Experience in Practice
A closer look at the sales, market-entry, technical-equipment, and account-growth work behind my background.
The examples below show the kinds of situations where my experience is most relevant: serious products, considered buyers, long sales cycles, new-market trust building, and the wider value around equipment sales.
Premium equipment territory growth
For nearly a decade, I represented premium roasting equipment across North America, with defined responsibility across the US Midwest and Eastern Canada and broader customer exposure across the continent.
This was a high-trust, long-cycle sales environment. Typical sales cycles often ran 6 to 18 months. Buyers were not simply comparing machines. They were weighing operating fit, future capacity, installation implications, risk, support, and the credibility of the person guiding the process.
Average equipment sales sat around $117k USD, with larger projects around $250k USD. The work required sustained follow-up, careful qualification, technical fluency, and the ability to keep a serious buying process moving without forcing it.
The wider value often came after the initial order. Many sales created opportunities around venting, installation coordination, parts, service, and related project work.
What this shows
This shows long-cycle sales discipline, premium-product credibility, territory development, and the ability to grow account value beyond the first transaction.
OEM market entry
I helped develop a US market-facing platform for a South African manufacturer entering the market.
The challenge was not simply introducing a product. It was creating enough local credibility for buyers to engage seriously. That meant shaping the market-facing identity, developing materials, translating the offer for a US audience, recruiting supporting sales help, and supporting early traction that led to an initial sale.
This kind of work sits between strategy and selling. A manufacturer can have a strong product and still struggle if the market does not yet understand the offer, trust the support model, or see a credible local path to purchase.
What this shows
This shows market-entry thinking, OEM support, positioning judgment, and the ability to help turn an overseas product into a credible in-market opportunity.
New-product commercialization
I brought a China-sourced optical sorter to market as a white-label equipment offer for North American buyers.
This involved sourcing, supplier coordination, positioning, sell-sheet creation, offer development, and customer-facing sales work. The difficulty was not simply finding a product. It was creating enough confidence around a lesser-known offer in a market where credibility matters.
A sourced product does not become a marketable offer on its own. It needs a clear buyer case, credible presentation, risk reduction, and a path into the right conversations.
What this shows
This shows practical commercialization experience, supplier development, offer creation, and the ability to build market-facing credibility around a new product.
Technical supporting systems
Alongside equipment sales, I sold and scoped technically demanding exhaust venting and plant-support projects across coffee roasters, boilers, specialized building routing, MRI-related routing, and geothermal-related air intake work.
This work required turning complexity into clear proposals, understanding fit and routing issues, and maintaining buyer trust where the supporting system was critical to the overall project.
It also expanded the commercial model beyond the primary equipment sale. Supporting systems created additional value, deepened the customer relationship, and helped ensure the broader project actually worked.
What this shows
This shows technical-commercial range beyond coffee, comfort around engineered systems, and the ability to translate complexity into buyer confidence.
Industry presence and credibility
I have regularly attended major SCA and World of Coffee events in the US over multiple years, attended AHR in the HVAC market, been mentioned in Daily Coffee News, and contributed to Perfect Daily Grind on roastery planning, equipment consistency, and roasting-space upgrades.
These markers are not the main story, but they support the broader point: I have spent years close to buyers, manufacturers, technical products, and real market conversations.
Account growth after the first order
A recurring part of my commercial model was retaining the customer after the first order and growing the wider relationship over time.
In practice, this often meant adding roughly $20k to $40k around a machine sale through venting, service, installation coordination, parts, supporting systems, and related opportunities that many reps would have left on the table.
Repeat customers were a major part of the model, particularly on the service and supporting-systems side. That pattern mattered because it turned a transaction into a durable customer relationship.
What this shows
This shows strategic account development, follow-on revenue thinking, and an understanding of lifetime customer value around technical products.
What connects the work
The common thread is not one industry.
It is the pattern underneath: technical products, considered buying decisions, trust-building, cross-border market development, and account growth around serious equipment.
That is the work I am most interested in now.