Ken Wilkinson An Aggressive Sales Force Gives Cabletron A Good Connection In Computer Industry
Ken Wilkinson runs just the kind of business that every economic recruiting agency drools for.
Cabletron Systems Inc. employs 120 people in its clustered cubicles in Riverbend Commerce Park. But aside from the lights and phones, Wilkinson’s crew just uses good selling skills to move millions of dollars of computer connectivity equipment to big companies around the West.
The office has been here since 1992, pouring thousands of payroll dollars into the Kootenai County economy. No pollution or emissions. Just good jobs in a county where the average wage remains at around $18,000.
When Wilkinson made the migration from Cabletron’s Rochester, N.H., headquarters to Post Falls in 1993, the office had 55 employees. Now he oversees 100 salespeople and 20 support staff at the fast-growing company.
Cabletron sells the computer switches and electronic brains that allow big networks of machines to talk to each other from anywhere around the world. The Fortune 500 companies Wilkinson’s sales force calls on couldn’t do business in the global economy without the stackable racks of switching equipment.
Cabletron considers itself a leader in the connectivity business, ranking only second in sales behind Cisco Systems Inc., a San Jose company.
The company continues to grow 25 percent a year and will probably top $1 billion in sales for 1995, according to chief executive Craig Benson in published reports.
Wilkinson motivates and stakes goals for his sales force, who use phone lines to reach large companies across the West. Once a sale is set up by Wilkinson’s people, called “inside sales,” an “outside salesperson” travels to the customer and closes the deal.
“We try to establish a longer term relationship with our customers,” Wilkinson said. Instead of just selling equipment that will fix a problem for a company, Cabletron wants to evaluate a company’s needs and service them for the long haul.
Selling to these companies requires a lot of energy and drive, the qualities Wilkinson searches for in his sales staff. “We hire mostly people from the region, but we’ll hire anybody with the skills we’re looking for.”
You don’t have to be a computer whiz to sell complicated switching equipment to big business. After a simple orientation on the technical lingo involved with connectivity systems, Cabletron sales staffers sit down with management to sort out their individual goals. Good sellers can sell anything, they say.
The motto they like to use around Cabletron is “Second Effort,” patterned after the philosophy of Notre Dame University football coach Lou Holtz. “We like to give the extra effort here because it makes a big difference.”
Extra effort helped push Wilkinson up through the organization. Coming out of the Navy in the late 1980s without a college degree, he worked construction jobs before landing an inside sales job with Cabletron in New Hampshire.
Within six months he became a sales manager. He continued climbing in the company when the Post Falls opportunity opened up.
“It’s definitely different out here, but in a lot of ways better,” he said. “I find people out here are a lot friendlier, and a lot easier to get to know. Back on the East Coast, families have been around for hundreds of years - they’re so close-knit that it’s not always easy to become friendly with them.”
With his wife and two school-aged children, Wilkinson has settled nicely into the North Idaho lifestyle. Fishing and boating top his recreational favorites.
While he’s had to give up East Coast staples like big city sports teams - he has to follow Boston clubs from afar - he’ll take the crime rate in Post Falls compared with the big cities there.
“If you do a crime out here, they’re going to get you,” he said with a smile. “That’s not always the case on the East Coast.”
Cabletron’s facility here will continue to expand and add salespeople, Wilkinson said. As with any fast-growing company, people like Wilkinson move up fast.
“We’ve already promoted people out of this office to run a new office in the U.K. and in Australia,” he said. “Good people move up quickly here.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo