Paul Tong

• Going door-to-door establishing rapport for the purpose of either switching the resident to cuckoo Fibre on the day, or setting a return date once their existing contract is nearing its end date.
• This is a calendar based call back business that takes some time to build a strong data base that can convert to sales and referral recommendations in the future.
• First monthly target was exceeded by 165%.
• During my time at Cuckoo I've embraced door-to-door sales focus, championing our competitive packages day in, day out, engaging directly with residents at their home.
• Skilfully creating and nurturing my own pipeline, guiding prospects through to conversion with confidence.
• Managed time efficiently to maximise number of daily visits.
• Working closely with my line manager in specified areas to showcase the unparalleled benefits of Cuckoo and its services to residents within our network.
• Fostering meaningful relationships within the local community and with key stakeholders.
• Top sales person hitting 150% of target on a monthly basis
• Lowest (pic) preinstallation cancellation rate within the whole business, demonstrating my commitment to customer needs and business growth.

• Coming from a small business background I’ve held a longstanding curiosity for the pub trade. The Isis Farmhouse was the ideal venue to witness what is possible to achieve by those with no previous experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the exposure but realised it wasn't an ideal endevour.

• Meet & greet customers, building rapport through shared knowledge, experience and common ground, either face to face or via pre recorded video.
• Understanding the perception of the MG brand and whether this could be a sticking point (small market share).
• Establishing motoring needs, wants and desires to best match new and used stock options. Establishing budgets and affordable monthly outgoings.
• Appraising customer vehicles for trade-in value while learning more about customer motoring habits and lifestyle.
• Demonstrating suitable vehicles prior to an accompanied test drive. Asking intuitive questions that help the customer realise the cars suitability.
• Asking trial close question as to whether, money aside, the car is right.
• Presenting purchase proposals; including insurance products, warranties, scoring high of 2.2 products per sale.
• Trade values and monthly outgoings. Asking questions as to what part of a payment is too high or low etc.
• Depending on the transaction manager, I may navigate a deal & close alone, or watch a more skilled member of the transaction team bring a conclusion to a positive result. This is less common at MG, than it was at VW.

• Meeting & greeting customers building rapport through shared knowledge, experience and common ground, either in person or via pre recorded videos.
• Establishing motoring needs, wants and desires to best match new and used stock options.
• Establishing budgets and affordable monthly outgoings.
• Appraising vehicles for trade-in value while learning more about customer motoring habits and lifestyle.
• Demonstrating suitable vehicles prior to an accompanied test drive. Asking intuitive questions that help the customer realise the cars suitability.
• Asking trial close question as to whether, money aside, the car is right for them?
• Presenting a four square proposal including insurance products, warranties, trade in value and monthly outgoings. I scored very highly on average profit per vehicle and peripheral insurance products, with an above average success ratio.
• Asking questions as to what part of the payment is too high or low.
• Depending on who's the transaction manager, I may navigate the deal close alone, or watch a more skilled member of the transaction team bring conclusions to a positive result.

Duties include...

• Meeting & Greeting walk-in customer.
• Building rapport and establishing interest, needs and desires through a natural flow of conversation using engaging questions and discourse.
• Suggesting and narrowing down the best placed spa for the customers needs in the given space and budget they have available.
• Demonstrating our design and manufacturing ethos and history. How we got here and why are warranties are so long.
• Establishing a preferred timeframe of purchase.
• Establishing the preferred method of payment, introducing finance and helping the customer realise the affordability of owning a spa via finance options and how affordable these can be.
• Keeping the customer engaged and the sale moving forward whilst not coming across as a salesman.
• Moving the sales pitch forward into a quote.
• Negotiating discounts whilst safeguarding profits in a kind and advisory manner helping the customer decision making process.
• Capturing customers details so we can make further contact in the coming weeks and months.
• Managing the Company CRM system.
• Responding to web/facebook leads via email and telephone.
• Write engaging emails to engender a greater customer response.
• Making sure the showroom is clean, presentable and ready for customer engagement, in a seamless fashion.
• Processing orders.
• Raising invoices.
• Liaising delivery & Installation dates.
• Gaining new reviews and recommendations.
• Phoning and emailing prospective customers to bring footfall to the showroom.

Overview of my sales position.

I gained my position at Arctic Spas by walking in and asking for a job, I was lucky, as the national sales manager was present. I started a few days later and sold on my first day, or should I say, I closed a deal on my first day. The culture within the existing sales team was take a sale when the customer asks to buy and would otherwise do as little as possible or were possibly too scared to ask for an order. So I did what was natural to me and talked through their concerns, then followed on by asking for the deposit and got a yes.

I improved the showroom's appearance, cleaning and changing the overall feel of the environment.

While finance repayments were advertised the sales team avoided them at their peril for loosing commission. I sold finance every time and worked out the cost of borrowing over the average four year deal. If the customer ended up self funding I gained a stronger commission.

I would say 2019 was a difficult year for hot tubs. I was told by the other salesman that we wouldn't sell beyond August until the following Spring, which I'm happy to have proved them both wrong. I sold every month throughout the winter and when targets of £30,000 per month were set, I was the only salesman to achieve this every month. Targets were later dropped as no commissions could be claimed if targets weren't met.

I ran the store singlehandedly and enjoyed the responsibilities and duties of that role, I am confident, reliable and hardworking . However, I am keen to progress and work within a larger sales team, embracing the dynamics and momentum of a motivated sales team. I feel I need to really challenge myself professionally in an environment that's more geared to sales and getting the very best out of me, which certainly isn't the case where I now am. I would like the opportunity to match and learn from the best in the car sales industry and progress my sales career forward.

• Cold calling business owners in person to introduce myself as an Independent authority on Merchant service provision and establish who the present Merchant Services Provider.
• I then set out who I represent in the market place and why I represent multiple providers and how that can benefit them when choosing their next card processing partner.
• This is a calendar based call back business that takes some time to build up a strong customer base that can then convert to sales and referral recommendations.
• My next step in the marketing process would be to establish an online social media presence bringing together more diverse providers for merchants to choose from. This will allow for even more bespoke packages to come into the offing and will hopefully cement a more authoritative image in the Merchant community.

• Commission only position.
• Visiting potential customers in their own homes to explain the benefits of investing in a home solar energy system.
• Also, explaining how recent advancements in home energy storage could now include battery storage units that further enhance the benefits of solar by storing unused solar electricity that would otherwise be exported to the grid can now be drawn upon long after the sun has gone down.
• Assessing the customers house for eligibility to join the Government feed in Tarif and explaining how that works as a further return of investment to them.
• Once the house orientation was established and any shading factors considered we could quite accurately forecast the annual solar energy yield. We could then show the customer an accurate pay back time for their investment and the annual return of investment over the coming decades in percentage terms, which of course, as energy prices increase in the coming years, will in turn, give an ever increasing return of investment for decades to come.
• We had a finance facility through a leading home improvement lender where we could clearly demonstrate how installing solar for just a small deposit and how the instant savings it brings would easily offset a loan repayment scheme.
• I thoroughly enjoyed how Solar Energy gave my customers the energy independence previous generations before never had.

• Job description ; Setting up all legal obligations to enter independent car trading.
• Purchasing stock through leading UK auction houses and UK websites.
• Negotiating workshop trade rates from leading car manufacturers main dealerships to independent garages.
• Bringing purchased vehicles up to a high standard that would hopefully limit any returns within the timetable of six months after purchase given under consumer rights law.
• Elevating the vehicles appearance by presenting it in as new looking as possible condition, hopefully exceeding the customers expectations of how a second hand car can appear.
• Creating engaging adverts that hold the purveyors attention, aesthetically, and visually, through well executed photographs, video promotion, and the written word.
• Cultivating great customer relations, enabling great online reviews that further enhance new customer confidence.

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Driving around Oxford City in my black cab I realised there was a gap in late night food offerings and that a good, contemporary, food offering would overwhelmingly appeal to the middle class University students of Oxford. I set about planning a Food Truck that would supply the best Wood Fired Pizza at reasonable prices, all sold from a visually stunning, vintage, Citroen H van.

Job details:

• Planning application with Oxford city council.
• Purchasing and restoring an old Citroen van.
• Setting out the internal workings of a catering van.
• Designing the right Company logo and font to match the overall concept.
• Evolving a pizza dough that would work well in the mobile catering environment.
• Creating the perfect menu with rich flavours with added diversity.
• Managing and hiring/ training staff.
• Presenting multiple social Media platforms that customers enjoyed interacting with.

Job Details; Managing the day to day challenges of keeping a Taxi on the road maintenance wise and also the legal obligations of operating a Black cab with the local authority.

Job Details; Sorting, prepping and delivering a very large mail round.

making sure the right processes of delivering "Special Delivery" mail items were correctly signed for.

• Commission only position.
• Visiting clients in their own home to plan and price new kitchen instillations.
• SALE PITCH INCLUDED THE FOLLOWING DISCIPLINES; If these disciplines were followed accordingly one could have a thorough understanding of the customer needs, but more importantly, leave less chance of objections arising later that could be a steadfast reasons to not go ahead on the day.
• PRICE CONDITIONING, making sure the client was happy with the price margins our kitchens fell within. This allowed there to be no knee jerk reactions upon final calculations.
• UNDERSTANDING OUR FINANCE PACKAGE, explaining the terms and conditions if the client wished to use this availability.
• SELECTING THE STYLE OF KITCHEN, making absolutely sure the customer(s) were completely happy with the choice made.
• FINDING CUSTOMER LIKES AND DISLIKES, realising what customers loved about their existing kitchen but also loathed about their existing kitchen and incorporating the aforementioned positives into the new design layout.
• There was always a natural tendency for customers to not see beyond their existing kitchen layout. If there was a glaring advantage to changing this then talking this through with the customer prior to drawing up plans could bring about high amounts of desirability.
• EVERYONE WANTS A DISCOUNT, most contracts were largely won through third party 'Price Drop' negotiations. This was achieved through a number of given reason, but mainly through a customer going-ahead within an agreed time-frame, due to our commercial wing having delays from a building contractor. If the customer could fit this criteria, then we could in turn give a financial incentive for helping us fill those gaps in our schedule. My part in this was to get an agreement from the customer prior to asking for a discount. Once this was agreed, I would then go to the trouble of asking my manager if the incentive was still available. The discount always went a little further than the customer had agreed with me, thus gaining the new business.
• I thoroughly enjoyed how this system worked, both in easing customer decision making and allowing us to pass on a great offer.
• I won the competition for best newcomer, winning a day racing Ferraris round a race track.

• In 1998 the UK government opened up the domestic gas market to Nine different utility companies in an effort to bring down prices for the domestic gas user.
• My duty was to call door to door for Eastern Natural Gas, in the Slough and Maidenhead postcode areas to explain the changes afoot in the domestic gas market, and how customers could take advantage of the cheaper offers available rather than choosing to stay with British Gas at a higher unit rate.
• There was no structured sales pitch to sell by, so one had to find the best way to put forth the big changes in the industry and how the ordinary man and woman could take advantage of the new offers available.
• I would Knock doors from 10 a.m til 8 p.m without much of a break, the given daily target was four signed contracts a day. After I gained some experience I had all the usual customer objections covered within my pitch and would easily sign between 8-12 + contacts a day without too many objections to overcome by the end of the pitch.
• I found I had about 10 seconds from the customer opening the door to them feeling relaxed enough with me to be able to proceed.
• I found the pace of my voice was important to the listener and to slow down over more complicated areas of the market changes, so they could fully understand the changes ahead, the more they understood, the more likely they'd willingly take up the money saving offer.
• Because of my attention to detail in the spoken word and using visual tables of savings on offer, I was able to top some of the best door to door sales people at Universal Energy. I thoroughly enjoyed this daily challenge and all that it taught me.

Market street trading and wholesale distribution of black and white photographs, mainly of young couples in romantic postures, printed and sold as decorative posters.

The photography style was largely influenced by 1950's Hollywood film stills, but also the more erotic style of photography seen in modern day perfume advertisements, copying the style and influence of some of the most celebrated photographers of that time, such as Mario Testino.

I travelled the UK selling direct to customer in any number of busy city centres, those with high student populations were particularly lucrative.

I later took myself off to France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany, as a kind of test marketing tour of European countries, this resulted in me staying in Europe for around 5 years, settling in Montmartre, Paris. I set up a wide reaching wholesale distribution network across France and Spain.

To be a successful street trader one has to be able to create an atmosphere of the "Buy now or never" opportunity to those passing by.

Primarily, this would be achieved by a rousing speech by myself, thus gaining everyone's attention, then finish by offering a discount for the first four buyers, this would start a queuing vortex that would hopefully take some time to diminish, as long as the towns foot fall was adequate enough one could make high volume sales.