Our People Their Stories: Amazing Leaders Edition

RS Mexican Field Sales Manager, Jorge Olavarrieta Escudero , earned an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering at Universidad Iberoamericana in Leon, Guanajuato, and then took a position as an outside sales position at Carlton-Bates Company, an automation controls and electronic and electromechanical parts distributor that’s part of the Fortune 500 WESCO International, Inc. family of companies. After successfully developing a brand-new sales territory, he took a position as the North Mexico regional sales manager at WESCO Distribution, and after successfully managing four branches for more than 20 years, he was promoted to national sales director. Jorge is currently the Mexican Field Sales Manager for RS, and he leverages his 31 years of electronics industry experience to inspire the local RS teams to further develop the market and provide customers throughout Mexico with a world-class experience.

How does a person progress in your field? What does a typical career path look like?

In electronics sales, you succeed by helping others achieve success, by helping them find the products that will effectively solve their challenges, satisfy their budget requirements, and meet their goals. So, you need to have people skills, but you can start in many ways. I started working in a warehouse stocking products and doing inventory, which allowed me to get to know the products firsthand. Then I moved to counter sales, then outside sales, and today I’m the field sales manager for Mexico. At RS, some people start in inside sales to gain some experience with customers and learn our system and capabilities. You can start in outside sales as well if you know that you want to be face-to-face with customers and are willing to learn the ins and outs on your own, but many people start with inside sales or warehouse work. If you wish to further your career, you can pursue a management position. In these roles, you succeed by helping your team achieve their goals, by providing the direction and the support and assistance they need to become outstanding salespeople.

What are the major qualifications for success?

Confidence is probably the most important qualification for success. You need to believe in yourself. But you also need to believe in your company’s products and solutions, exhibit excellent communication skills, be a team player — someone always willing to help both customers and colleagues, be empathetic and in tune with the mental state of the people you’re talking to, be customer oriented — focused on identifying their needs and goals and helping them achieve them, and be resilient, as you’re going to get a lot of “no”s and will need the resolve to keep trying until you get a “yes.”

What advice would you give someone starting a career in sales?

Be persistent and follow up, follow up, follow up. Become a resource for your customers. Be willing to do whatever it takes to earn their business. And identify your company′s strengths and capabilities and try to match them with your customer’s goals and needs.

Describe your leadership style and what you think makes it effective.

I am optimistic, which gives me a can-do attitude. I always focus on what we can do instead of what we can′t, and I try to pass that perspective along my team. And I am consistent. I like to have a dedicated, scheduled time to talk to each of my team members about what’s going on in their sales territories, to review our key performance indicators or KPIs, and to identify anything I might be able to do to help them succeed. The constant communication we have as a team, including ?weekly team meetings and one-to-one sessions with each key account manager make these approaches even more effective.

I also like to empower and encourage my team to make decisions, to create connections within the company, and to take risks and try new things, new ways of doing business.

What’s something that you’ve learned as a member of the RS leadership team?

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Challenge the status quo if you think there’s a better way to get things done. RS has changed a lot since I joined the team more than four years ago, and many of these changes are thanks to all the innovators and entrepreneurs we have in our team combined with our continuous improvement culture.

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RS empowers both its employees and its customers to make amazing happen. What shared habits or qualities of the RS team support this goal?

Whatever their role, RS employees execute it with passion. Every time I meet someone new on the team, I can see how dedicated and passionate they are about what they do for RS. News and new projects spanning a logo change to our new warehouse and our own private label, RS PRO, are all met with genuine excitement because we all know that what we do is very meaningful to achieving RS's overall goals.

RS also put employees’ wellbeing first during the pandemic and acknowledged that it affected everybody in a different way, which further proved that RS is the right place to work. RS has created a culture and environment that allows you to bring your true self to work every day. We don’t have a micromanagement culture; we have a culture of trust that holds teams and individuals accountable for their actions and their contributions to our success as a company.

What’s an important cause to you outside of work??

We all have an obligation to improve the world we live in, and the approach I take is through families. I am a firm believer that most of our essential qualities, behaviors, and skills are learned at home. As such, my wife and I are involved in family associations that aim to help improve communications between family members. I also work to support students that come from challenging environments. I encourage them to continue with their education and stay in school and I help them with tuition costs and material requirements from high school all the way through college. It is very rewarding to see them graduate and see how they also help others in return.

For more information about RS, please visit the About Us page. For more information about joining the RS team, please visit Careers at RS .