Keith Stapp Email and Phone Number

I started in sales in the office equipment arena making 50 cold calls daily. This is by far the fastest path to a hard knocks’ education in sales. If you don’t close the deal today, one of your competitors will be banging on the same prospect’s door tomorrow. As the newest member of the team, I had no access to incoming leads. I quickly learned that it’s a numbers game - 35 cold calls led to a close. Aha moment! Within 9 months my pipeline and closures rate prompted my manager to advise me to stop cold calling and just follow up on leads - unheard of in this industry! The phrase – “luck is where hard work meets opportunity” sums up how my path shifted to medical sales. At the insistence of a recruiter who phoned into the office on a day I normally would not have been there, I reluctantly checked out Abbott Laboratories’ websiteAfter a number of successful years with Abbott and a promotion, once again hard work ran into luck. Another recruiter contacted me about Cepheid, an unknown company in the molecular diagnostic space. The Director of Sales at the time? The same person who hired me at Abbott! I joined this exciting rapid growth company whose mission was to democratize the field of molecular diagnostic testing (PCR) that delivered highly accurate results for serious infectious diseases in hours versus days. The organization grew rapidly and in 6 years I climbed from Sales Rep to Manager, to Director, to VP of Sales for North America, studying the likes of Jim Collins, Peter Drucker, and Simon Sinek along the way. Standing on the shoulders of giants, I was fortunate to receive multiple President’s Club awards. During my ascent through the leadership ranks, Cepheid grew to become the dominant player in the industry. Summing up my 12 years at Cepheid - when you have great leadership, a strong work ethic, a dynamic culture, and innovative products in an environment where everyone feels that they are part of something special, it is a powerful model for success. You can’t put a price tag on the education that comes from that type of experience.After Cepheid was acquired by a large conglomerate, an opportunity arose to transition to another start up with great leadership, a dynamic culture, and an innovative product that improves patient care. I jumped at it. As an Area VP of Sales at Magnolia Medical Technologies, I was once again able to have fun building a team and working with great people to penetrate a market with new and innovative technology!Sales Leadership, Medical Device Sales, Area Director, Health Systems, Distribution