Here is a short Q & A with Sales Representative, Don Hartfield. Don joined the GEO Jobe team in October of 2018 and is based out of our Center for Research and Engineering (C.R.E.) in Gulfport, MS.
Q: What is your job at GEO Jobe, and what does it entail?
A: I am the Sales Representative for GEO Jobe’s ABCs of GIS — Admin Tools, Backup My Org, and Clean My Org. My daily tasks generally include a variety of calls and emails both to and from potential customers looking to purchase these products as solutions to their ArcGIS needs. As part of these discussions, I perform demos for customers and their team members to both showcase the product and answer any questions they have about it. When I am not dealing directly with customers, I work with other team members to generate plans and workflows to find new leads and opportunities for our products.
Q: What attracted you to join the GEO Jobe team?
A: I knew about GEO Jobe for years having known the CEO since we were in high school. We crossed paths one day at a local store and while catching up, he went on to tell me a lot about some new changes and new directions the company was moving and it got me very interested, so I commented: “Well, if you’ve got an opening I’d like to see what I can do there”. He brought me in to discuss with the directors at the office for a full interview about a sales position and I was soon hired.
Q: What jobs and experiences have led you to your present position?
A: When I first went to college, I went for a degree in computer science / engineering. Many years later I ended up graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi with a B.S. in Business Management. My elective business classes were entrepreneurship, marketing, and sales. Before joining GEO Jobe, I had spent years both before college and afterward working for Harrison County in the land records and court department. I spent a lot of time doing face-to-face and phone calls with attorneys and land companies for a variety of issues between the court and land records. However, right after college, I did spend 2 years working as a certified optician for an eyeglasses company in Hattiesburg doubling as a Senior Sales Representative.
Ultimately, I found that my original high school and early college background in technology, my experience working with legal documents, and my degree in business, plus additional experience working in sales meant I had many relatable skills for the position offered at GEO Jobe.
Q: What particular skills or talents are most essential to be successful in your job?
A: I can easily say the “gift of gab“ (being very talkative, but also good communication skills in general) and being able to think reactively are two great skills. Next in line are multitasking and great depths of knowledge. Together this allows me to be able to run meetings and demos with great knowledge and the ability to both react to answers and changes in the direction of the communication, as well as handle days where there are meetings, emails, and phone calls bouncing around without missing anything important.
Q: What technologies and strategies do you use in your day-to-day work that are key to success?
A: GEO Jobe utilizes a new CRM (Customer Relationship Management) that is robust and powerful for organizing those leads, opportunities, sales, demos, contacts, and task tracker. Having a powerful CRM takes the stress out of doing your work allowing you as a salesman to focus on what matters most: finding those leads and communicating to them and completing the sales.
Q: On a more personal side, do you have a favorite newspaper, magazine, blog, or sources of inspiration?
A: I picked up reading the Wall Street Journal as a business student in college. While it was required reading, I found most of the articles interesting because it was a piece of American journalism that didn’t pick a side. In many ways, it focused on players in the game that were not just “big shakers” you hear about in normal daily news.
When smartphones came out, I came across the BBC news application as well. When it comes to getting my news, I use it daily because they report on real events (even ones in America and way better than we do) that are actually relevant in my opinion. They take fewer politics out of the media and focus on real news around the world so it’s a breath of fresh air to catch up on the daily articles. I have a custom page for world technology, world health, and world business.
Q: What kind of technology do you prefer and why? (Mac or PC, iOS or Android, and any other cool tech)
A: I have been a die-hard PC and Android fan. I think iOS / Mac / Apple do a fine job with their products, but they are so prohibitive that it’s much easier to design, build, and work on a PC / Android. In the end, while just a novice when it comes to web / programming, I still found those to be much easier platforms overall to work with. I can always find an application, no matter how niche or specific, to do something I want for Android. I always seem to never find an analogous application for Apple if a friend has a similar situation.
Q: What do you enjoy doing outside of the office?
A: I grew up being that strange individual that tried to do it all – I played baseball, soccer, street hockey, but when the lights went out, I put on anime and learned how to write HTML, early JavaScripting, and C++ on my computer. On the weekends I found that my friends and I would build and paint figures to play tabletop games, roleplaying games, or collectible card games, like Magic: The Gathering and many others.
I picked up the guitar in college and at least pick it up once a day to stay fresh, but I only mostly do personal jams or little bits for myself. In my other time, I still play some card games and continue painting and playing tabletop games, including Warhammer 40K and D&D.
