@realsalesadvice

@realsalesadvice is the twitter handle for Derek Wyszynski.

Derek was born in Detroit, Michigan during the Nixon Administration. 

After a childhood full of Faygo Redpop, Better Made potato chips and 18 disappointing Detroit Lions Football Seasons, Derek graduated high school near the lower middle of his class.

It's not that he wasn't smart - he just hadn't turned in any homework since the eight grade. 

Derek worked many jobs through high school - like bus boy, short order cook, grocery clerk and chapter Vice President of the Count Scary Fan Club.  The most profitable high school job he had was as a telemarketer selling magazine subscriptions from 7pm to 10pm every evening. So the sales bug had bitten him...

After a few lackluster semesters at Wayne State University, where he majored in the fact that the drinking age in Canada (just across the Detroit River) was only 19, Derek came home from "school" (the bar) one day and had discovered his parents had moved, leaving no forwarding address.

So Derek did what anyone would do in that situation - he joined the Army.

As a soldier he was part of the United States Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) serving honorably as a cryptologist (code-breaker) - which he can attest sounds much cooler than it actually is.

In the Army he did discover that you could go to the PX (Post eXchange) with $20 and order a cheese pizza, buy a case of beer and a pint of Jack Daniels and still have a $5 left over. Which was great. 

At then end of the Cold War, since we were all out of enemies forever, the Government decided to "draw down" the Armed Forces.  Derek, hoping to pay back the US Government for the millions of dollars it had spent training him, applied to the NSA, the CIA, and even the LMNOP - no dice...there was a hiring freeze. (thanks Obama..I mean Clinton!) 

Derek's military records (the sections of it that aren't stained with pizza sauce and bourbon) show Derek possessed an uncanny ability to understand "networking techniques and technologies." With that experience, after the Army, Derek came back to Michigan applied for IT jobs in the MIS (Mainframe information systems) sector.

He soon went to work for Perot Systems (yes that Perot) in Auburn Hills Michigan (yes that Auburn Hills), as a night shift Computer Operator in charge of Scratch Tapes, Job Abends and Decollating three part forms.

He promises those were real things in the 1990s. 

In 6 short years, being a highly functioning alcoholic, Derek moved up quickly in his chosen field of Information Technology  - going through many jobs (and a few wives), working his way from Detroit, to Seattle WA and then to Cincinnati OH.

By the year 2000, Derek was the CIO for a major law firm in the Midwest. 

But near the turn of the century, that old sales bug started biting again - so Derek threw caution to the wind and restarted his career - this time in corporate sales.

In corporate B2B sales, Derek has worked as an individual contributor, a sales specialist, a first tier sales manager, a director of a national sales team and a VP of sales. 

He has worked for startups and large enterprises.

Derek has sold single copy machines to small dentist offices and multi-million dollar enterprise software packages to Fortune 100 companies. 

His customers have included, Microsoft, Safeway, T-Mobile, Disney, Nintendo, Nike, Rand and a host of others. 

He has sold to manufacturing, professional services, local and state government, K-12, higher-ed, healthcare and even retail clients.

Derek provides all of his content FREE in an effort to educate and inform his audience. 

If you don't agree with him - drop him a line - he'd love the chance to "sell" you...

All content on this site is property of Derek Wyszynski.