Graeme Plouffe
Vernon,Canada
Summary
Results driven, knowledgeable, experienced industrial and mechanical sales professional with a wide array of multiple industry experience, technical expertise spanning mining, automotive manufacturing, hydraulic systems, engineering, steel and aluminum production and processes, tool and die systems, heavy equipment, farming equipment and machinery, ski lifts and resorts, dark rides and theme park robotics, industrial equipment used in multiple industries. Adapt learner, enjoys challenges, team player, enjoys learning just as much as teaching, a passionate, personable, charismatic leader looking for new growth opportunities.
Overview
16
16
years of professional experience
Work History
Director of Nitrogen Products
Moeller Precision Tool
02.2023 - 10.2024
- Developed and trained a team of both inside and outside Professional Sales Representatives, Regional Sales Managers, Customer Service Representatives, Engineers and Technical Support Specialists for complex technical products and markets, including, industrial markets relating to automotive manufacturing, metal and plastic injection molds and stamping, metal forming, steel mills, appliances, mining and ski resorts, theme park rides and heavy-duty equipment
- Trained international teams and managers in the United States of America, Italy, Canada, and Mexico
- Reviewed, company structure, sales reports, profit and loss reports, financials, distribution channels and business strategies for the United States and Canada Across all business segments
- Developed a new business product segment that saw high ROI yields and low risk
- While developing a technical team and management team to support the company
- Grew sales in Canada for new product segment from $0 to $1.1 million in the first 6 months
- 23% total increase in Canadian company revenue across all product lines
- Grew sales in the United States by 27% of U.S, company revenue
- Personally oversaw, visited, serviced and sold to customers in the southeastern United States while finding a new regional sales manager that had retired leaving the position vacant for 8 months
- Sales grew from $940,000 USD to $1.43 Million USD
- Set up new company suppliers and venders to add value, revenue and growth to product line offering for another business segment
- Retained and secured multiple global business contracts with O.E.M manufacturing companies
- Inventory MRP installed systems to secure total business, customer ease of use and value add relationship
- Equating to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in guaranteed, repeating business
- Developed and implemented complete product management, inventory, CRS systems to handle new product lines
- Attended global sales meetings and product development meetings at headquarters of multiple companies under the Moeller company, in Bol Sano, Italy, Michigan United States, Nashville, Tennessee United States
- Worked with engineering management team in Italy to develop and deliver both product, marketing, and sales techniques for a new product previously unknown to the company
- Attended and spoke at multiple trade shows around the world
- Showcasing technical abilities, business strategies, products, and value-added company components
- Leading to new customer bases and corporate contracts
- Invtes to many boards including IRD, AIST, CTMA
- Achieved higher margins and reduced DOH time on distribution and manufactured products
- Implemented new marketing and sales processes, presentations, legal documents for distribution and sales representatives
- Making sure our team was effective and given the tools needed while protecting company interests and clients
- Distribution agreements became less convoluted more streamlined and effective
- Review daily incoming and outgoing sales reports
- Review quarterly sales reports, earnings reports, profit, and loss management
- Develop and implement strategies, framework, materials for sales managers, customer service management, and engineering
- Develop and review marketing materials, product specifications
- Company budgets for giveaways, entertainment, and events
- Co-ordinate company events and trade shows with marketing manager
- Expenditures, set up, booth implementation, trade show coverage, industry associations
- Personal responsibility of southeastern USA clients, both in person and via phone and email
- Fill in for training and re hiring of a regional sales manager covering Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia
- Equating to roughly 340 customers
- Personally responsible for the Quebec Territory in Canada, to service existing customers, grow new business and find a reputable sales distributor or representative to cover this area
- Both growth and a reputable sales rep were achieved
- Develop and implement company price lists, cost lists, inventory lists, share with management team and execute into CRM systems and Excel documents to ensure widespread uniformity, and proper pricing management
- Develop and implement company presentations and distribute to the team
- Training on go to market functions, training on customer base and presentations
- Find new business opportunities, segments, and industries to expand outside of traditional company client structures
- Provide onsite company and customer support, technical support, product support
- Provide engineering support and work with engineering and production team to support sales demands, product needs, safety measures and on time delivery
- Support the Regional Sales management team in both Canada and the United States equating to 17 direct report Regional Sales managers, 4 direct report Customer service managers and 8 direct report engineering managers
- Responsible for reviewing and working with both suppliers and distributors to ensure our company's mutual success, relationship, and benefit
- 22 distributors and 9 suppliers and vendors
- Become familiar with all concepts of the business products, customers, different markets, and services currently offered
- Develop new markets previously unexplored, develop business strategy and marketing materials, ideas, and approvals for new industries
- Report to the Vice President, President and CFO on earnings, management, company events, business development, new partnerships, employee management, corporate development, and contracts
- Attend and present at trade shows, company, and industry events
- Delegate process, functions, and duties to regional sales managers
- Train, develop and implement new and existing product sales strategies with broad scale team
- Ensure ISO 9001 AS 9500 compliance and corporate compliance for any and all industry related
- Ensure legal compliance and documentation of employment, representation, distribution, supplier and vendor agreements
- Draft, approve and edit agreements
- Ensure all regional managers, representatives and customer service personnel are aware of company policy, procedure and have the tools required to provide them with a safe and effective working environment
- Ensure lock out tag out and safety procedures are reviewed with HR and health and safety committees
- Work in unison with directors of other departments to ensure a balanced and transparent workplace
- Execute and demonstrate sustainable workplace management
- Execute and demonstrate sustainable sales and healthy revenue for the company, ensuring growth, reporting and retention
- Employee engagement, performance reviews, training, on site and customer training in both sales techniques and technical aspects of the product and industries
- Review regional managers expenses and approve
- Review car allowances and other costs related to sales personnel and performance
- Entertain and accommodate customers and key stakeholders for the benefit of relationships and company relation
Nitrogen Product Manager
Porter Precision Products
05.2020 - 02.2023
- Achieved sales growth, safe customer engagement and results during COVID-19 pandemic, implementation of zoom and teams meetings with regional sales managers, vice president of sales and customers
- Educating and training on new technology available for remote work and learning
- Grew sales in Canada by 40% during 2020 and 2021, by navigating and succeeding in engaging customers in new and innovative ways
- Launched company organizational chart and streamlined human capital capacity and increased productivity
- Through a throughly structured system and approach
- Worked with 3 other companies to develop a new technology for the stamping industry that included complex hydraulic, pneumatic, nitrogen and electrical systems
- The new technology resulted in a one time sale of the new equipment of $280,000 USD with more profitable systems that were implemented after the approval and demonstration process
- This new technology had not been developed before, helped our customers add immense productivity, decreased downtime while also streamlining and providing an easy to use technology for the industry
- Ensured compliance with PED directives, electrical compliance CSE, CE compliance for new product
- Developed streamlined supply chain processes, relationships, and management
- Achieved U.S L1-A visa status
- Trained USA headquarters; regional sales managers, customer service, general managers and marketing manager on new products and technologies, crossover lists, marketing material, specifications
- Worked with 6 direct report regional sales managers in their respective territories across the United States and Canada to engage in new product sales and development into existing and new clients
- Having success and growing the company's overall sales by 16% in the fiscal year of 2021-2022
- Personal sales territory grew by 30% through in customer visits, value add, new technology and expert relationship building skills accompanied by technical expertise and knowledge
- Review sales literature and add technical advice, support and feedback to marketing
- Responsible for personal sales territory which included all of Canada, south eastern United States
- In person visits, zoom and team meetings
- Technical support, diagnostic support
- Value added sales techniques and relationship building
- Management and oversight of everything relating to the nitrogen product segment of the business including direct reports; 6 regional sales managers, 2 general managers, 4 customer service representatives, 1 manufacturing Manager
- Reported to Vice President of Sales
- Review and engage in reports regarding sales, profit and loss and inventory
- Attend all industry events and trade shows
- Provide support, training and engagement to all customers of the regional sales managers territories
- Fill in for Vice President of sales when on vacation or unavailable
- Shared responsibility of legal with Vice President of sales
- Review and approve regional sales managers expenses and call reports
- Devise, review and update strategic account plan and list of strategic accounts
- Provide in person relief to the general manager of Canada when on vacation or unavailable
- Provide manufacturing leadership support
- Attend company global sales meetings
- Directly responsible for 470 customers across Canada and the United States
- Work and support U.K manufacturing supplier of nitrogen products
- Responsible for manufacturing oversight and management of nitrogen product business segment
- Responsible for distribution channels and engaging distributors, aiding them in customer visits, marketing and shared growth services
- Web and social media marketing
- Provide monthly and quarterly reports, industry trends
- Company and product feedback to the VP of sales and President
Director of business development, secretary and treasurer
Toolpak Solutions LLC
02.2019 - 05.2020
- Started the company with 2 other business partners, former retired customers
- Engaged, researched and negotiated supplier and vendor contracts, relationships for distribution of their products
- Including world renowned corporations and products for the industry; Codi-pro, Jet Set, Metrol gas springs, Bordigion, diamond metals, Porter Precision Products, Sabre Tool and Machine, Nominal Tool, Digital Electric and others
- Set up CSR, inventory, financial, CRM, invoicing and quoting systems for the company resulting in ease of use, ease of billing and order entry
- Wrote company policy, procedures and legal, employee, distributor and contractor legal documents
- Branded the company, logo and mission statement
- Achieved 380,000$ in sales in 3 months from start
- Handle all financial matters from accounts payable, receivable, trends, reports, year end financials, month end financials, payments, invoicing, accounting etc
- Responsible for all marketing, company logo, templates presentations, mission and direction
- Responsible for company relationships with vendors
- Ordering and Delivery
- Profit and loss
- General sales and Technical support, customer service
- 3, 5 and 10 year business plans and strategy layouts
- Regional territory of Ontario - London to Quebec
- Work with company president on all aspects of the business
- Support USA company in systems, accounting, sales, marketing, logistics, technical support
- Order entry
- Invoicing
- Shipping receiving
- Repairs and diagnostics
- Company meetings
- Employee, sales rep Interviews
- Industry engagement and trade shows
- DOH reporting, inventory reports
- Banking, company credit and finance
- Issuance of shares
- Share valuations
- In person customer support and service
Technical sales manager
Barnes Group Corporation
04.2009 - 02.2019
- Largest single sale in company history $840,000 USD, advanced technical metal forming product
- Became project manager and lead for large scale manufacturing projects that pushed our manufacturing capacity beyond its capacity
- Worked with customers and inside manufacturing director to make sure timelines were met and products were released when needed resulting in no late orders, high profitability, customer satisfaction and synergy
- Resulting is immense customer loyalty
- Ground up employee, moved up from shipping receiving, to customer service to office management to field support to outside sales eventually becoming a regional manager then technical sales manager, this was through my proven skills, dedication, ability to learn the business at an extensive rate and was provided immense amounts of knowledge from experienced peers, tackling many issues with ease
- Was awarded employee of the year 4 times
- Was awarded salesperson of the year 6 times, as each year was over plan by 10-20%
- Was awarded the employee engagement award for participating and successfully launching new segments of the business including many items outside of my original job description
- Was able to reduce inventory from $1.4 million to $760,000 at the Canadian office while still meeting customer needs, time lines and also reducing freight costs by more than $300,000 a year
- Achieved automotive specifications for exclusive use in customers plants these included MAGNA international, Metrican MFG and NASG (North American stamping group) General Motors, Thai Summit, Toyota Manufacturing Canada, Honda Alliston, Marwood Metal, Flex-N-Gate, allowing us to be the sole supplier of products to these customers and awarding us high volume and profitability
- The specification also generated new customers as being on the specification list only allowed our products, previous companies that did not deal with us opened their doors warmly and we achieved great results
- Grew personal territory sales from 1.8 million to 6.9 million over 4 years While increasing product reach and profitability
- The specifications allowed the company to go from 19.5 million USD to 28.7 million USD
- Led a team of specification specialists to repeat this globally advancing our foothold greatly
- Was the team lead for new business segment development in the mining industry which resulted in 1.2 million USD in New revenue
- Assembled a global team that led to standardization of marketing materials, sales strategies and strategic account developments
- Territory: manage and generate new customers in Southwestern Ontario, Quebec for the tool and die industry and Canada wide for Press and Steel Mill industry
- Increase new business across 3 business segments with unique and custom engineered application's
- Management of 3 distributors and 240 accounts across Canada
- Review Canadian Office Sales plan and overhead costs
- Communicate and provide direction for the Inside Sales Team and office co-workers
- Develop and maintain strong relationships with new and existing business
- Service and provide technical support to customers for existing projects and newly attained systems
- Train and guide Outside Service Reps and Technical Sales Reps
- Provide Sales Territorial support to other Regional Sales Managers and Technical Sales Reps
- Provide the Director with industry intelligence, market trends and customer programs
- Work with the management team in accounting, engineering, customer service and sales directors regarding National sales plan and budgets
- Delivers National Coverage for select industry specializations and Provide feedback and input to global presentations and tooling programs
- Co-ordinates with Marketing Managers and Marketing Specialists to create new catalogues, website, industry events and conferences
- Networks at industry events and trade shows, manage booth and set up at trade shows
- Author and implement new pricing agreements internally and externally
- Wrote and update new procedures, price lists and agreements with customers
- Generate the Canadian list price and pricing related programs
- Attend International sales meetings annually in Tranas Sweden, quarterly in Brecksville Ohio and annually in Detroit Michigan
- Attend global distributor and sales meetings annually
- Participates in the inventory planning and logistic meetings to provide feedback and support for decision's regarding the Canadian operations and inventory
- Attend tooling design reviews for new programs and offer technical assistance and design support at customers like GM, Magna and Ford
- Provide training to existing and new team members across 3 separate divisions
- Responsible for training Service Reps and new personnel in all functions of the business
- Communicate with the Sales Team globally in China, India, Europe, U.S.A and Mexico
- Continually target new business and create strategic account goals to execute new business
- Provide technical support and set up support for new and existing customers
- Diagnostic and support all systems and products
- Attend design reviews with Engineers and Regional Sales managers
- Self-authored and presentations to the Internal Sales teams, Regional Sales Managers and customers
- Assisted Regional Sales Managers with training seminars and technical explanations
- Work with the Inside Engineering Team to understand manifold functions and customer expectations
- Assist logistics, IT and accounting personnel with system implementation of new pricing, discounts and margins - customer based and internal
Education
BS - mechatronics
University of Waterloo
01.2020
General Business Administration -
Seneca College
01.2016
OSSD -
Notre Dame Secondary School
Burlington, Ontario, CanadaSkills
- Engineering background
- Hands on skills
- Learning ability
- Strong mechanical background
- Strong industrial knowledge
- High value sales expertise
- CAD
- SolidWorks
- Strong computer skills
- Apple systems
- Microsoft systems
- Excel
- Word
- Pages
- PowerPoint
- CRM systems
- CSR systems
- Leadership mindset
- Ownership mindset
- Respectful
- Organized
- Ingenuity
- Ability to meet challenges
- Quick learner
- Ability to understand complex situations
- Willingness to help coworkers
- Leadership development
- Business development
- International business
- Sales management
- Business strategy
- Strategic planning
- Vendor relationship management
- Team management
- Visionary leadership
- Staff development
References
Letters of recommendation and references available upon request.
Timeline
Director of Nitrogen Products
Moeller Precision Tool
02.2023 - 10.2024
Nitrogen Product Manager
Porter Precision Products
05.2020 - 02.2023
Director of business development, secretary and treasurer
Toolpak Solutions LLC
02.2019 - 05.2020
Technical sales manager
Barnes Group Corporation
04.2009 - 02.2019
BS - mechatronics
University of Waterloo
General Business Administration -
Seneca College
OSSD -
Notre Dame Secondary School