About Sales Training Online

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           As a person involved in sales for over 40 years I feel well qualified to offer practical and common sense advice to those who are contemplating a career in sales or those who are already in sales but wish to revisit some of the basic principals of successful selling.
I believe that the KISS philosophy (keep it simple stupid) is what really works and on this website as well as in my manual The 4 Step Sales Plan you will find a list of criteria that have worked very well for me throughout my sales career.

You can also feel comforted that unlike many ’sales trainers’ I have well and truly ‘walked the walk’. My sales career extends over four decades in both direct selling and managerial roles, an outline of my background is below.

1971-1974  State Manager Mac Robertson Miller Airlines (MMA), Darwin
1974-1980  Promoted to Sales Manager WA for MMA
1980-1982  Worked in Real Estate industry where I received 10 sales achievement awards in 12 months
1983-1995  I joined Directories Australia (Yellow Pages) as a Sales Representative in Perth.

Summary of achievements whist with Yellow Pages

• Most Valuable achiever Award 1983
• Highest sales result for Perth 1984
• No.1 in sales results in Perth 1984 No.2 Nationally
• Promoted to District Sales Manager with a Team of five sales representatives in 1985
• No 1 Sales Team in Perth Division 1985
• No.1 Sales Team in Perth 1986/1987
• Promoted to Division Manager Western Australia in 1987
• 1989 Produced best results ever for Western Australia
• Promoted to Regional Manager WA, SA and NT in 1990
• Awarded for $50 million Perth Metropolitan Directory
• 1992 Won CEO National Management Award
• 1992 Promoted to General Manager WA, SA, NT and QLD
• Won 12 international incentive trips based on sales and managerial results

1995-1998  I semi retired to act as a consultant to various Perth companies
1998-2004  I took up an offer to good to refuse to come out of retirement and joined Australia Post as  Manager Sales  WA. I then moved to Area Manager role running 23 Post Shops.
2004 -Present I retired from full time work in 2004 and began a Sales Consultancy business “SMOOTH SELLING”

My time is now spent assisting both business’s and individuals who wish to either begin in sales, improve their existing sales techniques or from a company point of view look at the overall performance of their sales team. I have included a few of the testimonials from some of the organisations and individuals I have worked with on the testimonials page of this site. The success’s I have enjoyed throughout my career are as a direct result of adhereing to the practices and disciplines I outline on this website and in my manual The 4 Step Sales Plan.

John Cotton