Instructor: Rick Silver

Rick Silver
 Biography: Rick Silver founded and served as President I-O Solutions, Inc. for 17 years, which was a well-established Value Added Reseller (VAR) of automated data collection equipment incorporating Bar Code and OCR technology serving the Western U.S. The automated data collection industry, at the time, was growing in excess of 20% annually. The profile of clients that I-O sought after were growing, profitable companies wanting to seek out a long term partnership and appreciate the value of our services. Opportunities for add-on business were at the core or his strategy and the technology provided for staged implementation of many different applications over extended periods of time. Solutions included inventory control, work in process, asset tracking,shipping and receiving to name a few. In the final full year of business, I-O Solutions, Inc. had 5 sales offices, over 1,400 customers, 20 employees and sales in excess of $6M and had such clients as Boeing, HP, ADP, Starbucks, R.R. Donnelley, Les Schwab Tires, Microsoft and many other Fortune 500 companies. Average sales per employee were $360,000 per year. Suppliers included such firms as Zebra Technologies, Symbol Technologies, Caere Corporation, Percon Inc. and Photographic Sciences Corp. The firm hadn o long-term debt. Average accounts receivable days outstanding were 40 days and over the life of the firm had only one bad debt. The firm was sold to POS data, Inc. in late 1998.

Prior to I-O Solutions, Rick sold computer equipment and software for Burroughs Corporation, which at the time, was the second leading manufacturer of computer equipment in the United States. Rick spent 8 years selling minicomputer and mid-range computer equipment for them and left at the time Burroughs merged with Univac to form Unisys.

Ricks skills revolve around prospecting,the sales cycle and customer retention. He believes no single formula can account for competent and effective salesmanship but rather a composite of many disciplines that, through trial and time, will provide a salesperson with qualities that will lead to a truly successful professional sales career, regardless of the products or services sold. The focus is and will always be on the client.

Classes by this instructor