Dean Forbes became the youngest VP of Sales that Oracle had seen for 29 years, only a few years earlier he was enjoying a football career that reached its peak when he scored a goal in a World Cup qualifier. Now taking a new challenge with KDS and looking to treble sales in 36 months, we were keen to find out more about Dean’s career and his thoughts on selling, being the young guy, charities and scoring goals.
Tell us about your career to date – How did you go from Professional Footballer to Sales Leader?
I played for Northampton Town and Crystal Palace. But when my last contract ended, I toured the country for months on trials without being signed. There came a point financially when I had to get a ‘real job.’ My agent introduced me to a friend of his at Motorola and I took on an IT telesales position. I was good at it, I felt motivated and enjoyed it. I moved from there to become a sales manager with Isis Communications, later acquired by Vodafone.
My big corporate break came with software firm Primavera. After just a few years there, I became vice president and general manager international. I was responsible for a team peaking at 103 people and for revenue everywhere, but the Americas. In three years, we more than doubled revenues. Then in 2008, the company was sold to Oracle. I worked with them for a year integrating Primavera and its partner network into their operations. At 31, I was the youngest vice president at Oracle – a fact I’m very proud of!
But in truth, I like the entrepreneurial spirit and amazing energy of smaller companies! So in early 2010, I jumped at the chance of becoming executive vice president, worldwide sales and marketing with KDS. It’s a SAAS provider of travel and expense solutions. KDS has a great offering, fantastic employees and a great CEO. I love it!
On the football front, things picked up again a few years later. I’ve played semi-professionally at a high level (national conference) and back in 2002 for Guyana in a world cup qualifying game – in which I scored!
How has sport had an impact in your sales career?
For a long time I did not believe there to be any connection between my sporting background and my IT sales career. However, successful sports people never just find a way to win and stick with the formula. They constantly evolve and pursue higher levels of performance; it’s natural to be this way in sports. It’s also rare to find anyone in sport who is happy operating at their current level. If you are playing lower league football you want to play in the premier league. If you play in the premier league you want to play for your country. If you play for your country you want to win the world cup. I observe that the most successful business people also have this narcissistic view of their success. The top sales guy for the quarter wants to be the top for the year. The guy who was top performer last year wants to make it two in a row, etc etc. Successful people are never satisfied and my competitive desire stayed with me from sports into business.
As a younger Sales Leader – do you face any challenges relating to your age – how have you overcome them?
Being young and inexperienced was difficult. When you are 26 and leading a team of 50 and meet with senior people at customers I could often see the disappointment in their faces when I showed up. It was worse in the early days when I assumed I knew everything. I remember meeting with a CIO of one of the world’s largest technology conglomerates and the guy ate me alive. After that experience I made sure that it would never happen again and I invested far more time in preparation and research. I would role play the meeting in its entirety with my team before we went in. We would spend hours discussing every possible objection and scenario that the customer could throw at us and we rehearsed how we would respond. That was an excellent discipline which meant that even when people were surprised by my age, they were soon impressed by my words and actions, and soon forgot how young I was. The other important element was that my team also adopted this high intensity preparation technique. All of our results improved as a result.
You have had a very entrepreneurial style career, how does being entrepreneurial help a sales professional?
Entrepreneurs pursue two things: brilliance and answers. They are never satisfied when they find either. Steve Jobs created the i-phone which now accounts for roughly 40% of Apple’s revenue. A few years ago Apple did not even make a phone! But he didn’t stop there, he then went on and built the i-pad which is one of the fastest selling devices of this generation. Most of us would have enjoyed just the accolades that came with the i-phone, but not that entrepreneur.
I think good sales people think this way. Once you land that first big deal your appetite and focus moves to the deal that you can do that is even bigger - and maybe includes more products or services. Then once you crack that deal you start thinking about the deal you can do with more product and services, and with a new pricing scheme that nets you more revenue. I remember negotiating with a customer who wanted a heavy discount. In the end, without the necessary authority, I agreed to the discount if he agreed to a different licensing type for the software. He agreed. In the end, that customer paid us four times more than I ever anticipated because we changed the model. I am not encouraging renegadism, but sales people have to find answers and be creative.
What do you do differently that separates you from ‘other’ sales professionals/directors?
Customer success is not a punch line to me; it’s all that matters. It’s even more important now that I am operating in a SAAS environment at KDS. I think when you speak to people that have worked with and for me, they will tell you that my focus is on my customers, the ones we have and the ones we would like to have. I make sure that we move mountains to ensure their satisfaction. I tell our customers when they are wrong or unreasonable, but I never try and talk them out of things that they genuinely need, or should expect from us as a provider. I just find ways to deliver them.
Moving forward into 2010, what challenges will you face, and how will you look to overcome them?
At KDS we have exciting growth plans and objectives. We are preparing to treble our business in the next 36 months. In order to accomplish that aggressive goal, we have some plans around geographic expansion, sales force development and some new technology that we are developing for the market. If we execute our plan we will not only solidify our position as the European leader in our category, but we will reshape the way this category behaves. Building and growing companies is something that I am used to. Redefining a space is something new, but incredibly exciting. My number one challenge is keeping the momentum and keeping up with our teams who are coming up with new ideas and initiatives on a daily basis. The most important ingredient in making this journey a success, is people. So getting the best out of the people we have (and will have) is the biggest challenge by far.
You have a key interest in some not-for-profit groups, tell us about them, why are they important, what do they bring to you as an individual, and why should business have a relationship with these organisations?
Through business I have met a lot of people and built up a good set of industry friends, customers and partnerships. In addition there are some causes that I am passionate about like supporting children from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as supporting single parents that are trying to get back out to work. The two groups that I am most interested in cover these dynamics. The ASPIRE football foundation supports young sports people in south east London in their sport and educational aspirations. As well as providing vocational support the kids get excellent football coaching and many have gone on to enjoy professional football careers at the highest level.
The Andrielle Foundation (still under formulation) provides 1:1 support for single mothers in south east London who want to get back out to work. The services range from childcare to in-home mentoring to help prepare mothers for their return to work. The impact both of these organisations have on ‘real lives’ is simply incredible.
How big would a deal have to be, to rival scoring a goal?
Size is not important, the importance of the goal is what is important. When I scored for Guyana it was the winning goal, in Georgetown (the Guyanese capital) in front of 22,000 people and 3 generations of my family, in a world cup qualifier. It will take some beating!