Jim Shea
Vice President Sales
Summary
Experienced executive, strategic sales leader and team builder with demonstrated success overseeing cross-functional teams to improve the customer experience, drive sales and increase retention. Passionate about building strong relationships, coaching and motivating others with strong bias for action and accountability.Thrive on taking on new business challenges and working in high-pressure, fast-paced collaborative environments.
Throughout my career, I’ve been consistently tapped for my critical thinking and problem solving skills to lead expansion efforts that enabled the organization to drive incremental sales and margins through new product/solution offerings, new business development growth and organic growth with existing customers. My individual contributions to this success included leveraging my Sales, Operations and Organizational skills in the following areas:
- Staples Contract Division - Selected to start and lead the first category expansion outside of Supplies by establishing a Contract Print Division serving the needs of Fortune 1000 customers. The success of the which became the foundation for all other category expansion efforts still in place today. Responsibilities included establishing a strong vendor community, negotiating contracts, building and motivating a large staff and implementing sales plans, goals and objectives for the organization.
- Contract Labels and Packaging – Tapped for my analytical and leadership qualities to resurrect the underperforming labels and packaging division. A big believer in change management, I reorganized the division into an Account Management and Business Development structure and coached 3 Sales Directors and a team of 30+ sales consultants to better serve the needs of our clients which resulted in double-digit growth within 2 years.
- Retail Category Expansion efforts – Assisted in growing the nearly $1 billion Copy and Print category into the fastest growing, most profitable business in Staples history, with double-digit sales and margin increases for 8 straight years.Responsible for recruiting, coaching and motivating the Retail Print Sales Organization that included a team of 100+ marketing communications sales specialists across the US. Awarded Tom Stemberg Innovation Award while in this role for critical thinking that saved the company nearly $10 million over 2 years.
Experience
Vice President Sales
Taylor Corporation / Boston, MA
Responsible for staffing, coaching and managing the Northeast sales region (NE, NY, PA) that included a 12-member team, driving over $60 million in sales over an 8-state territory. Grew market share through building strong customer and vendor relationships and improved strategic account retention nearly 20% year over year by partnering with business development to increase marketing communications product-line sales to our fortune 500 companies. Additional responsibilities included managing the complete P&L for my geography and creating and implementing the sales forecasts. Highlights included:
- Salesforce advocate which led to consistency across the team, holding them accountable for driving Sales, Pipeline, and Activities leading to all members at or above Plan and to a company leading 109% to Sales Plan; 138% to Sales Increase YoY; 206% to Margin Plan; and 234% to Margin Increase YoY.
- Big advocate in being proactive with contracts and extensions leveraging strong relationships with customers, getting creative with incentives, and understanding their business needs.The net results (98.5% retention rate) and being awarded new contracts with all top accounts including CVS, Liberty Mutual, Honeywell, Paychex, and Prudential to name a few.
- Implemented new marketing solutions within top accounts across the geography including data analytics, promotional products, direct mail, labels and packaging, and secured communications creating a waterfall sales approach for years to come.
Vice President Sales
Staples Business Advantage / Boston, MA
Responsible for the strategy, sales vision, and “go to market” approach that maximized sales growth, customer success and profitability for the $100 million Labels and Packaging division.
- Revived struggling operation to a turnaround success story. Implemented effective promotional strategies, trained a high-performance sales team and helped boost corporate morale.
- Management oversight, with full P&L responsibilities, that included a team of District Sales Managers, 30+ Sales Reps, and Vertical Solutions Sales reps responsible for Business Development, Account Penetration, Account Retention and Profitability activities.
- Expanded revenues for products and services of more than 20% annually by partnering with plant operations and marketing teams to understand capabilities and capacity opportunities leading to changes, including capital investments in equipment, to address trending areas.
- Improved client satisfaction and performance through improved performance reviews, upgraded QBR’s, and engaging with plant operations to understand customer challenges.
Director Sales
Staples Business Advantage / Boston, MA
Responsible for development and growth of national sales organization for business print and promotional products services that led to the transformation of Staples Contract from a 100% Office Products company to an omni-channel business operation that became the foundation for other Solution rollouts including furniture, technology and facility supplies.
- Led the growth of an omni-channel inside and outside sales teams from 2 to over 100 employees that included Account Managers, Business Developers and support teams.
- Achieved double digit Sales and Margin growth for eight consecutive years.
- Defined the sales cycle, created accurate job descriptions and developed standards for customer relationship management.
Education
Bentley University
BS / Marketing, Management
Skills
