Julian Ross, sales director of iknow.co.uk - the UK's largest independent portal for holiday and hospitality accommodation – tells of how he quit academia and accountancy for sales in the tourism trade.
1. What was the first thing you sold?
My services. When I was 12 I canvassed the local area, set up a car cleaning business, and then ran it every weekend for the next two years. I never lost a customer, and it taught me that if you deliver what you promise, customers stay loyal.
2. Did you intend to go into sales when you started your career?
Not at all. I went into accountancy when I was 18, just because I was good at maths. I'd just dropped out of university, and needed a job, so I wouldn't have to tell my parents I wasn't working. A sales job came eight years later.
3. What’s the single most important quality you need to succeed as a salesperson?
Great sales people are excellent communicators, but to succeed in the long-term, you also have to be really resilient.
4. What is the one thing you would love to sell?
I love what I'm selling now, because it's something I believe in. I'm also always a fan of selling something which has a good ROI (return on investment).
5. What is the last thing you’d want to sell?
Gap insurance.
6. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
"Change what you can't accept, and accept what you can't change". My grandma.
7. What advice would you give to someone following in your footsteps?
You must always believe in yourself, and your product.
8. What did you buy with your first bonus?
A silver Toyota MR2 - GT. I still miss it, although I did get ripped off by the salesman.
9. Who do you most admire in your industry?
Without being sycophantic, our managing director Marcus Simmons. Outside our company, it’s Clive Sykes and Peter Durban, who both run successful holiday cottage businesses - Sykes Cottages, and Cumbrian Cottages – they make business decisions based on sound financial sense.
10. How would you sell ice to an Eskimo?
With difficulty. I'd probably try to turn it into an ice sculpture of them, or a member of their family.
11. How important is image for a salesperson?
It depends very largely on the industry, and the geographic area you are in. Our image is of a company, not a group of individuals, because we don't recruit egos.
12. What is the single most important skill you need to close a sale?
Without a doubt, it is all about belief and credibility.
13. Has anything ever gone wrong, that in hindsight, has worked out well for you?
Walking out of university, spending eight years as an accountant - before finding it boring - then just turning round and falling into sales.
14. What’s been your biggest success?
Building a successful sales team, from scratch, exclusively from graduates who had no sales experience. Celsius, our recruitment partner, has done very well for us, they've found 18 people, and several have already become excellent sales managers. We've got a very wide range of degree subjects, several did psychology, but my best one did history.
15. If you were to pack up your desk and leave today, what would you like to be known for?
I'd be very proud of going from having 750 customers 30 months ago, to 5,500 now, and with the same renewal rate.
16. How has sales changed from when you started out?
We are hugely focused on ROI, which wasn't the case 11 years ago. Decisions are usually made on financial criteria, rather than emotional. It isn't down to the tougher economic climate, that's just a convenient coincidence.
17. What are the current challenges facing your industry?
The biggest challenge for us, at the moment, is trying to persuade people of the value of a UK holiday. Our numbers are up 30% from 2009, so I think we're getting the message over.
18. How has the digital age changed sales?
Hugely, starting with its impact as a resource. Research is now so much easier. People used to haggle, but they didn't really know what the starting point was. Now, everyone is so much better armed - and better informed - when they are going into any purchasing decision.
19. What will never change?
The ability to build a rapport with a customer. If you are ethical, and coherent in your approach, then eventually the only differentiator is the ability to make people like you.
20. Who is the best salesman ever, real or fictional?
Simon Cowell. He has manipulated half of the population, and managed to reshape the music industry, at the same time, making himself very wealthy.
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