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December 2002
Patricia Gardner is the President of Maximum Sales, Inc., a company she founded in 2002. She came to Kelleher Associates on her own in late 2001, after the "dot-com" company she was working with closed their U.S. operations following the events of September 11, 2001. Pat started her career in sales management and sales training at Xerox Corporation in the early 1970s, and has an extensive background in sales, and IT consulting. We spoke with Pat in late January 2003, as she was putting the finishing touches on her first book, How to Close a Million-Dollar Deal in Two Sales Calls, which will be published in June 2003.
KAI: How long were you with Xerox?
Pat: I spent 22 years with Xerox. I started with them in 1973, right out of college, and was one of the first female sales managers in the company. I worked out of Philadelphia, spent a few years in Toronto, and then in 1987 they brought me back to the Philadelphia area to work with the State of New Jersey on a specific project. I was a National Account Manager, and handled a number of major accounts, including Honeywell, Transamerica, and Sears. I left Xerox in 1995 and dove headfirst into Information Technology (IT).
KAI: Why did you make the move from sales with Xerox to the IT industry?
Pat: At that time, the IT industry was a tsunami, and I thought it was time to wax up my surfboard. After 22 years with Xerox, it was now or never. I joined a small systems integration company in Piscataway, New Jersey, and I was the sales manager. At some point, I interviewed for a new position with a company called Answerthink, Inc., and not only did I get a job with them, but I got them to buy my old company. I stayed with Answerthink for three-and-a-half years, was their director of business development and e-commerce solutions. I set up their sales force, and trained the staff, and closed a few million-dollar consulting projects during that time. I was recruited by a software company, SeraNova (Edison, NJ) and worked with them for about nine months as their director of e-commerce, until they were sold to another company. Then, I had the opportunity to set up the U.S. sales operations for a British software company, Smartlogik, beginning in October 2000 as their vice president of global accounts. At Smartlogik I was able to use my business development background, and sales management skills, to build a company from the ground up. We created a sales force, worked with the technical staff, and developed small tactical groups to close large deals. They had a terrific knowledge management software product that had strong competition, but it was a wonderful time for me. Unfortunately, not long after 9/11/01, the company decided to close its operations in the United States, and I decided it was time to work for a company that would survive for a while.
KAI: You wanted to work at a company that would survive - how did that evolve into starting your own company?
Pat: A former client of mine who had just been laid off at Unisys invited me to lunch, and we got together to network, keep up morale, and the like. He told me about ExecuNet meetings he was going to, so I joined up. I decided I wanted to meet the President of the company that sponsored the meetings - Kelleher Associates - so I put on my old sales hat. I called Ed Kelleher to request a meeting, and he said, "sure!" Later I met many supportive people like Mitch Wienick, and Al Kramer, at Kelleher Associates' weekly internal meetings, and at the ExecuNet meetings.
KAI: In most cases, clients come to Kelleher Associates as part of a company-sponsored outplacement program. Why did you decide to work with Kelleher Associates on your own?
Pat: When I met Ed Kelleher, I found him to be very knowledgeable, and very personable. He really scrutinized my background when we met, and was forthright in telling me, "you know what you can do, but do you know what you want to do?" As we talked, he made me realize that there was more to my career than doing what I've always done versus what I dreamed of doing. During the "dot-com" era, they waved a lot of money at people, and people jumped at it, including me. When the bubble burst, I was shocked - I hadn't been unemployed since 1973. The phone wasn't ringing. Month after month went by, and I decided it was time to get a third party opinion of what to do with my career. Ed became my mentor. He met with me, and talked to me about my entire background. He had me take the Myers-Briggs test, and talked to me at length about the strengths it revealed. Ed then totally dissected and reconstructed my resume. He showed me how to give it much more impact and make it memorable. He knows what questions to ask of you, and helps you look for "generic" strengths that can build your resume to take you in any direction you chose to move toward.
KAI: What did you learn in the process?
Pat: Ed and the team at Kelleher Associates helped me focus on my leadership skills, my strategic business planning experience, and my tenure in building and developing successful sales teams. Ed explained to me that when people look at a resume, they generally look at it for 10 to 20 seconds before deciding whether or not to read on, and the need to get their interest immediately. Things that I felt were unimportant, such as the fact that I'm a pilot, Ed told me to leave in, while things that I thought were of interest, he suggested I take out. It was important to me to have my resume re-designed and re-sculpted from the ground up - it reshapes what you think about yourself, and builds you up. It was a very positive experience.
I also learned from Ed the importance of having a very good 60-second commercial about yourself, and how you need to craft your message for each and every opportunity. I realized after a few weeks their approach is both tactically and strategically sound. The process I went through with Kelleher Associates made me realize I had 29 years of sales management, sales training and IT consulting experience and it made sense to start my own consulting business. I started consulting on a small scale while I was looking for a job elsewhere, but eventually decided it was time to make it a full-time career. I started to teach seminars at the Small Business Development Center of the Fox School of Business at Temple University, and a number of companies started to come to me as a result of those seminars and hired me as a sales consultant. Not long after that my business just took off. I owe a lot to Ed, Mitch, Al, and all of the wonderful professionals at Kelleher Associates who supported me.
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