Preface: Klaus Leutbecher and I met in the early 90’s when I was at Keithley Instruments. At the time, he was running sales and Germany, later ran sales in EMEA.
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling”
Let’s start with a disclaimer. Throughout all my professional life it never felt like “selling” or “following a career plan”. Please let me explain with some anecdotes.
I started off with an electrical engineering degree working for a German manufacturer of electromechanical/electronic sub-systems, e.g. tuner/remote controls for TV-sets. In 1978, very early in my work life and only because I spoke some English, I flew together with an
experienced development engineer to a TV manufacturer near Rome (Italy). We managed getting through customs with incomplete documents for our huge modified TV-set in a used card-board box. Met our local agent and negotiated our way into the shut-down customer premises due to strike. We finally succeeded, with all gates shut and nobody to enter the premises, to find some responsible customer contacts for demonstrating our system.
Around 1981, working for National Semiconductors, I was responsible introducing semiconductors into the Europe home appliances market. We had won a big deal for a fully electronic white goods controller with a renown German company. Purchasing was expecting to place the order. Unfortunately the complexity of the hybrid module got out of scope and we couldn’t produce it. So I was visiting the customer with the only goal “don’t get any purchase order”.
Let’s move to 1997 and a meeting in Cleveland with Joe Keithley, then CEO & President of Keithley Instruments. We talked about his visits to Europe and his dissatisfaction with his meetings with local Keithley management. Joe was very eager improving target market/customer sales. In particular he wanted to know how to track our progress. Suggesting, that Joe no longer only visits our offices but meets regularly our customers. Thereby observing directly from the source or progress and shortcomings.
Now, looking from retirement back at my “sales career” here is what I enjoyed most and kept me going: Work all obstacles within my authority. Involve trusted people for mutually beneficial solutions. Start with the customer in mind and keep learning.
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