Pete McDowell's Page

Overview:
1. I’m an experienced and results producing senior executive. I’m also a sports nut and fitness buff. I enjoy great food and wine, and love to travel. But, most importantly, I’m a husband to my wife of 32 years and a father to two great children…now off on their own!
2. I’m a leader who is gifted and purposed to take organizations to new levels of effectiveness and cohesiveness to produce better revenue and profit results.
3. I believe that the sales effort in a company is the engine that drives everything and that all operational, production, delivery, IT and financial strategies and initiatives should be geared toward customer acquisition and retention. To get results I get involved in and facilitate the development of an aligned marketing and sales strategy with clear objectives and realistic tactical key initiatives. There are two things connected to the strategies that I focus on: (1) building a great sales and customer support team and (2) developing management systems to monitor, measure and coach people to higher levels of performance. None of this can be done without a real and genuine effort to involve employees and managers in a collaborative effort to develop and execute the strategies.
4. When I work with people they’re going to get my full attention and engagement and an understanding that we’re all on the same team, working together. My satisfaction comes in seeing people realize professional success, which carries over to their personal lives.
5. I’ve been in the trenches and I’ve run businesses as well. My six years in field sales, followed by ten years in sales management and senior management prepared me to run business units, all turnarounds, with full P&L responsibility. I’ve used my professional education in leadership, quality, lean management and sales to make a real difference in organizations. And, I’ve been fortunate enough to share my knowledge and experience with various civic, professional and non-profit organizations, as well as annual lectures at the University Of Washington Foster School Of Business.
6. I’m proud of my track record. I have over twenty years of leading and developing teams. I’ve led sales teams to consistently high levels of performance and have taken two businesses through turnarounds and onto profitability. I coached and consulted to owners of privately held businesses and they’ve seen significantly better results as a result of our work together.
7. Right now, businesses are in need of growing sales revenues. The scalpel has been taken to costs over the past year and the need to find new revenue sources and grow profits has never been greater. The easy days are over- businesses need sound strategy and tactics to move forward in a long term challenging environment. That’s why I’m looking to add my experience, skills and passion for building a great organization to the right business.

What I have to offer:
As a contract, interim or permanent senior executive, I help businesses to grow their sales revenues and gross selling margins and cut the cost of running their sales department, often adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the bottom line. I dive into businesses to develop a sales oriented / customer focused culture that drives increased profitability.
Companies and managers who struggle, who have sales problems, are frustrated and don’t hit their numbers need my expertise. I help businesses in printing, packaging and manufacturing to develop and grow sales consistently, by at least 10% annually every year.

As noted above, my expertise in the following areas accomplishes this:
1. I develop aligned strategic and tactical marketing and sales plans to grow the customer base and improve margins. In a mature and growth challenged organization, this will add a minimum of 10% annually. Improving gross selling margins by 5% (i.e., GSM growth from 30% to 31.5% in a $30mil+ company) can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the bottom line.
2. I develop high performing sales teams. I improve sales team performance and dramatically cut turnover, literally contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the bottom line by cutting real costs and gaining sales opportunity revenue. This involves the design of integrated systems for recruiting, interviewing, hiring, on-boarding and training. Just one poor sales rep hire/fire scenario costs a business at least $100,000.
3. I develop sales management systems that keep sales people on track and on task, eliminating poor performers and developing the skills and habits needed to turn B players into A players. This drives the cost of sales down at least 10%, saving companies thousands of dollars that go straight to the bottom line. Improving an B Player to A Player status usually means doubling of revenue and associated gross margin dollars, not to mention improving gross margin %.

What I get jazzed about: building sales and customer focused cultures and infrastructures to grow a business.

What I believe: every organization has the opportunity to be great by leveraging the strengths, skills and knowledge of its team members; every organization must have marketing & sales and innovation at the core of its strategy to grow.

What I do really well: I provide expertise, leadership, and management to develop a sales oriented and customer focused business that wins, grows and prospers. I take businesses from the strategic to the tactical.
How? I…
• Lead by example and provide direction, encouragement, excitement, and a sense of belonging.
• Develop overall business strategies that are aligned, not in silos.
• Manage/Execute/Implement strategies, key initiatives and programs.
• Manage repetitive mission critical tasks.
• Provide discipline and structure and manage the details.
• Coach, teach, train, advise.
• Assemble talent and develop highly functional, effective and winning teams.

Desired Interim/Contract or Full Time Position:
• Senior Executive: C-level or EVP
I’m looking to play a role of real significance that impacts a company’s growth and betters people’s lives. I can leverage my business philosophy, experience, expertise and leadership skills to help organizations reach their full potential.

Business Demographics:• Revenues of $5mil to $100mil with 25 to 500 EE’s; most comfortable in smaller organizations where impact and change can occur much faster.
• Business must have real growth potential either organic or by acquisition, even if in traditional, mature industry.
• Business to Business (B2B) with target customers in mid-market to large size companies
• Creative Services- where graphics/color/form+function/idea generation play major role, i.e. design firms (graphic, industrial, architectural, corporate identity, etc.)
• Manufacturing or Distribution- a business that has innovative, well designed and customized products.

Culture:
• Values- honesty, integrity, compassion, human development/learning, fun/celebrate success
• Management Team- driven for success, inclusive and collaborative, intellectual curiosity and best practices
• Strategic thinking and tactical execution
• High energy, positive, moving forward

Preferred Locations: Seattle/Eastside metro, Northern California/Bay Area, Southern California, Charlotte, Atlanta, Florida

Travel: no issue with a position that requires travel

Other:• Looking for opportunity to use my leadership skills, a desire to have a position of significance to positively impact the business and its stakeholders.
• Business owner(s) must have (or a need for) sales driven, customer focused strategy and culture.
• I must be passionate about the industry and the company- I’ll know it when I see it.