The national sales director at Royal Mail has won sales & marketing director of the year at the 2010 British Excellence in Sales & Marketing Awards. Graham Davis has worked at Royal Mail for 32 years and has worked in various positions. As sales director, he has 320 in-house sales people and 100 agency-based sales people working under him – the second largest sales force in the country. His sales force focuses on selling distribution and media services. He talks with Salestarget.co.uk about being at the top of his career, the challenges of growing a sales force and his 'to be' list.
Q, Why do you think BESMA recognised you for the award?
A. One of the things I've done at Royal Mail in the last two or three years is help change the focus from one that was purely on our large customers to one that is focused on our small business. And in particular, the sales force has changed from a numbers-based sales force to a much more entrepreneurial sales force that have set metrics but are coached into delivering those metrics in any way that they see fit.
Q. What do you look for when hiring?
A. Professionalism. Resilience. Being able to work on your own initiative. I think the days of sales people being fed high-quality sales leads and managed in that tight way in which we used to manage sales people are gone. We need people who can think for themselves, act for themselves and be entrepreneurial.
Q. What can a candidate do to impress you?
A. Show how they have overcome adversity, whether that be in life or in business. What I don't want are finely-tuned sales people who the first time they get a knock, the wheels come off.
When you get up in the morning, it's not about getting a 'to-do' list. It's getting a 'to-be' list. So, it's what do I want to be today? How do I want to be with my customers? How do I want to be with colleagues?
Q. How did it feel to get the job of national sales manager?
A. Last year we decided that we were going to have one sales director for the whole Royal Mail and I was appointed to that job. It felt great. Before that we had regional sales directors, but to get the ultimate job in sales for me .... It's a huge sales force, and to be sales director of the second biggest sales force in the country feels pretty good, actually. I'm at the top of my career.
Q. What do you like most about your job?
A. The people. Achieving results, smashing targets. Engaging people across the company and encouraging them to do things they never thought possible – and not just within sales, but within the wider Royal Mail. If you go back three or four years, there was the convention that small business was never going to deliver real growth to our company. I challenged that. We challenged that. We tried different things. And last year, just with small businesses we did over £100 million turnover. And that's helping small businesses grow. It's helping them get more customers, helping them keep their customers. It's helping them fulfil their products and services through our fulfilment products. It's rewarding to see something that has gone from £3 million pounds to £102 million pounds.
Q. What's the biggest challenge in your position?
A. I think the biggest challenge has been to grow the sales force in an environment where we are counting every penny and investing every penny we can in modernising Royal Mail. So I think that is the challenge. The second challenge is people. We came from a background of a monopoly where we didn't really need to sell and we've had to change our people. Some have left us. Some of the ways we've changed them is through training and development – through the Winning Minds programme that we run. And we've really got people believe in what they are capable of. The challenge is getting people to understand the value of sales and not see sales as a cost base but seeing it as the growth engine of any company.
Q. It sounds like you don't want your sales people to get too comfortable.
A. I don't really want them to be comfortable. I want them to be confident. So I set them new challenges, get them confident at achieving those new challenges. The bar is consistently getting higher and higher and higher.
Q. What advice do you give to new sales people?
A. Be prepared to work hard. Be prepared to play hard. Be prepared to be challenged, to have to rise to those challenges. Be prepared to be responsible for your own development but know you will be coached and encouraged and supported probably in a way that you have never been coached and encouraged and supported before. And don't be scared to fail.
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