One of the best incentives I had for going back to college each year was my summer job. From my high-school graduation  to my college graduation, I worked a 6 a.m. factory maintenance shift. Getting up at 5:15 a.m. every morning during the summer months to cleaning heating boilers, sweeping floors and painting was not ideal for a young college student. However, looking back, it was a great experience and one where some practical lessons were learned that apply to my business today.

One lesson that often comes to mind is the day I was assigned to Ron, the head of maintenance for the factory. My job that day was to follow him and do whatever he needed done. In the first few hours he got a call on his radio that one of the assembly lines was down due to one of the machines breaking. When we arrived at the line there were about five people looking in, around and under the machine. Ron then opened a flap on the side of the machine, took out a flashlight and set of pliers and spent the next 45 seconds under the flap with only his legs visible. Once finished, he walked over, turned the machine back on, and all was back in working order. As we walked away, he looked at me and said, “Sometimes fixing things is all in knowing how it works.” This principle can be applied in many B2B organizations today and one that will be the focus of my blog posts.

As a new contributor to MarketingProfs, I will focus on marketing and sales process-- in other words, how things work. Repeatedly, I see marketing and sales groups vastly improve their return on their marketing and sales investments by focusing on process improvements.

I am very excited to be a part of this community and look forward to providing insights and having great dialogue around the marketing and sales process in hopes that this will be an interactive forum for the MarketingProfs community.