Bret's Story
Hi there! First, I want to say THANK YOU for taking a few minutes to learn about me.
I'm not normally someone who likes to spout off my accomplishments and accolades, but to give you an idea of who I am, where I've been, and how I may be able to help you, here it goes...
Throughout my professional journal, I was a Hall-of-Fame and President’s Club-winning sales rep and have been a top-producing sales leader in multiple industries.
I've documented my experience in my two books - The Selling Edge: How to Reach the Top in any Sales Industry, and my newest book, Promoted: The Proven Path to Career Advancement. Within the pages of the two books, I share it all. You'll see, my road to success didn't start with success at all.
My Rough Entry into Sales
It was the Summer of 2001, and I was back home from college. Two months prior, I had decided I wouldn't be continuing my college baseball career.
I'd graduate in two years, and I was going to have loans to pay back. That meant I'd need to find something that would give me legitimate experience!
That summer, I got a job selling CUTCO kitchen knives. At first, I was absolutely horrible.
It took me 11 appointments to make my first sale. It seemed impossible.
Becoming a Top Achiever
As rough as things went for me early on, I knew nothing good would happen if I gave up.
So I didn't.
Instead, I found there were several full-time college students making upwards of $50,000 just in the summer, and several successful salespeople had stayed on after college and were making into the six figures.
All I needed to do was learn what they knew, and do what they were doing.
That's what I did.
In my first book, The Selling Edge: How to Reach the Top in any Sales Industry, I lay out exactly how I did it.
In under a year, I went from being one of the worst recruits they had to one of the top salespeople in the nation.
Two years after I started, I finished the Spring campaign as the #1 sales rep in the entire nation.
In my fives years I spent selling CUTCO, I finished in the top 5 in the nation 4 times, highlighted by 2004 where I was the #2 rep in the nation, and also one of the fastest reps ever inducted into the CUTCO Hall of Fame.
Making the Transition to Medtech
As great as my time at CUTCO was, I felt I wanted to do something different. I also wanted to see how the skills and habits I'd built would translate into other industries.
After looking at quite a few sales options, I ended up landing in the medical device industry. My first role was as a Territory Manager in the orthopedic surgery space.
I was apprehensive at first, because I had never worked in the medical field. But I had a framework I could follow from my time selling CUTCO.
That's exactly what I did.
I latched onto some of our top representatives who were kind enough to show me the ropes, asked some of the surgeons who were existing customers if they'd teach me how to best work with them and their colleagues, and I followed the company's training and sales direction.
It worked.
In my first full year in the medical device industry, I achieved President's Club, and over the next seven years, the overall business in my territory tripled in size.
But I wanted to do more, and that's when I hit my first significant career roadblock.
Jumping into Leadership
In the spring of 2009, there was an opening to lead one of the sales teams on the West Coast. Having done well in sales for roughly eight years at that point, I thought I was ready to move to the next phase of my career and applied for the position.
One problem: no one else thought I was ready or was a good fit.
I obviously didn't get the job. However, what I did get was really good feedback, and commitment to develop me if I stuck to the plan we created.
So I did.
It took an additional five years of stellar sales performance, earning an MBA, completing a leadership development program, and helping out with a lot of company projects to gain exposure and prove myself. But in January of 2015, I earned the opportunity to lead a team.
Since then, I've led several teams, ran a full sales organization, and have held numerous other leadership and strategic positions within companies, in and out of the medtech space.
Fortunately, all of the teams have done well under my leadership, and several of the members of those teams now lead their own teams and companies.
I'm grateful for the training, mentorship, and guidance I got along the way. I only wish I had learned several of the leadership skills and lessons sooner.
This was the motivation for my newest book, Promoted: The Proven Path to Career Advancement.
I'm grateful for where I'm at in my life and the path that I'm on, but it's also taken me longer to make certain moves than it should have.
My goal in helping other professionals is to compress the time frame it takes for you to achieve your next promotion!
Bringing it all together at Home
When I'm not working or traveling around the country, I spend time with my wife and three children, our four dogs, three cats, and goldfish. We go camping several times a year, my wife and I go to the gym together as much as possible, and we enjoy our small community in Northern California.
Thank you again for taking a few minutes to learn about me. If you've enjoyed what you heard and want to join my community, click the link below to get my newsletter and any updates
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