Apr 2023 – Present · 3 yrs 1 mo · London, England, United Kingdom

• The ISP are a Government-backed professional body representing sales in the UK and around the world.
• We are proud of our profession and passionately believe that sales should be a chartered body - this is part of our mission.
• We are bringing sales into parity with other professions by providing qualifications and lettered accreditation, underpinned by life-long learning, for those who choose a career as a sales professional.
• We uphold the quality, ethics and standards of professional selling and are here to celebrate everything that is great about being a sales professional.

Aug 2022 – Present · 3 yrs 9 mos

• RevGenius is a group of revenue-generating sales and marketing professionals brought together to learn, share, support, and grow with each other. You can consider us your alt work family!

Jun 2022 – Present · 3 yrs 11 mos · Worldwide

• RevOps Co-op is a slack group (it is NOT a pod) we strive to create a safe, empowering, and inclusive environment for RevOps pros to learn and connect with each other.

Jun 2022 – Present · 3 yrs 11 mos · Worldwide

• RevOps Co-op is a slack group (it is NOT a pod) we strive to create a safe, empowering, and inclusive environment for RevOps pros to learn and connect with each other.

Nov 2021 – Present · 4 yrs 6 mos · Virtual

• ThePowerMBA are creating a new module for sales and I have been asked to be featured in one of the business case interviews. I will be doing this along with other start-up founders and C-level executives from the world's most disruptive startups and corporations (i.e. founders of companies such as Youtube, Tesla, Netflix, Waze, Shazam, WholeFoods..and C-levels from + 50 companies of Fortune 500). This will part of a new curriculum option on sales.

May 2021 – Present · 5 yrs · Remote

• Producer and contributor to the longest running weekly business talk show on LinkedInLive

May 2021 – Present · 5 yrs · London, England, United Kingdom

• This job is to see if social selling london appears in the search on LinkedIn.

Aug 2017 – Present · 8 yrs 9 mos · Greater New York City Area

• Working as part of the program that Neal Schaffer has produced, the program is for sales people and business leaders to understand social in today's digital world. My input in terms of the program covers:-
• 1. Change management requirements and how to manage the people change
• 2. How to "sell" a Social Selling program to different stakeholders in your organisation
• 3. Organisational blockers and how to manage them
• 4. Measures, Governance and (building a business case) Return on Investment (ROI)
• 5. Business benefits of Social Selling via case study
• Other faculty instructors include social selling thought leaders Brynne Tillman, Sandra Long, and Spencer Smith.
• Neal describes the program as follows:-
• "Bringing together leaders and influencers who have trained dozens of companies from a variety of industries internationally in social selling, this program goes beyond simple "I already knew that" LinkedIn training and provides participants a global perspective on leveraging social media that is applicable to both B2B and B2C salespeople.
• The objective of this innovative program is to train salespeople to not only master the tactical functionality that is possible with social media in order to help engage with the digital buyer at every stage of the sales cycle, but also to build internal leaders and change agents who will truly impact an organization's sales and internal digital literacy after taking the program."
• For me this enables me to pass on the baton of social media and social selling to a future team of sales people and business leaders!

Sep 2016 – Present · 9 yrs 8 mos

• Since the launch of my first book in 2016 I've been a creator and influencer using both my LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube networks as part of the creator economy. I'm often in lists from Thinkers360 and Onalytica for being one of the top thought leaders, creators and influencers in the world. In my given subjects of social selling, digital selling, virtual selling, modern selling, sales, marketing, digital marketing, leadership and management. I'm always interested in partnering and co-creating content with brands. My audience and influence is not just based on numbers, but also quality of that community and ecosystem.

Aug 2016 – Present · 9 yrs 9 mos

• The last 12 month have been pivotable in sales and marketing as social media has changed both society and business.
• We are seeing the results from cold calling and email marketing getting less and less, year by year, Hubspot recently showed research that you can expect a 98% failure rate by using these techniques.
• Then we got hit by the global pandemic and the world has gone totally virtual. Companies have grappled with the current sales model of having a group of telephone SDRs and face-to-face salespeople, that just isn’t fit for purpose in a Covid19 world.
• This is scary for all savvy business leaders, but what are you to do?
• Most business leaders don’t have an experience of social and think it’s about cat photos, rather than a robust methodology that is used by many household name businesses. This means that it’s often dismissed as “new and won’t work for me”, rather than the mature choice for businesses today.
• DLA Ignite is not some “fly by night organisation”, we haven’t just pivoted, we have spent the last 4 years creating and refining our social selling methodology, to take the thinking out of digital selling. All of our programs are based on data, we have analysed our clients and know what works and what doesn’t, so you don’t have to waste your time. We can accelerate you to virtual selling.
• You are not alone, CEO after CEO are signing with us and saying “we came into this pandemic analogue and we are going to come out of it digital”.
• But it’s not just about transforming sales. It would be trendy to call it digital transformation, we see it more as business transformation. We start with sales and implement social selling and then roll out social across Marketing, Customer Service, Human Resources, Employee Comms. Social Selling is, after all, a random act of social. By truly transforming the business with social you can strip out cost, increase incremental revenue and gain competitive advantage.
• For more information contact tim@dlaignite.com

Aug 2016 – Present · 9 yrs 9 mos

• I'm the RevOps leader for DLA Ignite, we decided we needed to take an end-to-end view of the revenue generation business process. This allows us to have driving predictable revenue, across marketing, sales, renewals, and expansion, all of which keeps the lifeblood of a company flowing.

Jul 2016 – Present · 9 yrs 10 mos · Remote

• #TimTalk is a safe space for the worldly curious, people who want to learn, challenge their thinking, and grow
• Every episode is built around one simple promise: you will learn something valuable, a fresh insight, a new perspective, or an idea you can apply immediately
• Episodes are around 20 minutes long, short, focused, and snackable, perfect for walking the dog, commuting, or grabbing a coffee
• No filler, no fluff, just meaningful conversations that respect your time
• We interview CEOs, authors, entrepreneurs, and people of influence to explore real-world wisdom, not promotion
• Guests share insight on topics that matter: sales, marketing, leadership, culture, AI, robotics, blockchain, strategy, innovation, and the future of work
• #TimTalk is about curiosity, about people, ideas, and what we don’t yet know
• It’s for anyone with a growth mindset, ready to be challenged and inspired, and eager to understand why things work, not just what works
• Whether you’re a leader, a seller, a marketer, or simply someone who wants to keep learning in a fast-changing world, #TimTalk invites you to slow down, tune in, and think a little deeper
• Because growth starts with curiosity
• Curiosity starts with conversation

Jun 2016 – Present · 9 yrs 11 mos · Paris Area, France

• HighChloeCloud was the brainchild of Chloe Hacquard while studying her Masters at INSEEC Business School in Paris. HighChloeCloud (as do DLA Ignite) believes that Social Media has changed the world. It has changed society and it has changed the way we do business. Both HighChloeCloud and DLA Ignite believe that we can merge the benefits of the social changes and the business changes from social media to create social mobility for all. To empower and transform the disadvantaged across society and transform people and society for the better.

Dec 2011 – Aug 2016 · 4 yrs 8 mos · London, United Kingdom

• This role was to oversee all aspects of Business Development, Demand Generation and Marketing for Oracle UK Applications and required me to sit on the Board of Oracle UK. Little did I know when I took this role it would start the process of changing my life.
• Oracle UK Applications had a $110 Million budget. Sitting on the Applications board I set the strategy, defined the go to market, and enable the execution through a virtual team of 4 people. This also required me to work across line of business (XLoB) through Marketing, Alliances, Channels and the sales specialist organisations.
• As the UK Applications leadership we took a very brave decision (ahead of the US parent), to have as our go-to-market a Cloud first policy. In other words the salesforce was to stop selling the On Premise solutions. This was revolutionary and way ahead of our US parent and the competition. We also decided to rip up the way we sold and totally transform the salesforce; whiteboarding, storytelling and social selling was the order of the day. This started in the UK and was rolled out across 2,000 sales people in Europe.
• Against the backdrop of the cloud only policy, we decided to launch the Oracle ERP product, ahead of the US parent. We had no clients and no budget but we did have "Crossing the Chasm" Geoffrey A. Moore, which was my guidebook. Oracle ERP is now the number one Cloud ERP system in the world, so we must have done something right!
• Being on the On Board of Oracle UK required a different mindset, forecast accuracy (we got to 95%), sales recruitment and having a cross industry and cross product demand generation plan were just a tip of the iceberg. We also had to deal with a changing market, competitive pressure and a changing sales lifecycle. The average sales cycle dropped from 18 months to 8 weeks during that time. Many of the innovative techniques were then accepted across Oracle Western Europe as best practice.

Aug 2010 – Dec 2011 · 1 yr 4 mos · London, United Kingdom

• After 5 years in the Supply Chain role covering all sectors, I had a change of role were I spent 12 months in the Life Sciences team supporting their Supply Chain go to market. This too was an Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) role.
• The focus for this year was taking an Oracle developed product that supported the serialisation of drugs legislation to market. This and the Life Science versions of Supply Chain, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and demand planning applications (Demantra) I created $14 Million of pipeline.
• I was also Global Client Adviser for GSK, AstraZeneca, Ferring, Shire, Tamer and Teva.
• Lessons learned was in taking the serialisation of drugs product to market. While this was developed internally by Oracle, they placed no marketing budget behind it. We therefore, had to launch the product, from scratch across the EMEA pharmaceutical customers and the EMEA sales force. Many years before I had read, "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey A. Moore, which was all about launching products onto the market. I followed those principles, as I did a few years later when I launched the Oracle ERP Cloud product in the UK to get success.
• It was during this role that I started dabbling more with social media and got my first 1,000 followers on Twitter. I remember my partner at the time saying to me, with 1,000 followers I had “platform” and things were starting to change for me.

Jun 2006 – Aug 2010 · 4 yrs 2 mos · London, United Kingdom

• Oracle had purchased a company called Demantra and needed somebody to put together a Sales team to cover Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). This team would own a Supply Chain Management (SCM) remit and support the local “generalist” manufacturing Sales and Pre-Sales. I had my own quota carrying Sales and Pre-Sales people.
• If you looked at any Gartner magic square at the time, Oracle was nowhere to be seen. This meant a lot of education to prospects, as well as building a sales and pre-sales team (11 people) and executing on the various sales pursuits. I spent the next 5 years, doing a lot of evangelising about Supply Chain, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP). Amazingly (to Oracle Management) In the first year we were the fastest growing team in EMEA and won a prize at the EMEA kick off.
• During that year we grew by 127%, In addition, I backed filled a sales roles and sold MTN $2.34M, Virgin Media $1.0M and Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) $400K.
• One particular client that was “outside of the box” thinking was the South African Mobile supplier, MTN. They had the classic Supply Chain issue. Lot’s of product at the warehouse, but the “wrong” product at the retail shops. Building a S&OP pilot model (competing with a Retail demand planning product) and creating a Financial business case. We proved that Demand Planning got the right phones to the right retail store at the right time and MTN invested. This won Oracle’s Sale of the Quarter for its innovative approach.
• It was during this time that my Vice President put me through the Oracle Management Training, which was certified by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and I remain a member of the CMI to this day. Being fast tracked through the Management training was one of those “change of life” moments, it also provided me with skills that I knew I needed later on in life.
• It was during this role that my manager suggested that the team we should all be on social media, more on this later.

Sep 2004 – May 2006 · 1 yr 8 mos · London, United Kingdom

• It was sad to say goodbye to my Paytech role but it was time to jump from a small company to a large one. Based in Wardour Street, London, Capgemini had just absorbed the technology consulting part of Ernst Young and had rebranded back to Capgemini from CGEY.
• While I’m not one for answering “blind” RFPs (Request for Proposal) we received a RFP from AWE (Atomic Weapons Establishment). While they are Public Sector they are also a very large Project Manufacturing company. They were looking for a complete business process re-engineering (BPR) change program as well as an implementation of Finance, Accounting and Project Accounting system. After meeting with the client, we felt we had a chance. Every other systems integrator (SI) bid SAP and we bid Oracle.
• Why did we win? We approached AWE using our Project Manufacturing knowledge, where as the competition approached them like a Government department. The other thing that swung it, we were told in the debrief was our honesty, on how long and how much we thought the implementation would take. All the other suppliers bid fixed price without knowing the scope, AWE couldn’t see how a supplier could do this, we didn’t either. The feedback from AWE was our bid of a 6 week scoping study.
• The Oracle licence for that was over $10 Million and the implementation, first phase was $50 Million.
• Running a large complex transformational bid is a massive learning for anybody. Being able to understand the high level strategy, while drilling down to the detail is a skill that is transferable into a number of areas. Such leadership of people that don't report to you is often deemed harder, than having direct reports.
• Loved Capgemini, the people and the firm, many who have become lifelong friends. I was called up by a recruiter, Oracle was looking for people that had experience of Oracle Applications. This meant getting into the new world of Cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Sep 2003 – Sep 2004 · 1 yr · Lichfield

• I joined Patech an Oracle partner based in the Midlands, to help them set up a commercial practice to run in parallel with their very successful Public Sector focused business. Patech, had carved a niche as the go to for low to mid-market NHS, Local Government and Government business. My role was to foster relationships with Oracle and seek new Oracle Financials business in the private / commercial sector.
• Here began a long and happy relationship with Superdrug, the UK number 2 high street retailer and chemist who transformed their Finance function as part of them “growing up” as a business. We (Patech and I) very soon became trusted advisors. A great learning (even before the challenger sale) that customers want you to be honest. Know what you are good at and know what you are rubbish at and as a business you need to stick with what you know. We provided the implementation to Superdrug, any development work as well as a run option, this contract was worth £500K ($650K).
• One of the roles I played was replicating the old e-Vector business model of providing DBA as a SaaS model, enabling Patech to build a nice annuity business. Superdrug were eager not have to pay for expensive Oracle DBA resource. It was nice, after the challenges at e-Vector to have that business model validated.
• We also provided solutions to the fertiliser manufacturing Kemira Grow How for £250K consultancy and licence and to the Credit Card company egg.com, which was £100K consultancy.
• It was during this happy time that a call came out of the blue to work at Capgemini in their Oracle practice. As with a lot of these calls I wasn’t looking for a new role, but it had always been my ambition to work at a large professional services firm. They were looking for people who had new business experience of working on large transformational Oracle Application deals. The role was up my street.

Mar 2003 – Sep 2003 · 6 mos · London, United Kingdom

• On the liquidation of e-Vector I took a six-month contract at DSP Global. The company to date, had been successful, but the three founders knew that they needed to step up a gear and introduce some process into the sales and marketing department. As well as obvious profit impact, this was to enable the company to move to IBM and Oracle reseller certification.
• In a short time, I implemented a sales and marketing strategy. From a Marketing point of view, it was about creating a mission, a purpose, and values. What did the company stand for and where was it going? The message when I arrived was “we are some great techies and know about Oracle”.
• There were some amazing staff doing innovative things with Oracle, but nobody knew that outside of the business. In fact, neither did the salesforce and they didn’t have stories to make it simple to articulate that message, but to a none technical audience.
• From a sales perspective, I implemented a prospecting culture, a forecasting process that could be replied on and process of value selling. This meant transforming the existing sales force as well as recruiting new sales people and moving from an in-house cold calling team to using an outside agency.
• I also implemented prospecting techniques to get us into new accounts and higher in existing ones. The relationships, to date, were been based on one to one relationships, rather than one too many, placing the accounts at risk, should those people leave.
• During this time it was great to lead and work within an entrepreneurial environment, literally building the plane as we were flying. Money was tight, as always within a start-up we looked to innovative ways in the demand creation process.
• As well as being VP of Sales there was a need to lead from the front and contribute, which meant I sold solutions at Ladbrokes: £120K consultancy; NFU Mutual: £70K consultancy; Harrods: £60K consultancy; Saga: £10K Consultancy.

Dec 2001 – Mar 2003 · 1 yr 3 mos · Bedford

• There couldn’t be a better time to be in a startup, we were in the .com boom after all. As an Oracle reseller, we sold both the Accountancy and Human Resources (HR) products. It was our view that Oracle Applications was complex and that clients needed help with database administration (DBA) services and technical support, which we delivered on a software as a service (SaaS) model.
• If I ever get asked what are my favourite sales are, it is always the ones at e-Vector. Not the biggest, but providing a great service to clients and then taking on people to service them is a great feeling.
• Our burn was £30K ($39K) per month, which was broken down as Cambridge University £10K, Interroute £10K and various other contracts making up the rest of the funds. We were covering costs. We acquired some IP (intellectual property) which gave us an exclusive go to market, (backed by Oracle) to sell Oracle HR to companies under 1,000 employees. This was a massive vote of confidence by Oracle. Then the world changed.
• I was working from home on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 (UK time) somebody circulated an email that there was a rumour that a plane had flown into the World Trade Centre in New York.
• The global economy and our business ground to a halt. One customer paying £10K a month went into administration and another paying £10K a month cancelled. I also found that there was a bigger holes in the Finances of the company.
• My first real start-up and massive learnings for me on how to run a start-up. It’s not all about sales and marketing, it’s critical about who to work with, the governance structure and fiscal control of the business. On the positives, the company had been on the right track, we had clients and a unique selling point. How so often it’s obliquity in business, that defines the direction and not your own objectives or affirmations.

May 2001 – Dec 2001 · 7 mos · St Albans, United Kingdom

• After two years at Sysao I thought it time for a break from the world of Oracle. A startup approached me that had a proposition that bridged the gap between ERP and CRM. It was the .com boom still. It was total new business, we had no brand, no marketing. (All the things I love).
• We needed to get meetings with C-Level executives. We used the methodology written in the book by Anthony Parinello "Selling to VITO the Very Important Top Officer: Get to the Top. Get to the Point. Get to the Sale". Writing this in the internet age, it seems quaint that somebody would write letters. But the methodology is actually applicable in any age, writing letters, emails or content.
• Even today, as back then, we have to realise that people are way too busy to listen to your message and in fact we are all bored with the constant barrage of the same old, same old. People talking about their company, their product and services, as if we care. And we don’t care.
• Selling to VITO provided us with the platform to get through the gatekeeper and then get the attention of C-Level people and then get meetings. In other words, writing for action.
• It was an apprenticeship in writing short, action based content that would be consumed either to get meeting or to progress deals.
• I thought I would give it six months, it became clear this wasn’t going anyway and the Technical Director of Sysao called, he had gone off and set up his own company called e-Vector. We had always talked, should he do this, for me to be Sales and Marketing Director. He had landed his first client and this meant he had funding for employee 2, which would be me. This started my first startup journey.

Feb 1999 – May 2001 · 2 yrs 3 mos · London, United Kingdom

• Joining Sysao as employee number 20 (we grew to over 100 people while I was there) my role was new business sales. The three founders, Andy, Ritchie and Guy also realised they could learn from their staff so when it wasn’t distracting to my day job, I provided advice and guidance to running the business.
• The company was focused on the Oracle Financials, Human Resources (HR) and Payroll solutions. The role was new business which meant prospecting full time for business. One day sitting in the office I got a copy of the Financial Times (FT) newspaper and we started going down the list of companies shouting out which Accountancy system they had. When we got to Stagecoach the Scottish based bus and train company nobody knew what ERP system they used. After I put in a phone call it started a journey which enabled us to put forward a solution to Stagecoach for all their back office requirements. My largest sale to date.
• This was at the time of the .com boom, and we had startups wanting systems to meet their accounting requirements. We built a proposition to provide hardware, software and implementation at a £100K fixed cost. At the time it was groundbreaking. Through my time at Sysao I was instrumental in driving the Oracle relationship, so that Sysao became the number one reseller, Advantage partner, winning numerous awards.
• It was at this time that I realised that I needed to make some changes to my prospecting. Still (as I always have been) in charge of my lead generation. It was this time that I started reading books on marketing as I needed to understand that world. My commute to the office was about and hour and half and this gave plenty of time to read all the sales and marketing books at the time, a habit I formed then and I still practice.
• Sysao was a great time, great people, a chance to work within an innovative start-up and great sales success.

Aug 1995 – Feb 1999 · 3 yrs 6 mos · Belfast, United Kingdom

• With Oracle in a fix that they couldn’t sell solutions direct to the Public Sector and CFM's (now Fujitsu) capability to take on the risk of large scale for projects we became the only choice for Oracle’s Public Sector go to market. CFM was the first company to set up as Oracle reseller and I was headhunted out of Oracle to set up the first Oracle applications partner. It helped to have the VP of Oracle's Public Sectors support, a day rate that met expectations of the UK Public Sector an understanding of UK Public Sector requirements and a strong Oracle Public Sector network.
• I achieved 100% year on year growth, and CFM gained Oracle’s Systems Integrator of the year award in 1998. Within 4 years, I had created a £5 Million a year Oracle practice with 30 new business customers. Each client sold, was also account managed through the implementation being the single point of contact for commercial issues as well as looking for additional upsell opportunities. For example, British Library took a run option after the build.
• The Oracle team in CFM was in reality a start-up and while we had the backing of a big company, so cash flow was not a concern, we did build an Oracle partner business from scratch. We also created our own intellectual property (IP). Debra Lilley was instrumental in creating the first database administration (DBA) service which has been copied many times since then. Key learning for me, was hold to build a startup and how to build a company that is growing at 100% year-on-year.
• All of my career to date had been selling into the Public Sector. I wanted to sell more in the commercial sector, so over a year I handed the Public Sector work over and picked up the commercial sector.
• Thrown in at the deep end (how I like it) we built solutions for project manufacturing companies as well as process manufacturing companies. This was a great introduction into Supply Chain, something that would be a focal point of my life later on.

Apr 1994 – Aug 1995 · 1 yr 4 mos · Bracknel

• Oracle was the first big company I worked for, and while Larry Ellison was CEO, Ray Laine was very much in charge. The battle lines were drawn Oracle against Ingres, Sybase and Informix. And in applications Oracle against SAP and Peoplesoft. History has shown the winners and losers.
• The key thing for me was to bring all my learnings and sell to a total addressable market quickly. The big difference for me personally was the transformation from lone wolf sales to team Selling. The team at Oracle were inspirational, there was a real team spirit. My role was selling into the UK Healthcare market.
• The difficulty I had, was that Oracle wanted me to do was sell licences. The NHS clients, wanted to turnkey solutions; hardware, software and services. While today there is a mature partner network, back then there were no partners.
• I recall a conversation in the restaurant in Oracle Bracknell The Ring (before Thames Valley Park) when somebody from Oracle Consulting Services (OCS) said “nobody will would buy services from anybody other than Oracle”.
• That’s when discussions with an Oracle VP (Stuart Turner) and a number of potential partners started. Many partners thought they could “build it and they would come” situation. They would make no investment in Sales, no investment in Pre-Sales and guess what? They soon fell by the wayside. But CFM the Facilities Management part of ICL (now Fujitsu) based in Belfast was up for it. CFM was the perfect storm, they were supposed to go out and get outsource computers but they already had 4 out of the 5 mainframes in Northern Ireland in their data centre. They also ran Oracle Financials for the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) so were totally skilled up. Compared to the UK mainland, they were also relatively low cost. Their only problem was they needed a new business sales guy, that understood Oracle, the products, the art and science of the price book and had a network in Oracle.

Jan 1992 – Apr 1994 · 2 yrs 3 mos · Stevenage, United Kingdom

• I joined McKeown Software in Stevenage with the responsibility to sell their new Payroll and Personal Software but with development delays I was tasked with selling the accountancy Software. Career objective achieved, I figured there would also be a need for accountancy software sales people and with the approaching Y2K, the market would go through massive transformation and system replacement. I was right.
• My task, at McKeowns was to build and sell to a territory from scratch. I decided to prospect in the NHS as there was significant disruption in that marketplace, through the various political reforms of the day.
• After 6 months of grinding it out, (cold calling, mailshots etc) I signed my first NHS Hospital, then many more signed up. It is a great testament that McKeown’s is still the market leader for accountancy software. The value, and the business transformation we created then, is still relevant today.
• One of the things I taught myself was how to manage a territory. How to work your existing customers and prospects but keep everybody through the funnel interested. I used content (I didn’t know there was such a thing as content marketing at the time) to manage this. An article here, an extract from a white paper there. Today we would call it nurturing, back then I called it “plate Spinning”.
• I often refer back to this, when people ask about posts on LinkedIn or Tweets, all I was doing was sharing articles but sending them out in envelopes with a "with compliments slip". Now, we are able to share insight to clients and prospects, at scale through social media. Little did I know that the methodology I created in the analog world would transform sales teams in the digital world.
• It wasn’t long that my success in the NHS came to the attention of Oracle and they headhunted me as they had started a new applications division and they wanted me to lead the push into the NHS.

Oct 1989 – Dec 1991 · 2 yrs 2 mos · Derby, United Kingdom

• At Arcast (now Midland Software) it was first role in sales. I turned up on the first day and was given a print out and told “call this”. No training on how to cold call. No training on the products.
• So I did, day after day I called people, character building I was told. It was. Talk about finding my “Cold Calling Muscle” day after day. I also read as many sales books as I could. The books didn’t help, something when I came to write my first book I knew I needed to change.
• As this was my first role at sales I had to learn quick; How to manage a territory, how to get the balance between prospecting and closing, how to run meetings to get actions and how to do my own demos.
• It was hard work, losing deals is always hard it toughens you up. Qualify hard, and don’t be afraid to walk away. It was the school of hard knocks. But the joy of winning business, and seeing a business transform was the yin to the losing yang.
• Arcast had problems, the ICL Mainframe market dried up and the new UNIX version was taking too long to bring to market. They had the developers dichotomy, deliver a MVP (minimum viable product) or deliver the perfect product. They decided on the perfect product, delays ensured.
• It was through these delays that I decided to around for a new challenge. Selling accountancy systems in the lead up to Y2K looked a good bet.
• I had lost a deal to McKeown Software but decided to contact them direct. They admitted they had deep respect for me as I had caused them a hard time in the sales process. McKeown's offered me a new sales role.

Aug 1986 – Oct 1989 · 3 yrs 2 mos · Birmingham, United Kingdom

• On leaving university, I joined STC (Standard Telephone Cables) which part of the US Tech conglomerate, ITT.
• STC had just won a contract to put call logging systems on the BT TX4 Telephone Exchanges. My role as commissioning Engineer was to travel the country, with the various wiremen and fitters and manage each project. It took about two weeks to modify each BT telephone exchange for call logging. The role provided the technical training required but I soon had to learn how to manage people. Meet deadlines. Manage suppliers as well as report to management. Each implementation was a micro business within a macro project.
• At the time, ICL (International Computers Ltd) now part of Fujitsu, was the only British Computer Company, was part of STC. They advertised they were looking for graduates.
• On joining STC we were informed that they couldn’t guarantee our jobs for more than six months so I immediately started looking for another job. After a two day assessment centre I was offered a job at ICL and undertook an internal transfer.
• I joined ICL on the Graduate program it was an amazing grounding for my career. They put the Graduate intake on an intensive training course in Windsor, which involved:-
• Presentation skills
• Time Manager, we got a “Time Manager” which was essential in the 80s
• Business skills - We were taught how to read a set of accounts, something I have used many times in my sales career
• Product training
• We were then all allocated to a technical team, mine was the networking team where X25 1984 was the advanced technology of the day. I then got myself allocated to the competitive sales team. After 12 months I decided that competitive selling was my calling. I asked to be moved into a Sales role and was told, ICL won’t have sales people under 27. The question became, do I sit it out and look after mainframe accounts (sounds boring) or do I jump into the world of new business sales with a future in the disruptive world of Unix (sounds exciting!).

Dec 1979 – Aug 1981 · 1 yr 8 mos · Upton Snodsbury

• I got my first job at 14 (yes, under age for the sharp eyed amongst you). It was peeling sprouts for a local pub, The Royal Oak at Upton Snodsbury (correct spelling!)
• We worked out it took an hour to peel a sack, the pay rate for the restaurant was £1 ($1.30) an hour, so I agreed with the restaurant owner would pay me, £1 a sack. He would deliver the sprouts to the family home and pick up a fully peeled sack. That Christmas I spent my time peeling sprouts, 17 sacks in all.
• If this was a CV I guess I should write that, based on my stellar ability to peel sprouts and my reliability, I was asked to start to work at the restaurant washing up. But actually it was because they got let down and I must have seemed like the hard working type. At 14 I started my first job commute to The Royal Oak Pub, which was a 6 mile round trip on my bike.
• Over the 2 years I worked at the Royal Oak, I had a meteoric rise from sprout peeler to washing up to starters to bar snacks. There was once a discussion about me going on and be a chef, but I felt that I might be better suited for Engineering!
• It was though a great place to learn how to work as part of a team and to work under pressure - Saturday night there were two sittings and there were tight deadlines as there was only one set of plates and cutlery! It also meant liaisoning between “departments”, the waitresses (there were no waiters) and the chef and his commi chef.
• But executing wasn’t the only thing, we also knew that there were many “back office” issues - peeling sprouts (potatoes too) as well as the endless cleaning of the fridges, cookers, friers.
• One final super power - in those days the cassette was the low cost way listen to music and it was at the Royal Oak I learnt the words to Bat out of Hell by Meat Loaf! (No pun intended).
• I went from working at the Royal Oak to full time education, my next job would be my Graduate role at what is now Fujitsu.