried out about a thousand updates to the apps in the space of two years, which wasn’t a possibility in their previous products. 

But lessons from this B2C experiment have enabled Daon to launch their new TrustX platform. A cloud-native SaaS-based identity continuity platform, which is enabled by AI and ML, it enables businesses to integrate the software directly into their own products, featuring a no-code orchestration layer for rapid deployment and customisation to enhance user journeys. While maintaining full regulatory compliance, TrustX supports identity proofing and authentication which in turn will enable quick biometric authentication set up and recovery. 

Customer Base: Where Operations Take Place 

Facial biometric use for financial transactions is an arena that Daon has seen considerable growth in the last few years. With the proliferation of online purchasing and banking apps, biometric authentication has come to the masses; while biometrics have taken on a new importance, multi-factor authentication, with another factor e.g. possession or knowledge, remains a safeguard. A new area of research is enabling certain smaller purchases based on your behaviour. 

In terms of geographic breakdown, Daon operates in most parts of the world. Clive also points out that the framework of the EU’s GDPR is a well adopted well understood framework with provisions for biometric data which enables the broader adoption of biometrics for consumer protection use cases such as opening accounts, account access, payment confirmation, account recovery etc. Outside of the EU differing legislation and regulatory environments to be considered.

Students Interested in Pursuing a Career in the Industry 

For business, computing and mathematical students interested in a career with Daon and in the biometric authentication sphere, Clive suggests studying how AI would help improve cyber-attack detection. This area is an ongoing field of research, and is the main task in preventing presentation attacks, where fraudsters use imitations of a person’s biometric characteristics to verify their identity. This can be with expensive Mission Impossible style masks or full deep fake videos such as ones that made the news recently.


We wish to thank Clive for his time and for Daon’s support to TBR this year. For more information on Daon, visit their website www.daon.com and for careers visit http://www.daon.com/careers

The Hub: MSISS Students Turn Whey Waste into Nutritious Soups, Redefining the Game

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Connor Leonard

MSISS students and Souper Fresh founders, James and Daniel Buckley, have transformed the by-product of cheese-making—whey—into a remarkable solution for waste management in farmhouse cheese factories. The dynamic duo’s innovative approach involves converting whey into a high-quality soup stock, creating both a highly nutritious and delectable product.

The Founders

Hailing from a background deeply rooted in the cheese industry, Daniel and James Buckley honed their craft working in their grandparents’ cheese factory. Witnessing the staggering amount of whey, a by-product comprising 90% of milk, being discarded, they recognised the need for a sustainable solution. In large production centres whey is dried to make products such as whey protein; however, at smaller scales this process is not as profitable. In smaller farmhouse cheese factories the whey is typically disposed of at a cost or used as field fertiliser, but excess whey can disrupt soil PH balance and harm vegetation. The Buckley brothers seized the opportunity and devised a creative remedy: transforming this waste liquid into a soup stock. This strategic move not only addresses environmental concerns but also provides Souper Fresh with a competitive edge, enabling them to craft top-notch soups at more affordable prices compared to competitors who produce their own stock. Other competitors typically have to buy animal bones to produce their stock; this increases the cost of production and results in a stock with a large salt content.

Where are They Now?

Since its inception at the Enactus ideation summit a year ago, Souper Fresh has established a kitchen near the cheese factory in Cooleeney Co. Tipperary. After securing €10,000 worth of funding from Tangent, the company has now become a fully-fledged business that employs a skilled cook to craft their unique soups. Souper Fresh products are currently available in 3 shops across Ireland, priced at €3 per serving. Rigorous testing has revealed their soups to be rich in essential nutrients such as B12, making Souper Fresh the perfect product for someone who wants to get a nutritious meal as well as protecting the environment. The Buckley brothers recently took their talents to the Enactus world cup where they, along with fellow Trinity startup Vapebox, placed in the top 16 globally. Enactus is an international organisation that seeks to encourage social entrepreneurship around the world. Enactus was a great experience for the brothers and they strongly encourage everyone to get involved.

Future Expansion Plans

Looking ahead to the New Year, Souper Fresh has ambitious plans for expansion. The company aims to introduce its soups in fresh supermarkets nationwide, as well as Centra on Pearse Street: make sure to keep an eye out for them next January! Furthermore, the socially conscious brand intends to donate one in every ten pots to food charities, aligning with their commitment to combating food waste. They have already donated 300 pots to the local food bank in Clonmel, and going forward social responsibility is very important for their company. Globally, 50% of whey currently goes unused, highlighting Souper Fresh’s pioneering role in not only creating innovative products but also contributing to a more sustainable and conscientious approach to food production.

Interview with GiveDish 

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Zain Alkhatib, Anna Lelashvili and Rein Samarah

Givedish is a social enterprise working with restaurants and cafes to tackle food insecurity, both nationally and globally. For every GiveDish meal sold, a meal is donated to those in need! Cian McGlynn and Olwyn Patterson discuss the story behind their social start-up. 

How does it work? 

A GiveDish meal can be purchased at any of GiveDish’s partner restaurants: Bread 41, Mad Yolks, Chimac, and most recently, Sumaki. The social enterprise partners with Mary’s Meals; a school-feeding programme owned and run by community volunteers in countries to provide free meals. With Mary’s Meals, it costs €18.30 to feed a child for a school year. GiveDish breaks down this cost to fund the free meals provided by Mary’s Meals. On GiveDish’s website, viewers can see the number of meals donated by each partner restaurant. In September alone, GiveDish’s three partner restaurants donated 1,096 meals – and this is only the start! 

The Team

Cian is a second-year Global Business student who became involved with Trinity Entrepreneurial Society. After a few months with the society, he decided to participate in LaunchBox, making his dream to set up a business a reality.

Olwyn is a third-year MSISS student who always had a desire to make something of her creativity. She fondly recounts that as a child that she used to make loom-band bracelets with her friends to sell at charity day in school. Now, she tie-dyes jumpers, socks and t-shirts to sell for charity on Instagram. Upon starting in Trinity, she began to think “about business and entrepreneurship more seriously” and realised that she “could have a larger impact through business than just donating money myself.”

Where they are now

Cian and Olwyn took part in Trinity’s Launchbox, with their start-up, GiveDish, winning 3rd Prize. Launchbox is an accelerator run by Tangent every summer, where ten teams are given office space and €10,000 to work on a start-up. Cian and Olwyn believe that they met some of the coolest and most interesting people through Launchbox. Great speakers such as Dan Hobbs from Protex AI, and Eric Risser from Artomatix (both Launchbox alumni), worked with the start-up groups.

During the interview, Cian and Olwyn revealed that they came up with their enterprise idea “by chance”. Having entered LaunchBox with a “completely different idea”, the team pivoted after some early discovery and research different business models. One of their mentors, Conor Leen (founder of Stampify), introduced them to a Canadian company with an interesting model and, after conducting some customer discovery, the team were set on taking action.

With regards to the name of the business, the team experimented by typing “as many variations of names that could work into GoDaddy to see if the domain was available”, before finding givedish.com to be perfect. They have since changed their domain to givedish.org, however, can still be found at the original givedish.com domain.

Currently, GiveDish is working on building a software application with some help from a developer, as well as slowly refining their processes and making it more transparent. Furthermore, they are looking to help locally; with the rising cost of living, there are problems on Ireland’s doorstep that must be addressed.

GiveDish’s vision is to make donations seamless for people and increase the ease and convenience of donating by making donation part of a daily activity. GiveDish also solves the problem of decreasing profit margins for restaurants by increasing sales of higher profit-margin items. This is achieved primarily through social media; gaining new followers and new partners, and ultimately, donating more meals.

Plans for the future

GiveDish’s goal is to donate 1 million meals to children in need. The social enterprise have many more partners in the works and will continue to tackle food insecurity both globally and in Ireland. To keep up to date with how many meals GiveDish donate, keep an eye on their website. 

Get in Touch

Website : https://www.givedish.org/givedish-partners

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/givedishsocial/

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