Paul Andrews is the Chief Revenue Officer for PennWell, is a business-to-business events, media, and marketing services company

On the Sales Game Changers Podcast, he spoke about how critical it is to be an expert in your customer’s industry to increase your chances of success.

Listen to the Sales Game Changers Podcast Episode 26: PennWell’s Paul Andrews Says Becoming Your Industry’s Go-To-Expert is Critical for Sales Success

Here’s an excerpt from the podcast:

Fred Diamond: Tell us about your first sale and a critical lesson from it.

Paul Andrews: It was a $50 sale and at that time our average revenue per sale was probably anywhere from five to ten thousand dollars for advertising orders and this woman called me and she had a coin and she wanted to promote it on our auction site and I’m going back 2004, 2005 and she was a t-shirt vendor and she had this new coin, wanted to promote it but I could tell just from my interaction with her that she had already run a business, sold it, was entering a new market, she had a business plan and I was absolutely going to help her grow her business.

I took it and it was like no big deal. That account within two years turned into a quarter of a million dollars and it was because we helped her build her business. It didn’t feel really good at that time but looking back it was huge.

Fred Diamond: Did you have any indication that this going to potentially become such a large client for you?

Paul Andrews: I trusted her and I invested a lot of time and it gets back to becoming that subject matter expert. She had dabbled in online advertising and knew a little bit and I took it upon myself and my team to really educate her on e-commerce and how she could really grow her business and as a result it did pay off handsomely for both of us.

Paul Andrews is the PennWell Corporation’s Chief Revenue Officer. He oversees the Marketing Solutions Division, Sales, Training and Development and looks at all companywide revenue streams for growth opportunities, may they be in media, research, data and live events. Paul has been in B2B sales for more than 30 years, specialized in online advertising and marketing since 1997. PennWell is a family-owned media business that has been operating for more than 100 years. It has 650 employees worldwide and serves industries such as public safety, oil and gas and power generation.

Listen to the Sales Game Changers Podcast Episode 26: PennWell’s Paul Andrews Says Becoming Your Industry’s Go-To-Expert is Critical for Sales Success