I split my time between working from the Silvery Tweed head office in Berwick-upon-Tweed and being on the road visiting current or potential customers. My day varies depending on where I’m working and if it involves a drive, or simply turning the laptop on.
As Head of Sales at Silvery Tweed, my role involves securing new business as well as keeping everything running smoothly for customers and identifying new opportunities that complement our existing capabilities.
One thing that is consistent is that I always start the day with a coffee while I check the opening price on barley and wheat as well as some of the other markets. Much of what I do is closely aligned to these markets, so it’s important that I keep up to date with them.
Another daily occurrence is a morning catch-up with Sales Manager, Chris Green, National Account Manager, Jill Fleming and Julie Telfer, who heads up the New Product Development (NPD) team for updates on projects, and new enquiries and to see what they may need my input on. Julie works quite closely with the technical team and makes sure that we have everything present and correct so that we, as a sales team, are giving all the correct technical information to customers. My final call of the morning is with Sarah, our seed buyer, to get the latest information on pricing and availability to give to customers.
Once I have all the latest updates on prices and availability, I turn my attention to enquiries that have come in, put together quotes and deal with orders. These can come in at any point of the day, so I am regularly in contact with Chris and Jill to make sure they are dealt with promptly and we are giving the best possible service.
From there, it is on to meetings with existing and potential customers. While there are still lots of Teams meetings, many places are now opening their doors again, so it is great to see people face to face, look around their facilities and hear about their plans and look at how Silvery Tweed can help them. There is often much to take away from these meetings. It could be as simple as pricing up a product like wheat or barley, or it could be a new product that I know our NPD can help develop.
There are always lots and lots of projects on the go at any one time. Something I learnt when I first moved to sales from finance was to keep five personal projects on the go alongside those as I find it helps to focus myself and keep moving forward. These range from the pie-in-the-sky type of projects to the much more realistic. It could be as simple as sending an email or making a phone call, but every day I try to move one of these projects forward. If one falls off, there are always plenty more to replace it with.
My final task of the day is to check in with what the wheat and barley markets closed at before switching off the laptop and heading out to walk the dogs.