Nigel began his sales career in the early 1980s, selling cameras in both the UK and Australia.  In 1984 he moved from retail into B2B sales, working for a photocopier and fax company, claiming the most lucrative of sales ‘patches’ in Mayfair.  Here, Nigel knocked on doors in the wind, rain and snow; he also spent many hours making the telephone calls to win new business. 

In 1987, after a very successful technology-sales career, Nigel started his first business with a colleague, selling anything that went into an office – desks, chairs, cabling, partitioning, phone systems etc.  In his own words, “if it moved, we sold it”. 

In 1993, for the first time Nigel was ‘flying solo’ concentrating on selling telephone systems to both SMEs and corporates. Although the business was successful, shortly after the commencement of the business, Nigel experienced a devastating personal tragedy regarding his four year old daughter.

In 1994, Nigel won his largest deal to supply, install and maintain the phone systems for a public sector organisation; he single-handedly managed the account for all their offices around the UK, 34 in total.  Accounts varied from large food producers to legal firms in The City.  He was also one of the first telecoms’ resellers to have a website, which attracted a great deal of interest from the industry’s press at the time.

It was Nigel’s approach to the business of selling, however that made him stand out from the crowd and helped him to become Dealer of the Year two years running with a major telecoms’ distributor.  As the only salesperson in the company this was a remarkable achievement.  

Nigel’s approach was to systemise both the sales and installation process.  On the sales side he produced detailed information for prospects, which gave his future customers all the information they needed to make the process of buying easy.  Pre-installation, each system was pre-configured before being delivered to site (photo); staff were fully trained at his offices, and post-installation the customer received full and comprehensive site documentation and system configuration. 

The documentation was second-to-none in the telecoms industry with even the large manufacturers implementing his methodology.  But Nigel believed that this attention detail was essential if the client was going to be happy – and if he was going to be paid on-time and in-full every time.

However, Nigel went a step further than most salespeople; he ensured that he fully understood how each system he recommended was installed and configured.  This meant he could answer any question from the customer or the installing engineers and, by having all the information at his fingertips, he was able to provide clear and honest answers no matter what the question. 

Not satisfied with producing some of the best documentation in the telecoms industry – and being paid handsomely for it, Nigel believed the customer should now be empowered by having access to equipment without the need for salespeople. 

Having always been ahead of the curve when it came to adopting new ways of working, in the early 2000s Nigel launched one of the first e-commerce sites for telecoms offering not just simple handsets, but the ability for prospects to configure and purchase phone systems on-line.

After years of developing his business and providing consultancy for technology solutions, in 2009, Nigel moved into marketing full time and continued his quest to identify the ultimate method of blending technology to achieve an ideal return on investment. 

He had always believed that the chore of telesales was not the most productive way to reach new prospects and build relationships with them.  No matter how many calls were made each day, the returns were small.  There had to be a better way to communicate with more prospects, more consistently and with a wider reach.

Nigel learned all he could about marketing– what worked and what didn’t - and how to make it better.  His library filled with books on content writing, website building, graphic design and building a loyal following.  By applying the same rationale to marketing as he had done to selling phone systems, i.e. to systemise the processes and keep on improving on them, Nigel now helps companies transform their marketing and ultimately their businesses.

He has worked with numerous companies in sectors as diverse as personal wealth management, car insurance and hospitality.  One of his earliest successes was a start-up SaaS lending platform for SMEs.  Nigel created and executed the marketing strategy, winning a £3m deal within the first 10 weeks of trading.

He also found the time to write, edit and self-publish his book “Integrate”, which can be found on Amazon.  Drawing upon his knowledge of the telecoms industry, and Nigel’s skill at creating business and marketing strategies, the book is a guide for business owners to re-think their investment in technology and to focus on the ROI (Return on Investment) rather than the cost of ownership.  The book will soon have a second edition, which will place its emphasis on Digital Transformation and how all businesses, regardless of the industry sector, will need to embrace technology to enhance customer experience and grow revenue.

Throughout his career, Nigel has always been of the view that, in order to provide the best possible advice, that advice must be founded on authentic and genuine experience; the consultant has to be able demonstrate a personal knowledge of the technology and processes used to be able to create the best strategy. 

With that end, Nigel has spent considerable time learning how to build and manage websites; he is adept at setting up marketing automation platforms and has a full working knowledge of the full Adobe suite - Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition and Photoshop.  He has filmed and produced all the videos, adverts and podcasts for salesXchange and its customers. 

He has come full circle from his days of selling cameras – now he is using these tools to help businesses promote their products and services across all media. By fully understanding how each piece fits together and, from his firm foundation of sales, Nigel is now able to offer a full-service consultancy and agency.  All that you see on the salesXchange website, from the graphics, to the text, to the video and podcast production has been done almost exclusively by Nigel himself. 

He fully understands and appreciates not only what it takes to run a successful business, but how to engineer the component parts that enable you to market your company now and in the future. 

Sales

• He has sold ‘at scale’ by systemising the sales process
• He has a personal, unique insight into selling
• He can look at a sales problem and can identify how to solve it, because he has sold direct and at high value
• He has a complete and thorough understand of sales, therefore he knows how crucial it is for the marketing to lead to sales

Marketing

• He has created an ‘Open-Source’ Marketing Consultancy – Showing you what needs to be done and illustrated on his website
• He knows that marketing is divided between Strategy and Execution
  • Strategy -> he’s had a high level of success working for himself and others, working from the ground up to develop the right strategy to generate new business
  • Execution -> he’s had a high level of success working from the ground up in the execution of marketing tactics, such as video, podcasts, articles etc
• His business insight lead him to marketing and taking a different approach, because marketing is more than just a logo or a nicely produced brochure
• He’s identified why sales and marketing don’t work together
• He has systemised marketing from sX Social 334 to sX Syndicates
• He has articulated why CMOs keep getting fired every eighteen months; See 2020 Report
• His focus is on Product Marketing (the company positioning)
• Because he always knew and has focused on a better way of doing marketing
• He believes marketing must be something you can replicate so that results can be achieved consistently
• Because he believes it is possible to be monumentally successful if you do what he says
• He knows it’s going to take some time to increase your new business doing it his way, so encourages you to keep doing it your way until the change comes
• Because it is rare you will find another person who has anywhere near the experience in technology sales and marketing

Analysis

• He has reverse-engineered execution, i.e. he knows how to do the execution and therefore can identify your business infrastructure (what it needs to be/is in order to execute it yourself) and what you need to do to win business using the media available, e.g. video, podcast etc. Take a look at the salesXchange website which shows his commitment to producing the content – He practises what he preaches
• He understands from the buyer’s perspective, and understands the bell curve of the market, from those who will buy from us; those that will do it themselves; and those that will never change what they do to embrace digital
• He can sight-read your business
• He knows how to make the numbers game work in your favour

Business Process

• He knows how a business needs to operate to be successful
• He knows how to reduce your costs and increase profitability
• He knows how to re-structure your business to achieve success within this new business environment
• Having sold and implemented that same technology into his own business, he knows how to get an ROI from integrated systems.
• He has first-hand experience in business automation from marketing platforms to sales and CRM, ABM
• He can make a wholesale change on your new-business-generation structure
• He can articulate what needs to be done, and in what order
• He understands “Digital Transformation’ – getting the internal and external customers working together with the least amount of friction

Attitude

• He has done his “10,000 hours”. If you do the work yourself, you too will need to do the 10,000 hours
• He has always been an early adopter of technology and how it can be implemented into business to make money
• He believes that you could do this yourself, so has given you the tools to do it, but knows that you would rather concentrate on what you’re good at and let him do what he’s good at
• Because you know how long it would take you to learn what he knows
• Because we have the system you could use in your business right now

Management

• He can instruct people well and can’t be outflanked, because he knows from personal experience how long things take
• He’s not afraid of technology, or finding out how to do something, and is willing and able to find solutions – resourceful
• He can help you identify who can be reskilled and upskilled; what your resources are and how you can better deploy them to make your business stronger
• He can get you positioned OR re-position you in your market
• He has first-hand experience of project managing multiple people and disciplines to succeed on time.

Personal

• He is honest, authentic, transparent and truthful
• He creates a pattern for success
• He wants to make you a ‘leader’ rather than an ‘also ran’
• He sees things other people don’t – and he writes about them and talks about them before anyone else
• He wants to share his knowledge and expertise with you
• He is funnel-focused, rather than ‘tunnel-focused’
• He encourages companies to do it for themselves
• He wrote and self-published a 265 page book about obtaining an ROI from technology, available on Amazon and salesXchange.co.uk
• He is decisive when it comes to identifying the problem, finding the solution and executing it
• He has business acumen – he has started businesses for himself, has developed businesses for the others, and has worked with other’s start-ups to grow and develop the business
• He refuses to accept that the status quo can’t be changed
• He is a born-again Christian and runs another website called The Standard.org.uk - where he helps, advises and mentors business owners