John Cook, head of sales & marketing at Fracino, Britain’s biggest manufacturer of espresso machines, on how he moved from buying biscuits to supplying baristas across the world.
1. What was the first thing you sold?
Sweets and marbles at school. I found I was quite good at playground bargaining and selling things for other pupils’ tuck money. My first real sales were cigarettes and sweets. I was working for Trebor Sharps, which had a wholesale business supplying corner shops with sweets but also cigarettes.
2. Did you intend to go into sales when you started your career?
I started on the other side of the fence, in purchasing. I’ve never had any formal training in sales – it’s something that I’ve picked up as I’ve gone along. From there I went into selling cigarette vending machines into clubs, pubs and restaurants with a partner– it was a very profitable, cash business - and it was again only a small step to selling coffee for vending and filter coffee machines.
3. What’s the single most important quality you need to succeed as a salesman?
Confidence – in yourself and in your product. You really have to believe in what you’re selling and also believe that it is good for the customer.
4. What is the one thing you would love to sell?
Bottled air. It costs nothing but I could make a fortune selling mountain air for its freshness. If this sounds daft remember there’s a whole industry built on selling water, which is free, for its health qualities.
5. What is the last thing you’d want to sell?
Oil to the Arabs. One of the most important things about selling is spotting and fulfilling a customer need, and this is one need Middle Eastern countries don’t have.
6. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Don't ever, ever lie about your products: if you ever make up stories about what you’re trying to sell you will eventually be found out.
7. What advice would you give to someone following in your footsteps?
Get to know your products really well technically. Learn how the products are designed and put together. As a salesperson, you are asked all sorts of questions and as the ambassador for your company, you have to know the answers immediately if you’re to have any credibility.
8. What did you buy with your first bonus?
I put it into a pension fund.
9. Who do you most admire in your industry?
The first is Count Victor Lustig – the man who ‘sold’ the Eiffel Tower in a scam by persuading buyers that it was too expensive to repair and maintain. The other is Luigi Bezerra, the Milanese inventor of the Espresso Machine: if there’s one thing I’ve learned to appreciate it’s the importance of well-made coffee.
10. How would you sell ice to an Eskimo?
I’d colour it: Eskimos must get fairly tired of looking at white ice.
11. How important is image for a salesperson?
I don’t think that it is that important any more. For some sectors you do not need to dress smartly - a lot of people I deal with no longer bother with suits but dress casually in jeans. It’s more important to dress in way that your customer feels comfortable with.
12. What is the single most important skill you need to close a sale?
Increasingly it’s about being a trusted adviser rather than an old-fashioned hard-sell salesman. The way to close is to show the benefits and help customers understand how they can get the best out of a product: I can tell people how to make great coffee and improve their business. There are too many who just think it’s just a matter of adding ground beans to water, and they produce something with no real taste, it’s just bitter.
13. Has anything ever gone wrong, that in hindsight, has worked out well for you?
Not really.
14. What’s been your biggest success?
Being married for 38 years: it’s a really important to have a partner who supports you and who understands when you phone up saying “I’m going to be home late.”
15. If you were to pack up your desk and leave today, what would you like to be known for?
Helping take Fracino from a British-based business to an international brand. We export about one-fifth of our turnover to places as far apart as Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore, North America and all over Europe - apart from Italy!
16. How has sales changed from when you started out?
Online has given the consumer incredible power both to choose products and to find out as many details as they want about it.
17. What are the current challenges facing your industry?
Taking the culture of coffee from the street to the home. Quality coffee is now an accepted part of daily life outside of the home – we need to start bringing it into the kitchen as well.
18. How has the digital age changed sales?
For us, it’s providing a new route to market. We’ve developed a machine that’s designed to be used in homes – a beautiful thing that will take pride of place in the kitchen - and the Internet allows us to sell directly to the consumer and without having to go through the chain stores, which is a huge bonus.
19. What will never change?
People drinking coffee, and Fracino staying in the UK. We need to stay here because what separates us from the competition is the quality and engineering of our products, and we can only assure that if we keep production here in the UK.
20. Who is the best salesman ever, real or fictional?
Henry Ford: he not only revolutionised how the car was made but how it was sold. He turned it from a thing that only the rich could afford to a product that could be sold to everybody, and changed transport around the world.
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