We recently spoke with Dean Jeffery, the Operations Director. We wanted to hear his tips and advice for a career in Sales, what it’s like to manage people, be successful in recruitment and how he got to where he is now.
Dean joined Extrastaff in 2006. He’s been with the company for 16 years. He applied for the job with us via a local newspaper advert, how times have changed! We advertised for an industrial consultant in Dunstable and he picked up the phone.
Dean did not have any recruitment experience but just knew he had a knack of talking to people. He was provided with a comprehensive induction programme and was fully trained on our USPs and expectations. From there Dean went head first into making calls, arranging visits and starting to talk to candidates. At the time Dean joined the Industrial desk only had about 5-6 workers out daily but over a number of months Dean grew the desk substantially to a very healthy and profitable 80 candidates out every day. After a couple of years, Dean’s hard work and dedication led him to be offered the opportunity to look after the Dunstable Driving desk - which was already high performing, but had lots of opportunities to grow it further. And Dean did just that! The Driving desk grew to the highest in the business as Dean forged relationships with some key and national businesses. Looking back Dean reflects that the opportunity to manage both the Driving and Industrial desk allowed him to understand both disciplines. Consequently his experience with running both desks put him in a strong position to lead the branch and become Branch Operations Manager. Dean’s next big goal was to make the Dunstable branch a force to be reckoned with. The branch needed a strong team who could follow in his footsteps, so he highlighted and identified Consultants that had potential to also step up to Managers. After a few years, Dean was promoted from Branch Manager to Area Manager, building key relationships and businesses in his regions as well as strong teams in the branches. Dean believes that these strong branch and onsite teams propelled him into his current role as Operations Director.
Dean says “Extrastaff gave me a really good platform and a vision to grow, with fantastic training and mentors to help me exceed in my role and as a person. From day one the culture and encouragement to share ideas and shout about success has resonated with me and even though we have grown into a multimillion pound organisation in a very short space of time, the culture remains the same.”
Dean said the most important thing about sales is the relationships you develop “If you can do that with clients, candidates and colleagues alike then you’re on track to building a successful career in sales. Don’t do it because you have to, do it because you enjoy it. At Extrastaff we try to bring an element of fun and satisfaction into everything we do and that includes sales.”
Dean’s advice for someone looking to start a career in Sales is simple.
“Confidence brings success, the more you do it and gain experience, the more confident you become. It just becomes natural. It’s important to believe in a product you are selling which our teams do!” Dean also suggests looking at your colleagues; ‘Question why are they successful, what they do well and what could they do better, identify a mentor who has a proven track record and mirror it. They have to have passion in their delivery, tenacity to get things done and a positive demeanour. Replicate, expand on it and ask questions.”
So is recruitment always plain sailing? Absolutely not! Dean admits that early in his career, he focused on developing and servicing one big client so much that he failed to make sales with other businesses. It was only when the client moved out of the area and the desk cut by nearly 75% that reality struck. After this Dean picked the branch up and started going out to find clients, making a lot of calls, knocking on doors - this was in 2008 and it was the recession, so obviously then there weren’t many buyers. He still remembers the self-doubt creeping in and thinking “maybe I got lucky?” but overall Dean thanks the Board for keeping the teams positive during a tough period. Eventually all the prospect clients began to convert and Dean was able to bring the desk and the branch back to the levels of profitability previously seen after 6-8 months”
What Dean learnt and the morale of the story is to never standstill; be accepting, keep aiming high, but most importantly ask for help and advice!
Dean then moved onto talk about his teams and how he supports them
“Be approachable and a good listener, understand their obstacles, challenges and offer your advice and experience in fixing them. Let them express themselves, their opinion matters, and this is how you evolve and become more effective as a team. Encourage everyone to share their success and recognise their achievements, because without them there is no Extrastaff.
Dean doesn’t believe that Sales ever stops. He has never got to the point where he thinks “Ok, I know everything now”. He says in thinking this you are accepting and will not grow “Our company vision is to continue to try new things and look at ideas and strategy to expand our business and people. We encourage people to think big, outside the box and that goes for the likes of me as well as our people. I learn new things from our people every day that help me personally improve what I do daily and become a better leader”
Dean says to anyone looking to start a career with Extrastaff to “Do it! If you have a positive mindset and personality then it’s very rewarding and satisfying. Extrastaff have a fantastic culture; it’s in our DNA - that’s why Extrastaff inspires me. We have built our own state of the art IT system from scratch investing millions, our people have grown and progressed with many success stories to share and most of all we want people to have fun on theirs and Extrastaff's journey to the top.”
If you want to join our fast-growing recruitment company, then please email sam.myall@extrastaff.com
Please, follow us on our social channels to keep up to date with the latest news within the business.
Dean joined Extrastaff in 2006. He’s been with the company for 16 years. He applied for the job with us via a local newspaper advert, how times have changed! We advertised for an industrial consultant in Dunstable and he picked up the phone.
Dean did not have any recruitment experience but just knew he had a knack of talking to people. He was provided with a comprehensive induction programme and was fully trained on our USPs and expectations. From there Dean went head first into making calls, arranging visits and starting to talk to candidates. At the time Dean joined the Industrial desk only had about 5-6 workers out daily but over a number of months Dean grew the desk substantially to a very healthy and profitable 80 candidates out every day. After a couple of years, Dean’s hard work and dedication led him to be offered the opportunity to look after the Dunstable Driving desk - which was already high performing, but had lots of opportunities to grow it further. And Dean did just that! The Driving desk grew to the highest in the business as Dean forged relationships with some key and national businesses. Looking back Dean reflects that the opportunity to manage both the Driving and Industrial desk allowed him to understand both disciplines. Consequently his experience with running both desks put him in a strong position to lead the branch and become Branch Operations Manager. Dean’s next big goal was to make the Dunstable branch a force to be reckoned with. The branch needed a strong team who could follow in his footsteps, so he highlighted and identified Consultants that had potential to also step up to Managers. After a few years, Dean was promoted from Branch Manager to Area Manager, building key relationships and businesses in his regions as well as strong teams in the branches. Dean believes that these strong branch and onsite teams propelled him into his current role as Operations Director.
Dean says “Extrastaff gave me a really good platform and a vision to grow, with fantastic training and mentors to help me exceed in my role and as a person. From day one the culture and encouragement to share ideas and shout about success has resonated with me and even though we have grown into a multimillion pound organisation in a very short space of time, the culture remains the same.”
Dean said the most important thing about sales is the relationships you develop “If you can do that with clients, candidates and colleagues alike then you’re on track to building a successful career in sales. Don’t do it because you have to, do it because you enjoy it. At Extrastaff we try to bring an element of fun and satisfaction into everything we do and that includes sales.”
Dean’s advice for someone looking to start a career in Sales is simple.
“Confidence brings success, the more you do it and gain experience, the more confident you become. It just becomes natural. It’s important to believe in a product you are selling which our teams do!” Dean also suggests looking at your colleagues; ‘Question why are they successful, what they do well and what could they do better, identify a mentor who has a proven track record and mirror it. They have to have passion in their delivery, tenacity to get things done and a positive demeanour. Replicate, expand on it and ask questions.”
So is recruitment always plain sailing? Absolutely not! Dean admits that early in his career, he focused on developing and servicing one big client so much that he failed to make sales with other businesses. It was only when the client moved out of the area and the desk cut by nearly 75% that reality struck. After this Dean picked the branch up and started going out to find clients, making a lot of calls, knocking on doors - this was in 2008 and it was the recession, so obviously then there weren’t many buyers. He still remembers the self-doubt creeping in and thinking “maybe I got lucky?” but overall Dean thanks the Board for keeping the teams positive during a tough period. Eventually all the prospect clients began to convert and Dean was able to bring the desk and the branch back to the levels of profitability previously seen after 6-8 months”
What Dean learnt and the morale of the story is to never standstill; be accepting, keep aiming high, but most importantly ask for help and advice!
Dean then moved onto talk about his teams and how he supports them
“Be approachable and a good listener, understand their obstacles, challenges and offer your advice and experience in fixing them. Let them express themselves, their opinion matters, and this is how you evolve and become more effective as a team. Encourage everyone to share their success and recognise their achievements, because without them there is no Extrastaff.
Dean doesn’t believe that Sales ever stops. He has never got to the point where he thinks “Ok, I know everything now”. He says in thinking this you are accepting and will not grow “Our company vision is to continue to try new things and look at ideas and strategy to expand our business and people. We encourage people to think big, outside the box and that goes for the likes of me as well as our people. I learn new things from our people every day that help me personally improve what I do daily and become a better leader”
Dean says to anyone looking to start a career with Extrastaff to “Do it! If you have a positive mindset and personality then it’s very rewarding and satisfying. Extrastaff have a fantastic culture; it’s in our DNA - that’s why Extrastaff inspires me. We have built our own state of the art IT system from scratch investing millions, our people have grown and progressed with many success stories to share and most of all we want people to have fun on theirs and Extrastaff's journey to the top.”
If you want to join our fast-growing recruitment company, then please email sam.myall@extrastaff.com
Please, follow us on our social channels to keep up to date with the latest news within the business.
Published in
News
