Saratoga Sales Consulting Qualifications

Chris and Saratoga Sales Consulting are uniquely qualified to help business leaders achieve their company's sales growth potential. Chris' background is very different from most sales consulting professionals or sales development experts.  Unlike, most sales consulting pros, Chris worked his way up from entry level sales positions to the most senior level sales and marketing roles at mid-size, large, and start up companies. Chris led sales teams, sales and marketing teams and entire companies (large and small) to accelerated sales and profit growth. He understands how his sales consulting clients, the leaders of their companies, think. He gained his expertise restoring companies to sales and profit growth by:

 

1. Starting his career selling marketing services as an account executive to heads of sales and marketing. These were highly consultative sales jobs that helped groom him for his sales consulting position. He sold trade show space for a company that became the world leader for technology events. He later sold lead generation and management campaigns to similar target customers. He was recognized for sales performance with Comdex and won recognition as a Presidential Citation Award winner with Dun & Bradstreet.

2. Leading marketing service sales teams as district sales manager (Presidential Citation Award Winner as DSM) for Dun & Bradstreet, and national sales manager for a startup, TransNational Communications, which achieved the ranking on the 1996  INC 500 as the 12th fastest growing company in the USA. These sales management jobs, which included extensive training from some of the premier sales training organizations, provided a great basis for a sales consulting practice.

3. Turning around and driving sales and profit growth as VP of Sales and Marketing at 2 different companies. Both these companies transformed from declining businesses into growth companies with above market sales and profit increases. He has 13 years P&L management experience. Turnarounds are  a specialty at Saratoga Sales Consulting

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As head of sales, inbound, outbound, direct mail marketing, e-commerce, digital marketing, product management, general management and analytics, he gained the intuitive knowledge necessary for Saratoga Sales Consulting to develop and execute company sales strategies. Chris acquired a similar ROI focused perspective that his CXO clients have by "being one of them" for several years. When he started his sales consulting firm 5 years ago, Chris focused on complementing his experiences by further developing consultative sales expertise and acquiring the certifications necessary for him to help CEO's grow their business faster through more effective:

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1. Sales strategies including P&L management

2. Sales management and recruiting

3. Sales training, coaching and more

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Chris spent 1/2 of his sales career reporting to either company presidents or CEO's. He has more than 15 years of P&L management experience. With this experience, Chris developed a solid understanding about how business leaders think. He realized that many CEO's and presidents do not understand the selling side of business well enough to optimize the company's sales potential. These executives could use his help, so he started Saratoga Sales Consulting in 2014. Chris is well suited to establish chemistry with presidents and CEO's, understand their business requirements, and provide the needed support to achieve faster sales growth for clients. He is heavily ROI focused on all initiatives. His goal is to deliver an effective growth solution for his clients and achieve an ROI 10 times or greater than the cost of his services. 

 

Chris' qualifications as a CEO Sales Coach and Consultant come from the knowledge, experiences, and successes gained during a career as a corporate sales leadership executive for 3 different Fortune 1000 companies, national sales manager for a startup that became the 12th fastest growing company in the US, and the many certifications gained since becoming a consultant. Chris believes in self-improvement and has trained extensively in the areas of sales, marketing, sales recruiting, leadership, and e-commerce. He also recently acquired some useful certifications, which are listed below. 

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1. Sales and Leadership Coach - Southwestern Consulting

2. Sales Talent Acquisition Routine - Objective Management Group

3. Sales Organization Evaluations - Objective Management Group

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He was recruited turnaround a declining business at his most recent corporate job, which lasted 5 years; ending in 2014. In 2009, he made a sales call on behalf of the company he owned and was recruited by the company president, who had been a co-worker at Deluxe Corp. The president created a position for him to become VP of Sales and Marketing and corporate officer for a $100 million direct sales division of a Fortune 1000 company, Taylor Corp. During his 5 plus years of employment, the company experienced a dramatic turnaround by returning to profitability with a $10 million dollar profit improvement in the first full year, while achieving sales targets. In the next year, the business increased profits by double digits and returned to sales growth. The company exceeded sales targets by $2 million in year 3. During the first full year, the company lowered its selling costs as a percentage of sales by 8 percentage points, which was an $8 million improvement. 

 

Prior to that, Chris had general management responsibilities for the wholesales division of New England Business Service, or NEBS. Since NEBS operated its finance, manufacturing, and IT departments on a shared service basis, Chris' job was primarily as head of sales, marketing and customer service. He also had P&L responsibility for this Division, named the DFS Group. The business had been stuck at $16 million for several years. Over the next 7 years, in a declining industry, the company grew organically from $16.5 million to $31.5 million, while channel contribution grew from $3.3 million to $9 million.

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Sales doubled and profit tripled because he and his staff built a sales and marketing team from scratch, opened new sales channels and successfully launched many new products. His new analyst and sales manager built an effective CRM system from scratch with Microsoft software tools, which helped sales growth considerably. After 7 years, Deluxe Corp acquired NEBS and Chris took a job as head of sales support and integration for the $1.2 billion business to business division. He approved a 400 seat Salesforce.com license and assembled a team to support the 400 salespeople. 

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Before that, Chris helped start a business that achieved the #12 ranking on the 1996 INC 500 list of fastest growing companies. As the sixth employee and National Sales Manager of this startup called TransNational Communications, Chris defined the services to be sold, identified target customers, and built a sales team from scratch. He introduced a very early version of a CRM system, which an analyst produced using Filemaker Pro on a MacIntosh Computer. This unique tool helped organize the sales team very effectively. Chris led the sales team in sales performance for the first two years, while managing a staff of 10 or more people. After 2 years, he focused on coaching the existing sales team and helping them succeed as individual contributors.

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Earlier in his career, Chris sold marketing services for Comdex and won the Presidential Citation Award for sales performance as both an account executive and as a District Manager for Dun & Bradstreet. 

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These experiences provided a strong background to become successful in a consulting career focused on helping companies develop and execute sales strategies for life changing, accelerated growth. 

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In 2015, Chris affiliated with Southwestern Consulting. The company certified him as a sales coach and as a leadership coach. Since then, he has coached more than 60 sales reps, sales managers, sales directors, managing partners, presidents, and CEO's. In 2018 he became STAR (sales talent acquisition routine) certified by OMG as an expert to help businesses dramatically improve their successes finding, hiring and onboarding new salespeople. He is certified by OMG to use the #1 ranked sales candidate assessment for clients. He is also certified by OMG to perform salesforce evaluations that can lead to dramatic sales increases.

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Chris helped his clients hire and onboard more than 30 sales personnel in 2018 and many others prior to that year. He is on track to help clients hire and onboard approximately 40 people for 2019.

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Chris would like to speak with any Owner, Managing Partner, CEO or President who could use some helping growing their company faster.

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