Gary Monro Email & Phone Number

Grantham, Gb

London, United Kingdom

My own small agency for firms in the construction - and related - industries. To sell effectively, reliably and consistently these three elements must be properly in place:[Selling]A selling process that is carefully thought out, planned and documented works substantially better than one that is ad hoc, inconsistent - and dependent for its effectiveness on whoever happens to be doing it at the time. Having some 'sales people' often actually means you're 'order processing' - not selling. Proper sales methods created specifically for your industry and performed consistently over time sells more product. It's that simple.[Sales Writing]Your website is one of your most vital sales people and yet... there's a good chance the words on it were written by the business owner or the firm who did your web design. None of these people are sales copywriters. There are tried and tested ways to write a website that builds credibility and trust in the minds of a potential customer - and subtly persuades them to make a positive buying move in your direction.Until you have this in place you have a website that reads just like everyone else's, that misses every opportunity to convey quality and trust in a careful but compelling way - and which is, therefore, almost literally turning away potential customers. [Marketing]Simple marketing activities, performed with average ability but carried out consistently, earn you customers. There are some powerful marketing fixes that, once put in place, will work for you day-in, day-out forever. If you're posting the occasional LinkedIn update or a couple of photos on Facebook now and again you're depriving yourself of some of the gold that's out there waiting to be scooped up.......You can get these three elements right for your firm; and when you do the difference is makes to your revenues can be startling. For an informal chat - and no hard sell! - message me now and let's discuss some possibilities for you

London, United Kingdom

Initially recruited in sales I took on the marketing function for this firm and created a range of marketing materials. The most important were industry-specific brochures, a variety of flyers that promoted specific services, several press ads and a number of LinkedIn posts showing our company at work. I also created a very important email sequence designed to keep our name in the minds of potential customers so that when they were ready to buy they thought of us first. I created a full slide presentation telling the Emerson story and showing how the various areas of Emerson's activity added up to a fantastic service offering to our customers. Crane hire is pretty much a commodity (lots of suppliers, no easy way - other than price - to tell them apart). So the challenge here is to present Emerson in a way that differentiated them from all the rest to make them the preferred choice.I also used careful but powerful copywriting approaches to write two successful project tenders - an unheard of 100% success rate.

London, United Kingdom

ReferralHub is an automated facility that makes it easy for your customers to refer your services to people they know.As a self-employed salesman for this new service my primary tasks were to cold-call potential customers, help them appreciate the ways in which the service could increase their revenues and to close sales. I created ReferralHub's first marketing collateral - a series of advisory flyers to help potential clients understand how the service would work for them.

London, United Kingdom

KashFlow provides a ‘sales as a service’ (or SaaS) accounting tool for use by accountants and their clients. This online (or cloud) software makes it easy for accountants and their clients to collaborate as they each have immediate, real-time access to the client’s accounting data. Although many of our clients came from in-bound calls I separately cold-called larger accounting practices in order to determine the fit for our software and to demonstrate how it could be a key supporting tool for the practice’s own business aims and aspirations. The point here was to establish our software’s value in the minds of the practice’s key decision-makers so that it became the software of choice in certain conditions. I created a number of business relationships that I am very proud of - not least of all because they were obtained in the face of energetic competition. I also conducted real-time presentations of the software - in person and by telephone - partly to help the prospect become comfortable with it but also to demonstrate how it would help them solve real-life problems. It quickly became apparent that different clients liked the software for different - and unrelated - reasons. I developed specific scripts and approaches for these different customer types in order that I could speak and present to them in terms that resonated strongly with their priorities. This helped make the idea of employing our software an especially compelling prospect for a number of clients.

London, United Kingdom

I sold energy (gas and electricity) and related products - loft insulation, cavity wall insulation plus energy-saving gadgets - to residential customers. I cold-called prospective clients, opened the conversation, presented the benefits of the deal and closed the deal within that initial visit.This job was physically and mentally tough; I would be on my feet for 8 hours a day and customers were sceptical and often brusque. Energy is regarded as a commodity by customers yet saving money was not, on its own, always sufficient to convince people to switch provider.The key was to create a strong first impression and then build credibility for the overall proposal. Time was a critical factor in these deals and although I did not use a 'hustling' or any other aggressive sales approach potential customers could not be allowed to 'think about it'. Each presentation to a prospective client needed to have a momentum of its own so that s/he agreed to make the switch at the point they decided the deal was a good one. I achieved the highest sales level - Platinum - in 5 of my last 6 months in this job and was in the top three (of thirty) salesmen for those months. I had the first or second lowest cancellation rate almost every month that I worked for British Gas.

Ilford, Redbridge

Elected councillor for the London Borough of Redbridge serving on Adult Social Services, and Licensing Committees.May 2009: promoted to Cabinet Member for Children's Services (education, youth services and social services). This single portfolio is larger than the rest of the council combined. It has specific responsibilities for safeguarding children, providing school places, overseeing budgets/priorities, reconciling competing pressures, dealing with the press.Resident representative, assisting people with issues, problems or queries related to council services or functions.As a member of a political party I resurrected the more-dead-than-alive Ilford South constituency, helping factions overcome differences so that we could operate as a cohesive unit. I formed small teams with simple campaigning processes that were easily followed and acted as campaign manager and election agent during elections and by-elections. I wrote and produced significant amounts of campaign literature, co-ordinated campaigning activity, carried out hundreds of hours of door-to-door canvassing and ensured legal requirements were met during campaigns.

Worked on BT's Oracle Financials installation, creating new - or customising existing - Oracle Forms and Reports, writing programmes in PL/SQL, creating solution design, direct liaison with clients, writing of technical and non-technical documentation.This role involved equal amounts of self-management and prioritising of tasks on the one hand with collaboration and team working - particularly with testing colleagues but also with the end-client - on the other. I became an acknowledged expert with Oracle Forms and also wrote documentation that made sense to both technical and non-technical managers.