Mark Ciuba, Groov-Pin’s sales manager, celebrated his 35th anniversary with the company last month. He began his career at Groov-Pin in 1983 after answering an ad in the newspaper. “I had never been in a manufacturing facility before,” he said. “Seeing the machines run and seeing the parts being made, there was something about it that clicked for me.”
He was the Northeast sales representative for his first nine years at Groov-Pin and has been the sales manager for the past 26 years. “I went from managing a territory to being part of the management team that provides direction and strategy for the business.”
Today, his job responsibilities include working with customers on existing business and new application opportunities, providing guidance and support to the sales team, and working with management to forecast sales estimates for the fiscal year.
There are certain skills that Mark had to develop to succeed as a salesperson and to help get his career to where it is today. Through proper training and working with experienced salespeople, he learned to ask open-ended questions to start a dialogue, listen, provide input, come to an agreement, and keep communication open throughout a process or an issue.
He has also had to learn how to deal with sales challenges. “Finding new business can be a challenge,” he said. “There are so many options in the marketplace, so we developed a sales strategy called ‘all customer planning’ and we make sure we have as many engineering, purchasing, and management contacts as we can at each key customer.”
Groov-Pin’s sales team has a specific number of target visits and communications with each customer. Developing contacts in multiple departments is important because the majority of business comes from the existing customer base. “We want to make sure we build awareness of Groov-Pin when customers are developing new applications.”
“Our customers can rely on us to solve a challenge,” he said. Groov-Pin has been supplying many companies for decades and one of the reasons for this is the way inside and outside teams have developed relationships with customers.
“It’s interesting to work with so many different customers in all segments of the industry,” he said. “We have visited companies from four-person operations to the most technologically advanced manufacturing facilities in the world.” No matter the size of the company or the segment, Mark enjoys working on new projects to completion and helping customers when issues arise.
Mark takes an interest in the process of turning raw material into a part that is critical in an application. “From engineering and purchasing raw material to seeing the part run on the machine, the whole process is fascinating.”
The work is interesting, and so are the people. “Our employees are what make Groov-Pin fun to work for,” said Mark. “There are so many talented people in the business and we all have a common interest in seeing parts ship out the door.”