Super Mayo trainer Anne Conlon knows all about sales

MAYO-based sales trainer Anne Conlon lives by the Chinese proverb: ‘Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Include me and I will understand’, writes TOM GILLESPIE.

Her company, allaboutsales, is devoted to sales training and mentoring and she has vast experience in tele-sales, field sales, retail sales as well as confidence building for staff.

Originally from Louth, she came to Castlebar in 1996 for one month to set up The Value Centre cash and carry at the Cathal Duffy roundabout.

She took up the story: "I moved here for one month to recruit, train and set up the business and go back because I was managing a cash and carry in Carrickmacross.

"After four months they did not get a manager, they approached me and I said I might as well stay. I was 22 when I got my first manager’s job. It was a £3.5 million business and it was non-profitable, and I turned it round within a year and added a half million in sales. So that was why they asked me to come to Castlebar.

"I brought the Castlebar cash and carry from zero to £3 million in four years. Then they integrated Castlebar and Ballina and I moved to Corporate Express Ireland as an account manager. I went back to study a coaching course to be a qualified coach."

Anne continued: "I got a call from Independent News and Media saying they wanted to meet me. The approached me three times to take a job and the third time I took it. I was a sales manager for them for two-and-a-half years and then I went out on my own.

"What really happened was I was in a really bad car accident and I had to leave my job and it came around the recession time as well."

Anne decided to go back to college and she set up allaboutsales as the same time. She studied for seven years and did an honours degree in training and education and a masters in adult learning and development.

She continued: "I am nine years in allaboutsales. The name came from a song by Billy Joel, ‘All About Soul'.

"Then I found a fridge magnet in New York one day. It fell on the floor beside me and it posed the question: ‘What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?’ I didn’t know the answer to the question.

"I bought it and took it home and that gave to the inspiration to set up my own business. I thought I would do a few months for a year at most. But it took off and I have been training with different companies. In some I work with retail shops. I work with the service and product industry. I work with business-to-business (B-to-B) and business-to-customer (B-to-C).

"Business-to-business is for field sales reps and I would work with them on the eight steps to a sale and how to sell more effectively.

"With the retailers there is a seven-step approach and I also work as a mystery shopper. Most companies will take me on as a mystery shopper and then I will do a business plan up of where the gaps were and I go back in and train them in that.

"I do sales training from a master class down to basic sales training in retail or field sales.

"I think what makes me different is that I have sold retail, wholesale and B-to-B. I know what it is like to have a bad sales day and I know what it is like to have a good sales day.

"My training is interactive. I don’t come in with a power point and loads of slides. You actually come out learning how to do it, not coming out motivated to do it, but you come out and you actually have a business plan in front of you."

Anne has been involved with Network Ireland Mayo and held the prestigious role as president last year.

She is also chair of Castlebar Chamber of Commerce’s Enterprise Town Awards and they have been selected for the Rising Star Award and the Bank of Ireland Enterprise Award which takes place on October 7.

She was also involved with Croí for eight years and in her spare times loves reading, walking and social dancing.

Summing up, Anne said: "I am a sales trainer. I train tele-sales, field sales, retail sales as well as motivation and confidence building for staff. I work with companies from hotels to restaurants to retail shops to manufacturing companies.

"I am passionate about business and I am also passionate about women in business in the county, and I believe that women get to know each other first, then trust each other and then we do business.

"Men are different; it is a different process that they go through compared to the women. Women are not very good at coming out and saying we are really good at this. Men are much stronger.

"I am passionate about trying to empower and inspire and in my own business that is what I am trying to do with people in businesses.

"When you look at sales people their goal must be to move from the customer service to customer experience and I am trying to get people to move to the experience. Service is only giving what the customer wants, experience is going beyond it."

Allaboutsales is located at Leicnin Village, Turlough, Castlebar, and can be contacted on (087) 2466896, or email hello@allaboutsales.ie.