Title: Sales and business developer for Auckland-based reseller LANscape
Function: Selling Cisco IP telephony to new and existing clients and servicing a base of current Microsoft clients
Description: Largely autonomous role, answerable to managing director
Dosh: Solid basic of $50,000 but on-target earnings of $140,000 and unlimited potential
Six-year-old Auckland reseller LANscape employs 17 staff and provides LAN/WAN implementation and design services, with a core of Microsoft, Cisco and Citrix.
Marketing manager Neil Cartwright is seeking a sales and business developer, who will mainly be concerned with Cisco IP telephony solutions. IT telephony is taking off and LANscape sees this as a “strategic area” for its business. The firm has a background in data networking. The job involves working with Cartwright and reporting directly to the managing director. It is largely autonomous, requiring a high degree of initiative and problem solving skills, Cartwright says. The person will be responsible for driving its Cisco IP telephony by developing new business. Managing a small portfolio of existing Microsoft accounts also forms part of the role.
No formal qualifications are required for the post, just essential sales and business development skills in a technology area. However, they will have to obtain the Cisco IP sales qualification, which requires a web-based exam. The successful candidate will also have to be comfortable with dealing with big projects and senior management, including boards of directors. Cartwright expects the person is presently in a sales business development role already, dealing with “high level” people and “high level solutions” in the technical or telecomms area.
LANscape, he says, is a growing company. The successful candidate can either stay in IP telephony or move up into the broader sales management/business management area.
The salary is performance related, with a “solid” $50,000 to $60,000, but has unlimited potential. “We don’t set a ceiling. If you sell a lot, you can earn a lot,” he says. However, on-target earnings are $140,000.
So why do sales reps get more than the people who create the product?
“If they sell things, they are effectively creating work for everybody. If they are not in demand, no one else is,” Cartwright says.