What the 80’s taught me as a SalesPerson.

I started my career in the late 80’s when there was no internet, limited PC’s, mobiles were a true rarity so a pager was how you were sent a message while on the road. My first job out of University was at Telstra when it was a regulated company and industry - ie clients had no options but Telstra. I was at a crossroads at age 21, I didn't want to be a PE teacher for which I studied so I sat at the kitchen table in my little country town of Woolgoolga and read the Job ads in the SMH. The ad said - Telstra Executive, company car and $40k package - I was sold. I posted off my application and was rung by Telstra a few days later to request an interview for the next day. I raced into Coffs Harbour brought a suit, a pair of heels  - threw them in a backpack and caught the overnight train (sitting up) to Sydney. I arrived at Central and fumbled my way to the suburban train system to land at Auburn 10 minutes before my interview. I accosted a gentleman passing through reception and explained “I have 10 minutes to get dressed, try and look like I haven't sat up all night in a dirty old train and perform in an interview”. I pulled myself together - no iron so I did look like I had slept in the suit. I walked into my interview and the kind gentlemen who directed me to the restroom was the hiring manager - Mr Willie Millard - I didn’t know then - but Willie would teach me more about sales than anyone in my career.

He hired me on the spot with the words - “anyone who can turn around from taking a call less than 24 hours earlier for an interview, jump on a train for 12 hours - land in time and not complain - that’s the type of person we are looking for. My territory was one block of the CBD, my products were  - Fax services, Commander Telephone Systems and Telex services - my clients were essentially captive due to the regulated market at the time. Regardless I walked that block, I knocked on doors, I wrote letters to IT Managers on our list of solutions and rang to follow-up. Oh and then I got my first ever mobile in car phone - 008 number installed in my Telstra Holden commodore company car. And didn't I think I was special - no rules about driving and talking - it was an actual telephone handset connected via a curly cord - people would stop and ogle at the woman talking on a phone in the car - amazing stuff. Friends would come over and sit for hours in my car calling family and friends - remember back then STD was super expensive. And then we got our first true portable mobile phone (Telstra Walkabout)  to sell - it weighed about 5 kgs (the battery and phone in one) - was slung over the shoulder and only worked on the corner of George and Margaret street and it cost a whopping $5000. I would meet clients on that corner - and tell them to call someone -  it was always male clients and they called their wives and the conversation was generally along the lines of “you won’t believe where I am calling from”. Those phones flew off the shelf and I smashed my number.

Then the Small business telephone market was deregulated in 1990 and Willie Millard left Telstra to start up a competitor to Telstra - a little local Australian outfit called Exicom Systems which sold Korean made telephone systems. Willie headhunted me and a handful of my colleagues to come over to Exicom.

As a true start up - our offices were located in Concord in 3 x tiny offices located in a horseshoe shaped building on Majors Bay Road. We shared our little building with a brothel which made for interesting company. Willie ran a tight ship, as a start up the finances were tight - he would go through the outgoing mail each day to ensure we didn't slip any personal letters into the pile. He went through our mobile bills with a fine tooth comb and highlighted suspected personal calls - Mobile bills back then were horrendously expensive. Willie was tough, fair, fun and industrious as to how we were going to tackle our biggest competitor - Telstra.

Willie  handed out yellow pages and told us which set of pages were ours - from page 100 - 500 was my patch and then we hit the phones. True cold calling, tough hard work - constant rebuffs, hangups but it was exciting, Myself and my colleagues Chris Seaman and Cheryl Heaney used to have “cold calling races” to see who could come up first with 5 hard leads. No computers just a pen and a pad which was our client list with handwritten notes on discussions, meeting dates etc. Willie used to drop the sales team off at industrial estates for hours and then pick us up - we had a box of matches which we used to count opportunities. We door knocked our knuckles out - we lit a match for every live lead and when Willie picked us up - we would count the number of redheads left to establish how successful the mission was. I look back on those days with fondness  - we operated as a team, we were challengers running on the smell of an oily rag and we learnt the true definition of tenacity-  not to take a door or phone slam personally but to keep hunting down the opportunities. And we had fun - we celebrated our first sale, we celebrated everyone's success and we worked hard. It was in the days we were used to “throw in an answering machine” to sweeten the deal for clients - they loved those answering machines.

I bought my first PC - it cost me $3000 and weighed more than portable PC should - about 5 Kg and installed Telemagic on it - Telemagic one of the first contact management systems - I now had some structure to my sales and I drove every feature of that Software. Slowly we built our sales pipelines, we won deals, we gained momentum and then Exicom went into receivership and I experienced  my first Chapter 11 layoffs and everything that goes with it. But as a phoenix we rose back up with Nortel Networks acquiring the bones of Exciom including me and my sales team friends. We were now part of a huge multinational with world class call centre and telephony solutions - but kept as the poor cousins of Nortel and named Nortel Communications Systems with a move to luxurious offices at Auburn. We even had a propor Desktop PC we shared between 6 of us - constant bickering about whose turn it was to use it.  I spent 7 glorious years with amazing people learning sales craft under the tutelage of the best Sales Manager I ever had. Willie taught me to never give up, there is always another way in, don’t take no for an answer tempered by world class coaching on the how to be a great salesperson. Always say Thank you when you make a sale - make a fuss of the investment that your customer has made. Always send follow up letters to thank them for their time at a meeting. When you say you are going to do something - Do it and do it ahead of the time you committed to do it. Be Patient - the client decision shouldn't align with the pressures of our business, be gracious at all times especially when you lose (you will be well placed to win the next time round), be humble, be kind and surprise people with the unexpected. And my favourite - greet everyone like an old friend, even if you are meeting them for the first time.

And then I was headhunted to Cisco Systems - I had the ride of my life in Dot.com  - next chapter - on what I learnt from that Era - the extravagent 90’s.