"Trust is the foundation of any relationship."
Mark Roberts Tweet
Mark Roberts brings an exceptional background of over 35 years of sales & marketing successes, & leadership. Mark has had senior sales, marketing & training development positions across a wide array of businesses, including The Timken Company, Mobility Works, Gardner Denver, VMI, Pragmatic Marketing, Frito-Lay, & many other industry leaders.
With a long history of building, training, coaching, & leading sales teams, the National Association of Sales & Marketing recognized his contributions with The Business Excellence Award. He was recently recognized as one of the Top 50 for his expertise implementing Sales Enablement by Highspot.
Mark is also the author of the book “Branding Backwards”, a keynote speaker, trainer, thought leader on LinkedIn, and his strategic business development blog No Smoke & Mirrors. A graduate of the Executive MBA program at Kent State University, he also completed a management-development program with Harvard Business School.
Mark has a passion for continuous personal improvement and helping his clients drive strategic profitable growth. When he’s not serving customers, he actively volunteers in the community. He and his wife Kecia rescue Labradors and help them find their forever homes.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Mark Roberts: I founded OTB solutions in 2000 to help companies that desired to scale 2X, 5X or more.
Our process is pretty simple; we assess the current state, identify your desired future state then prescribe what your business needs to reach your desired future state.
One automotive company grew from $14 million to $90 million, a TPA firm doubled in 18 months, a machine shop grew 45%-60% year over year for three years and our biggest success was a $4 million plastics company that was sold 13 years later for $300 million.*
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffet, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Mark Roberts: We take a data-driven approach to the art of sales growth.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle keeping talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are adapting to the current shift we see?
Mark Roberts: Trust is the foundation of any relationship, and as Covey shared in the book “Speed of Trust”, it is sadly lacking in most organizations. Once we have built trust and psychological safety, we focus on what motivates each unique person.
With assessment instruments we can determine their personality, motivations, and beliefs, and it is the burden of their manager to adapt their communication to how the employee wants to be communicated with
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Mark Roberts: Post-pandemic, we see a hybrid approach to serving and engaging with our customers. It starts with understanding how customers want to engage and delivering the best customer experience.
We are leveraging the voice of customer research to understand how clients want to engage clearly and the challenges they face today. Our approach is to serve clients not sell them.
We have adapted by delivering training and coaching virtually as well as adding online learning.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Mark Roberts: My first book was “Branding Backward”. I wrote this book in response to help so many small to midsized businesses understand branding by intent vs. branding by default.
In April 2023, my next book sharing the process we have used to help companies experience explosive growth will launch. We share our secret sauce, so to speak, in how we have helped companies grow rapidly.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Mark Roberts: Leadership.
As companies grow, top performers become leaders but rarely receive training and coaching on how to lead.
What does “success” in the year to come mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Mark Roberts: Serving my clients and watching their dreams come true when they follow the steps and coaching. In 2023 I am also launching cohorts of company CEO’s to complement my one-to-one work to help more CEOs. My target is 1000 CEOs by year-end.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Mark Roberts for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Mark Roberts or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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