I began my sales career in 1985 when working for a Leicester based Electrical Wholesaler following on from an engineering apprenticeship with a major Control Panel Manufacturer. This was 'baptism by fire' as I my training consisted of "Here are your car keys and here is a catalogue" and with that I was launched upon an unsuspecting world. I soon moved to a Swiss manufacturer of electrical control system components and was finally given the professional sales training that I needed. Following this, I became firmly committed to the value of well trained sales people to a business and have taken any training that has been offered to me over the rest of my career as I firmly believe that you are never too experienced to benefit from sales training.
During my years selling in the control systems industry I worked for several of the major companies who provided control system components and systems (PLC's, SCADA etc) and eventually moved into a product marketing role with Telemecanique who at the time were the market leader in the control products supply industry, during my 5 years with them I was fortunate to be able to spend some time based in Dijon, France working directly for one of the manufacturing divisions.
I moved across to the Security Systems industry in 1996 at a time when the industry was booming. As the market became saturated in the late 90' and early 00's it became the norm' for companies to have a high turnover of sales staff, and to over populate territories in the belief that this would produce growth, however in reality it meant poorer service for customers who had a constant stream of new faces to deal with and a costly requirement for product and sales training due to the turnover of staff, the training money invested was simply walking out of the door.
I believe firmly that a good sales team are the lifeblood of any business and unless they are well trained, well supported by management and valued (not treated as a disposable commodity) businesses will always find profitable growth eludes them.
Stuart Hannah