Thomas Brunson Sales Champion Current position: Regional Sales Director Age: 41 Hometown: Baton Rouge

Thomas Brunson - Former X-ray technician/radiologist reaches the stratosphere in medical equipment sales.

Below is the result of our interview with Thomas Brunson.

Sales Overview
How long have you been in sales? 8 years.

How did you get started? Seemed like a challange and the chance to get out of the same 8-5 M-F routine.

What is the impact of sales on your life? More money; the ability to at least to some degree make your own schedule.

What do you like most about sales? Making multi-million dollar deals come together and meeting new people.

What sales method do you follow? A little bit of Miller Heiman. We use the Blue sheets in our company.

What is the name of your best sales manager ever? (so far!) Stephen Whisenhunt at Picker years ago but I like my current one a lot.

What made this manager so good? Stephen was increadible with customers. Great to have close deals with me.

What made your worst manager so bad? Micromanager who did not have gravitas when I brougth them in with me on deals. They caved in on price deeper and more than I did.

How do you prepare for a big meeting? Research the account. FInd out who the decision makers are. Find out he "red flags" and make sure I am able to address them. No need to preach to the choir.

Selling Track Record
What is the most you ever sold in a year? I have sold more than $12M in revenue in a year.

What is the biggest order you ever booked? $4.5M. One CyberKnife. I did have a $750K order with a former company. $750 was the quota for the quarter. Cha-Ching.

How long did it take to book your biggest order? 2 years.

Why did the customer buy from you? We sold them on the total solution.

What did you learn from the process? Find you optimal customer profile and spend your time on them. Some customers are never going to buy from you (at least in the foreseeable future). Don't spend time with them.

What is the biggest order you ever lost? Same size: $4.5M

Why was the order lost? Couldn't convince the customer that we were the best solution.

What was learned from loss? In reality the customer was looking for something that was a little less specialized than our product.

Private Life
What is in your library? Various. Fiction and non-fiction.

What are you reading now? The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton.

What is your favorite movie? The Good Shepherd. Amazing suspense.

Who is a role model to you? Hard to say. I like a former colleage who had a terrific selling disposition and was smooth with customers and every one else for that matter.

How do you relax? Golf, cooking.

What 3 people would you like have to dinner? My friend Shawn Murray. We can talk endlessly about anything and we disagree as much as we agree. My former colleague and boss, Charlie Medalie. Great sense of humor and loves to eat and drink as much as I do. My former colleague and freind Ed Douglas. Likes to eat and drink like me and he will have a nice cigar with me after dinner. I am not the least bit star struck so famous people are not in the top three. If its dinner I want good food, good wine and total relaxed atmosphere.

How do you start the day? Coffee. Review the things I wrote down the night before that needed attention. Then check the messages.

How do you end work each day? Make a note of any unfinished items or loose ends.

Technology & Strategy
What smartphone - pda do you use? Use a Treo. Mobile email is very valuable for me.

What PIM/CRM do you use? We use a crappy one by Microsoft.

How do you stay organized? Get a voice recorder

How do you prevent a slump? Stop pressing. Things never happen when I force the issue. It makes you seem desperate.

Changes
How have markets/sales changed in 5 years? For my field, the sophistication and complexity of the technology is increasing at an exponential rate.

What industry trends do you foresee? Accuray in treatments, and imaging during treatments and connectivity between vendors.

How do you want to be described in a sentence? I see the big picture and get my customers to see it.

Alternative Universe
If you were not in sales, what would you do instead? Medical Dosimetry in the clinic, most likely.

Closing Question
How is it to be interviewed by the Sales Whisperer? Better that Barbara Walters.