Director, Sales

Posted on: 2007-12-07

LAWRENCE J. BALSITIS 162 Grant Street Seneca, IL 61360 630-853-8496 [email protected] Sales Director PROFILE Energetic self-starter with a track record of success in translating corporate vision into innovative and effective strategic marketing, positioning, and quantified solutions that fulfill revenue, market, and performance objectives. Assertive leader with outstanding communication, motivation, and negotiation skills. Top performer who offers proven abilities in delivering multimillion-dollar revenue/profit increases and providing competitive advantage to wholesale organizations and their customers. Analytical problem solver adept in identifying vital issues, evaluating long-term impact, leveraging available resources, and capitalizing on opportunities/technologies to create new applications and manage mission-critical processes. Additional areas of expertise include: Strategic/Tactical Planning * Sales Team Management/Training * Sales/Territory Development Segmentation/Contact Management * Account Retention/Expansion * Client Relations Forecasting * Product Development/Marketing * New Market Penetration * Telecommunications CAREER TRACK VERIZON PARTNER SOLUTIONS (Verizon purchased MCI WorldCom in 2005) Director of Sales, Verizon/MCI WorldCom 1999 to 2006 Developed sales plan strategies for the Verizon Partner Solutions Wholesale entity. Designed and sustained market solutions for worldwide applications. * Established new customer segments and contact management strategies. Deployed new products and services based on competitive intelligence data, customer demands, and market conditions. Defined the direction and strategy for marketing and sales campaigns and oversaw their tactical execution. Devised short- and long-term programs/solutions to increase the lifetime value of high-potential customers. Trained and motivated the sales organization. Assigned revenue objectives. * Took over a ten-person sales organization delivering annual revenue contributions of $150M and led the team to consistently produce double-digit growth, despite a market decline, by up-selling to existing customers while targeting new opportunities across a ten-state region—responsibilities grew to include a team of 20 sales and support staff, a national account base, and revenue contribution of $400M+. Guided the team to consistently exceed annual revenue objectives and routinely outperform all others within the company’s Wholesale marketplace. * Fueled incremental annual revenue growth of $3M+ by implementing strategies for deploying the latest managed services, including Internet, voice, and data technologies; identifying prospects; and launching VoIP and Ethernet solutions across existing accounts and newly signed prospects. * Improved sales performance within the Wholesale division by collaborating with marketing to distribute up-to-date training materials, technical manuals, sales collateral, and product literature. * Drove quantifiable, month-over-month revenue growth by defining and developing metrics for sales, churn, and forecasts, which resulted in effective product and revenue roadmaps, pricing strategies, and promotions. * Fostered solid business relationships and a positive perception by positioning customers with corporate executives as appropriate, utilizing customer- specific meetings, industry tradeshows/seminars, and positioning events such as MLB, NFL, NBA, NASCAR, and PGA. * Expedited the deployment of services to customers by streamlining sales tools to enable Verizon customers to work with a single service delivery team. * Achieved quicker service activations and improved revenue growth through bolstering interpersonal relationships by selling MCI Wholesale Services within various internal organizations, which resulted in greater than normal post-sale implementations. * Assessed specific business segmentation data and prepared a strategy for consolidating two diverse business strategies into one cohesive model customized to the Verizon Partner Solutions Wholesale organization. Director of Sales, LEC Accounts, MCI WorldCom 1996 to 1999 * Assumed responsibility for a new Fortune 500 account. Prepared a strategy and action plans that coordinated IT, service delivery, and operational specifications of managed service offerings to facilitate the re-entry of the Regional Bell Operating Companies [RBOC] into the long-distance marketplace following the signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. * Provided leadership to an account management team with overall responsibility for the first RBOC to re-enter the market via the sale and deployment of a five-year, $600M managed services contract; negotiated ongoing agreements, pricing, network performance, and additional product offerings with key decision makers, with efforts establishing the model for all future RBOC offerings and proposals. * Augmented annual revenue by $24M by developing a highly innovative, non-traditional managed service solution; worked with an external vendor to create a new calling card product to service previously inaccessible customers. * Produced $3M in monthly revenue by partnering with marketing, pricing, operations, IT, and customer service to deploy a new billing platform to support the new customer’s traffic as it launched a new service application. Generated an additional $50M in annual revenue by proposing the same solution to several other customers—the solution is still being actively marketed across the Wholesale marketplace. * Developed a new international long-distance solution to enable the customer to bundle vast amounts of traffic and hand that traffic off to WorldCom for termination around the globe, which produced an additional $3M per month in revenue. * Partnered with maintenance, IT, customer service, and operations to develop a new automated trouble ticket management system to enable the customer to open and monitor issues and their causes. * Spearheaded the introduction of an internal Sales Advisory Board comprised of representatives from the entire Wholesale Services organization, including sales, marketing, pricing, IT, contract management, credit, and service delivery. * Enhanced company image and elevated corporate morale by coordinating corporate participation in high-profile community events, such as the Chicago and Tulsa MS 150 cycling events; collaborated with facilitators to develop the Corporate Challenge, a community-wide corporate athletic event. AMERITECH Senior Account Manager 1985 to 1996 * Targeted high-profile inter-exchange carriers [IECs] to introduce new product and service solutions that immediately addressed their marketplace needs and to surpass revenue goals. Managed existing accounts, protected the existing revenue stream, and developed additional accounts and revenue opportunities. * Developed a new fiber optic network solution and coordinated cross-functional efforts to enable wireless service providers to deploy microcell technology and dramatically improve cellular service reliability in highly congested business centers—the technology is still in use today and generates $1M+ in annual revenues. * Managed and launched a diverse and totally survivable backbone network solution for the premier wireless service provider in the Chicago area; negotiated with the internal real estate development organization to lease land to the customer to house a primary node for the network solution; and coordinated with the corporate finance institution to arrange for Ameritech to receive the full five-year value of the diverse network sale in a single upfront payment of $8M+. * Grew Ameritech’s revenue stream from $0 to $40M/month in seven years through positioning, long-term-planning, and managing a new customer’s network solution needs across a five-state region. * Played an instrumental role in achieving at least 110% of stated objectives in each year of tenure. EDUCATION Graduate Studies in Information Processing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Graduate Studies in Data and Network Engineering, AT&T KEYWORDS/COMPETITORS: offerings, revenue, opportunities, competitive, penetration, positioned, revenues, sustainable, positioning, strategic, solutions, growth, innovative, strategies, decision-makers, identifying, advantage, recurring, market, clec, relationship, achieving, drove, markets, delivering, leading, retain, relationships, differentiation, strategy, teams, initiatives, high-profile, next-generation, exceeding, fostered, profitable, secured, telecommunications, AT&T, MCI, Qwest, Sprint-Nextel, Verizon.