After my 10-year technical and management career, I was seduced into sales by the company that provided my microprocessor products, software development and testing environment and that 'piece of magic', in-circuit emulation.  

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I am forever grateful to David S for seeing my potential and giving me the chance.

 

’Rapid’ became the biggest distributor of Intel* in Europe and was headed by John W, the most inspirational leader I’ve ever met.  He was an expert in marketing, he was a magician in front of customers, his inter-personal skills were off the believeable scale, and he was a dream to work for. 

* Intel Corporation is the company that produced the first commercially available microprocessor chip in November 1971, the Intel 4004, a 4-bit processor.  Rapid started selling the Intel 8080A, an 8-bit processor, followed by the Intel 8086, whose architecture is still used in current PCs and Laptop computers, despite them being massively more powerful.  

 

Putting my real-world knowledge to good effect and getting exceptional results, such as winning a tender when I was the highest price*, they realised that I was a very good salesman.  John chose me to be their Northern Regional Manager, running three sales teams.  My natural sales leadership style - being close, personal, and coaching for success - was why I outperformed Terry and John, my two Regional Sales Manager colleagues.  After producing a record Northern annual revenue of £11 million, Steve, the Sales Director, chose me to be their UK Sales Manager.

* Entirely legal, this is an example of Relationship Selling - taking the lead, getting close and working WITH the client.  In this case, how to set up a microprocessor applications development laboratory from scratch and what to include in his tender.  In my bid I provided two solutions to their ITT.  The first was fully compliant, but the second had a greater seat capacity for a lower unit cost.  Guess which one won?

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I spent many years as a Major Account Manager selling ERP II solutions and services into manufacturing industry.  One Sales Director memorably said to me, “David, that was the best closing presentation I have ever seen.”*  The breadth and depth of my experience had given me a lot of confidence and insight to use at crucial, customer-facing events, like that one.

* On another, separate occasion he also said I was a wordsmith.  I told him that was impossible because I'm a Jones.  Well, anyway, he found that amusing.

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The Electricity industry gave me a lot more experience of selling services.  The regulator, OFGEM, demanded industry-wide reforms which required the development of new industry-critical software solutions for all participants.  Here I was able to persuade major electricity industry players (Generators, Suppliers and Distributors) that a mid-tier* company was a better choice than a top-tier ‘Big Five’ company.

* If you would like a summary of my ‘pitch’ please ask for The strengths of the mid-sized services vendor DJ.pdf on my CONTACT page.

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The above explains why I understand what concerns clients, how they select suppliers and why I can relate to your people who do that with your customers. 

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Enough about me!

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