Growing with Global 4 | James Routledge
Name: James Routledge
Job Title: Sales Director
Tell us about yourself?
In a couple of sentences; What floats your boat? What are you like? What do you do out of work?
I am a very tenacious character both inside and out of work. I like to set goals for anything in life and push hard to achieve them. I’m a very structured individual that likes to have a plan and an agenda.
Outside of work I am a family man with a beautiful wife and two gorgeous girls that I spend all my time with. I enjoy sports, especially football, and have a big passion for cars!
What is your role at Global 4?
Name of the team you work in? What is your function in the business? Which other teams do you work with?
I work in the sales team here at Global 4. My role is to support the overall function and to bring in as many deals as possible, whilst upholding our high standards of quality. This includes ensuring the team know and understand our proposition, pricing and from a morale standpoint are providing solutions that meet and exceed the needs of our customers.
I’m ultimately responsible for ensuring that every member of the team is performing to their peak, by working with direct field sales reports alongside management of the various sub-divisions of the team. Further, I provide strategy and feedback to the board of how we can continually improve and evolve.
This role sees me collaborating with all departments of the business to nurture a strong working relationship inter-departmentally.
What skills or qualities do you believe are essential for your position?
Without question it is critical to be able to manage your time effectively, without giving it away too cheaply. My commitment to the role extends far beyond that of an 8.30 to 5.30 position and requires constant attention, making up a big part of my life.
Other qualities include not being afraid to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in to best-support those you are responsible for supporting, which gives first-hand experience on other ways and means to achieve what they need to.
Lastly, delegation is crucial. Not just getting someone else to do something for you but empowering them to take responsibility and accountability for the tasks and to do it to the best of their abilities.
How did your journey begin with Global 4?
When did you join, what was your role when you joined, how has that changed over time?
I joined the business as a telemarketer, under the role of Business Development Executive. This required me to make 200 telephone calls per day and book three face-to-face meetings per day, 15 per week.
This fundamentally supported me learning the industry, including who our competitors were and what types of contracts they held their customers to.
Following a year of outbound calling I slowly migrated into a field-based position; self-generatively booking meetings for one day per week and this then changed to two, three, before finally full-time field-based sales.
After constantly and tirelessly working on my technique and sales approach, I took on the role of sales manager in February 2020; the month before the COVID lockdown. Throughout the pandemic we continued to grow and accelerated the rate in which customers adopted cloud telephony versus legacy on-premise equipment.
I moved into my current role of sales director in summer of 2021 and have continued to support the growth of the sales team and those within it as much as humanly possible. My role now as mentioned involves evolving our strategy and maintaining the high standards that the hard-working team have built up!
How is Global 4 different to other companies you have worked for?
Think about our values, the way we work as a business, the culture of the business
For me, Global 4 represents an opportunity to grow and develop. In my former life working as a debt collection agent in a call centre I was plateaued by the limited potential and signification of an employee number rather than an individual. At Global 4 I have been rewarded for my hard work and commitment with progression that I suspect I would have struggled to achieve anywhere else.
Looking now at anyone in the team or business, my view is to support those who want to work for it to achieve their own personal goals and facilitate their growth to become who they want to be. It’s also key to listen to their ideas as third party perspective works wonders for learning and moving forward.
Culturally, the sales team have a reputation for being loud and confident. I am a big advocate for this despite its externally perceived disruptive nature, based on them knowing there’s a job to do and targets to hit. If during that process they enjoy the company of their peers and forge long-standing relationships whilst being successful, then I deem this to be a success recipe.
With best intentions we would never hope to lose a member of the team, however what I will say is that those who have been and moved on to new pastures have never said anything other than they miss the culture of our team since leaving.
What is your proudest moment/biggest achievement at Global 4?
Doesn’t have to be a business achievement, can be a team achievement, a personal achievement whilst you’ve been with us?
If we are considering personal achievements then it would be remiss of me not to speak about the fact my wife and mother of my two children came into my life as an employee of Global 4, or that since being here I’ve had my children who are my world.
From a business perspective, the real achievement has been seeing how Global 4 has grown and matured throughout my time here; an accolade attributed to each and every person who is employed here.
The stand-out for me has to be our current position whereby we are breaking sales records on an almost monthly basis now, customer satisfaction is at an all-time high with a 5 star Trustpilot rating and our industry-peers have rated us the Reseller of the Year based on what they have seen of us.
What advice would you give someone considering a role at Global 4?
What questions did you want to know before you joined? What did you wish someone had told you?
Come and join us when you are ready. When you are ready to make a difference and to get your head down and work hard, whilst playing hard at the same time. Don’t squander the opportunity by joining before you have this state of mind.
Don’t come in with an ego. We are filled with confident individuals but not egos. Be prepared to support those around you as much as you will need support too, for there will be knowledge and experience that you bring to the table that others around you may not have.
Every day you will learn something new and it doesn’t matter if you’ve been here for 10 minutes or 10 years; you will never know everything.
If you are coming in from another industry; don’t worry. It DOES sink in eventually and all of a sudden it will all click – Don’t give up!!
You can have three people for dinner (dead or alive) who would you have and why?
Elon Musk – I’d like to get inside his head and try to get an insight into how he thinks. I’d have a whole list of questions I’d ask him to see how he gets to each answer and what his perspective is.
Robin Williams – One of the greatest comedians of all time, who had his demons. I would love to have him there to bring some fun to the dinner and to hear his stories about being on the sets of the likes of Good Will Hunting, Jumanji and Mrs Doubtfire.
My Granddad – A prolific and enormously successful salesman and later business owner who passed away when I was 10. I’d love to speak about his experiences and pair them with mine and for him to be proud that his determination and persistent approach to work and life has trickled down through the family to me.
