Sales

From October 1988 until March 1991, I was a permanent employee. Firstly, at British Aerospace, then at Guardian Royal Exchange, and then for a small software house in Preston, who promptly made me redundant when the project I was working on at VSEL in Barrow came to an end. 

This was, unfortunately, coincident with Charlie being born. I needed a job! But the employment process into permanent roles was too slow, so I went contracting. It was, as you can imagine, a tense time but, actually, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me and I spent the next thirteen years moving from company to company, changing my role over time until by 2004, I felt I'd covered all of the major ones: developer, systems analyst, business analyst, test manager, project manager, and, finally, just an all round trouble shooter; someone who could see a floundering project home. 

Looking back on it from here, I can see that it was a successful little career and consequently I can also see why I was daft enough to think I could start my own IT company: stop tidying up other people's messes and get it right first time, I thought. Let's pause and wait for my near hysterical hollow laughter to subside. 

Well, it did all come good in the end, thankfully, but the first few years were a steep and painful learning curve. At one point during that time, as I scrabbled around trying to understand what I was doing wrong so that I could put it right, I embarked on an ISO 9000 accreditation. I was helped through the process by a nice chap called Derek.

At one point, as we documented all our procedures, we came to the topic of sales. I admitted that we didn't really have a sales function as such. I did a bit of networking but, sadly, apart from that we relied on the phone ringing. Eventually, Derek and I came to the conclusion that I was the sales function, as far as it went, which was not very far, to be honest. 

Our fortunes began to change around 2008 and by 2010 we were going from strength to strength, although anyone who runs a small business will know that it never actually becomes easy. We had enough work coming in and the ISO 9000 accreditation was never completed. The issue of the missing sales function never went away but I did come to realise that it was a problem that couldn't be fixed for us (although we have tried and tried).

Over the last year, though, we have launched a product and found a cracking little marketing company that has been instrumental in helping us to take it to market. Suddenly, I am a sales function! I go and see people and show off my wares!

Today I was at yet another exhibition. A summit, in fact. So despite the fact it was sunny outside, I spent the day indoors. When the show had finished, I packed away the stand and the leftover merch, and then the Minx picked me up.

Here's my photo for today, taken as we drove west out of London. The General Electric building (I'm guessing from the logo).

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No scales
Reading: 'How Art Made Pop And Pop Became Art'