Ed Trost is an experienced international facilitator, executive and trusted advisor for corporations, their executives and even some NFL coaches. Over his 35-year professional career Ed has been a college professor, individual contributor and sales executive. With a Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Berkeley, he has been astute enough to understand and bridge the gap between the “theoretical” and the “reality” that businesses face.
Leaving academia for a business career, Ed began his professional sales career selling what was at the time cutting edge technology (32K RAM dedicated word processing systems to corporate and government accounts in the San Francisco Bay Area). This first hand experience enabled Ed to empathize with those in the business of sales. Pursuant to this career, where he proved himself a top performer for nearly 10 years, Ed worked for the worlds’ largest professional sales, customer service, and management training company, Learning International, consulting with Fortune 500 companies on their sales and customer service strategies. Again, he was a multiple President’s Club award winner.
Ed’s creative instinct has made him invaluable to industries and organizations that have long sought to instill a sales culture but have fallen short. As the following two examples demonstrate, Ed is capable of assessing an organization’s goals and shortcomings and, not only recommend, but implement a strategy that crosses levels and functions within an organization.
IBM when faced with increased competitive pressures in the early 1990’s enlisted Ed to help them create a competitive advantage through the quality of the customer service experience. IBM, not known for going “outside” for its training hired Ed and Learning International to develop and help implement a training program that continues to this day having trained thousands worldwide.
A Pac-10 football team struggling to enhance their recruiting efforts enlisted Ed’s assistance. Recognizing that recruiting is ultimately selling, over a four-year period Ed worked diligently with the head coach and his staff by training them in face-to-face selling skills as well as coaching them on various recruiting opportunities. The result – a ranking of #7 in the country – the highest ranking for that team in 40 years. Many of those coaches are now in the NFL and continue to seek Ed’s advice.
A one billion dollar golf course management company seeking to change its paradigm from an operations-driven environment to a proactive sales culture in an extremely competitive environment hired Ed as Vice President of Sales to assist them in making that transformation. Working through the inevitable challenges that are inherent in sales vs. operations cultures, the sales organization became a competitive advantage in the marketplace and helped grow sales revenues double –digit for each of his 4 years with the company.
Ed was called upon to increase the sales effectiveness of the Australian distributor for Learning International. During his tenure in Melbourne, Ed not only increased revenues and profitability of that operation but also built a network of independent agents throughout the country each selling sales, management and customer service strategies/training to their constituents.
This hands-on international experience gave Ed insight into the challenges that multi-national corporations face when implementing initiatives, programs and strategies. This led him to an interest in assisting global organizations to manage the impact of cross-cultural diversity/communications in the workplace. As a result, Ed was a principal in Cultural Synergies a company that specializes in this discipline. Ed co-developed the e-learning initiative for Cultural Synergies with a webinar entitled, 'The Elephant in the Room - Exploring Cultural Awareness'.
Some of Ed’s more recent projects include working with:
Real Time Matrix, a leader in cross-platform modular communications. His current role as Global Sports Marketing Leader, is to expand their base of sports properties (Major League Soccer is one of their largest clients) to reach the social networking world in a meaningful way with a Vortex (widget-like technology), a content rich, multimedia brand experience.
the nation’s fastest-growing health club chain in developing a corporate selling approach for its corporate wellness programs. Additionally, he was a key driver in gaining corporate partners for its rewards program.
the largest provider of online employee discounts for corporations. He was responsible for specific vertical markets as they expanded their offerings to over 35 million corporate employees.
Combining his extensive training experience with real-world sales issues, Ed has co-developed several high-level account strategy modules as well as a face to face verbal communications skills program. These workshops utilize an open architecture, which enables the participants to receive maximum results by applying the concepts and skills to their own sales reality.
When working with clients, Ed believes that it must be a team approach for the training intervention to yield results. While relevancy of the training is important, ultimately the key stakeholders must buy into the solution and make the commitment to its success. To accomplish this, Ed painstakingly uncovers the gaps in performance and the needs of those stakeholders as he works with the client to create an achievable solution. Virtually all of his work is customized for the client to ensure the intervention is not short-lived and results are achievable and measurable.
When not engaged with corporate commitments, Ed runs the world’s largest adult tennis tournament near his home in Palm Springs, CA. This United States Tennis Association’s (USTA) Category II event brings in over 735 players from across the United States and abroad and is widely recognized as the premier adult event in the country.
