What is a revenue architect?
When a business wants to grow, the responsibility lands on sales and marketing to bring in more leads. That’s the reflex. But if the strategy has a hole in it, more leads just mean more opportunities lost. You’re not growing, you’re leaking faster.
A revenue architect works on the structure before anyone touches the target.
How has your background in professional sport helped in the work you do today?
Business is a team sport, and the parallel is more literal than people think. It doesn’t matter how good you are in your position if the people around you aren’t good in theirs.
But the thing that shaped me most came from the injury. I fractured my shinbone for the fourth time. I was stubborn about it, I’d been told I wouldn’t play again, and I kept pushing to come back anyway. The moment it actually ended was in an office in Hungary with a doctor whose English was almost non-existent. I asked him what I needed to do to get back on the pitch and how long it would take. He picked up a pencil, snapped it in half, looked at my shin and said, “Your leg spaghetti.” I was in my early 20s. That was the end of it.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
The easy answer is a footballer. Specifically, a Liverpool player. That was the whole ambition.
The truer answer is that I wanted to be safe and I wanted to be happy. Both were in short supply in my formative years.
Business became my new arena. There are rarely any chanting fans, but I get the same buzz from winning at this as I did from winning on a pitch, and it’s given me a life where my family and I are both of those things. Safe and happy. That was the actual ambition, and I got there by a route I couldn’t have predicted.
What advice do you have for job seekers and companies with vacancies to fill?
For companies, two things. First, experience isn’t the golden ticket people think it is. It costs more, it takes longer to hire, and you’re not just buying their knowledge, you’re buying their baggage and the phrase, “but this is how I’ve always done it”. It’s easier to train than it is to retrain.
Second, put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re trying to attract. You’re not just publishing a list of skills. If you want somebody engaged and talented, give them a specific reason to come to you.
For candidates, my mantra, and I say it out loud most days: “Don’t ask, won’t get.”
It’s your career. Stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for replies, stop waiting to be polite about it. Ask the question, open the door, go and get what you want. The only person who can guarantee you don’t get it is you.
Business Times
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