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Daniel Cotton
- Corporate Sales Director
- Working at TTC since 2007
What is a day in the life of a Corporate Sales Director like?
Well, most of my day is spent online
Seriously though, I would say that majority of my day is spent talking with people; potential corporate clients, Trade Commissioners, Sales Agents, our current clients, and the management team of TTC. I find it amazing that I can sit at my little ole desk in Orleans, Ontario and communicate with people all over the globe. Even though I’ve been doing this for 3+ years, it’s still amazes me how I can meet with a Saudi Arabian, Russian, Korean, Italian and Brazilian’s all in one day.
I spend a fair amount of time emailing as well…not my favorite thing to do, but a crucial part of finding new corporate clients. I much prefer to get into a meeting room and talk things out with people. I’d take a day of non-stop meetings over a day of answering an inbox full of messages, that’s for sure. I feel so much more gets done when you talk with people…and it’s great fun at time too!
What is the toughest challenge you face on a daily basis?
It’s not so much a challenge, but I would say it’s juggling the various responsibilities of being a Corporate Sales Director. TalktoCanada is a growing company, so each of us on the management team wear many hats. In just one day I could be initiating a new marketing objective, meeting a potential corporate client, emailing the Canadian Trade Embassies overseas, recruiting a new Sales Agents, demoing our WebEx training platform, and teaching 2 hours of English online. There are so many little pieces to the puzzle, and working them all into the day takes some good time management skills.
What is the most interesting part of your job?
Without a doubt it’s the people. The team we have at TTC is amazing! We’re like a family…always there to help each other out. We regularly get together; have brainstorming sessions, share our challenges and triumphs, and are constantly looking for bigger and better ways to provide top notch services to our clients. It’s great.
What is the biggest or funniest mistake you’ve done as a Corporate Sales Director?
Well, one time I accidentally sent an email to a Canadian Trade Commissioner instead of a potential corporate client. That wouldn’t have been such a bad thing by itself…but the email wasn’t actually finished. It was a rough draft…and my rough drafts tend to have a fair amount of ‘uncut’ sentences that are usually for my eyes only. I learned my lesson from this little faux pas…don’t write a draft email in the reply section to someone else’s email. Ha. In the end, there was no harm done of course. (I told you I didn’t like emailing!)
Tags: director, efl, email, esl, funny, manager, online, sales, skype, teaching
