I am obsessed with positively impacting my clients, team, and community.
As a rainmaker, I have been in sales and marketing since 15. I have sold Newspapers, Pizza, Cars, Clothing, Car Detailing, Vinyl siding, Insurance, Furniture, Commercial Real Estate, Food, Computers, Development, Advertising, TV Commercials, Computer Repair, Networking, HiTech Services, Staffing, Consulting, IT outsourcing, Saas, Cloud Services, Artificial Intelligence and so much more.
Early years
I was born in Ravenna, Italy, to a Law enforcement agent and a wedding dress seamstress.
But moved around a lot. At one point, I lived in a convent orphanage like Harry Potter.
We also moved through Europe and Africa because of my father's Interpol career, But once he retired, we immigrated to America. America wasn't the land of gold-paved roads we heard about in Italy.
We were mostly homeless and thankful for relatives and friends who migrated here.
Most nights, I had a couch or floor to sleep on, mostly lived here and there.
School was challenging since I did not speak English, but I figured it out. At 16, and on the first day of my sophomore year, while working in a furniture place, I suffered an injury that landed me in the hospital for two and half years at the New York Eye and Ear, where I was recovering from my broken throat at the ear infirmary were nine surgeries later and a godfather-like voice I still graduated with my class 141 out of 145.
A Bit After
While in the hospital, besides being able to learn most lyrics to radio songs, I taught myself programming, and as soon as I graduated, I opened a company to do computerized bookkeeping where I wrote every line of code and attended Bergen Collage for accounting to learn what the hell I was doing.
I ran that for a few years while moonlighting as a CNC machinist, making robots for the healthcare industry, which I learned by attending Passaic Industrial Engineering School. I needed to do that because bookkeeping could not support my Mother and father. On weekends, I worked at a car wash, and on weekend nights, I made BMX bicycles … I loved that time.
A couple of years later, I sold my bookkeeping business, the first business I sold. I thought that I was rich!
After trying to make it a go in the US Air Force, a childhood dream of mine, I went to work for a real estate private equity firm, which I found out later had some interesting underworld connections… eeck!!
There, I bought and sold commercial property and tracks of residential land. The most famous deal was with the art of dealing with Mr. Trump when we sold him a property that gave him access to his Atlantic City casino from his parking garage. Ok, not sexy, but if you ask me, I will tell you a funny story about that deal.
Soon after I left that company, I turned my hobby of building computers into a business.
I first purchased half of an electronic store and leveraged the brand into a computer company where we made the fastest computers for demanding users with mathematical work. Turned that into five stores throughout the NY metro area.
Then, we started a network administration for media companies like CMBC, MTV, and on-location filming, followed by Saas company, where I built an SMB billing and invoice company. Successfully excited that company to start something new.
As a result of the sale, I went to work for the justice department and realized why it's so hard to do work in the government… UGH
I was asked by IBM to help on a merger and acquisition of the tech services arm of GE and integrate some of the team and stayed on to manage professional services and IT outsourcing until four years later when it was then sold to DecisionOne, where I did the same thing but left after completion of the acquisition.
At that time, I bought a web development company and merged into another to find a home in a digital agency inside an advertising company shortly sold to coordinate, which merged with WPP. Great time at the digital agency.
Left WPP (should have stayed) and joined a startup company that coined and started the cloud storage category. Yup, that's right, you heard me!
I will tell you more in my resume…
I Have managed small and large sales teams from 5-300, Hunters and Farmers, and Small and Large companies like IBM, Accenture & WPP.
My travels
I also have had the good fortune of being a world traveler and have done business in countries like India, China, Japan, Russia, Bratislava, Vietnam, Cambodia, All over Asia, Europe, and the Americas, including my own country of Italy. I have sold a deal to Intel, Morgan Stanley, DOD, Air Force, Philip Morris, Pentagon, Top 50 Banks, Pharmaceutical, HealthCare, you name it.
I probably have sold them something.… and I Loved It. Now, I want to help you succeed in sales as I did. But first, we can work on Defining the best Target market, clarifying messaging, communicating to target audiences, prospecting, qualifying deals, presentations, negotiating, and closing strategies. Then do it again!
Professional Life
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2019 Oak Lane Partners PE – Operating Partner
2009 CompCom – SVP Sales
2002 Accenture – Partner
2001 Cloud SAAS – VP Sales
2000 WPP – VP Sales
1998 DecisionOne – VP Sales
1994 IBM – Sales Executive
1991 Justice Center – CIO
1985 MicroPower – CEOProjects
2018 BehindSelling
2011 MortgageGods
1999 MX.Media
I996 SafePassage
1992 "Hackers" Movie Consultant
I985 MicroPower
1983 ABC
Published Books
Rethinking Sales
Hungry Like The Wolf
1000% Business Growth
Top Line Entrepreneur