In our annual highlighting of industry leaders, Water Technology focuses this month on top salespeople who have been nominated by co-workers and others for noteworthy efforts to bring home and commercial customers point-of-use/point-of-entry water treatment technology and its benefits.

Selected by the editors from nominations submitted by readers, the following “sales stars,” as we call them, are the people on the front lines — the ones who often make that all-important first customer contact in a process that ends with great water.

Read these profiles for insight into how these top performers persuade and educate about the benefits of having better water, and into what’s possible in the sales realm.

We thank readers for the many excellent nominations we received this year.

— Editors

A plan that was more than just a dream
Bob Barnott
MAST Family Culligan
Fort Myers, FL

One night a few years ago, Bob Barnott woke from a sound sleep with a vision.

As a manager at MAST Family Culligan in Fort Myers, FL, he had grown tired of losing customers to a local competitor who had a lengthy service plan.

“It really irritated me that we couldn’t come up with something that was better,” Barnott recalls. “I started trying to come up with different ideas, and literally, in the middle of the night, I woke up and wrote it down.”

Barnott’s “Platinum Care Plan,” an extended service policy, was quickly adopted by MAST, and its success led to national acceptance by Culligan earlier this year.

Barnott, who has worked for Culligan since the early 1990s, covers Florida’s Lee and Collier counties, selling equipment to builders for housing developments that rely on well water. Between January and October 2006, Barnott wrote and placed 618 point-of-entry and 250 point-of-use treatment systems.

When he entered the water treatment industry, he says, he could make a good sales pitch, but he lacked technical expertise.

“I got tired of customers knowing more than I did about what I was selling,” he says, so he spent six months on the road with service technicians, developing a thorough understanding of how treatment systems worked and how to repair them. Then his sales grew.

“If you have a good presentation, it’s easy to sell products, but if you run into people who are more knowledgeable than the average consumer and you can’t answer their questions about how the products work, then they lose confidence in you,” he says.

Canvassing neighborhoods, networking and waving the Culligan flag has helped him win customers.

“You can’t just sit at home waiting for the phone to ring. You have to go out and let people know what you do, and you have to do an honest job,” he says.

— Paul Panek

First, make friends with the customer
Christopher Williams
Diamond Water
Las Vegas, NV

A sales pro with four reps working under him and a backlog of referrals could coast in such a setup, but not Chris Williams, sales director at Diamond Water, a Las Vegas dealership focused on that city’s booming residential market.

“Chris is one of the few who still canvasses along with a heavy referral business,” says Mike Paice, director of business development for PureDemand Water Systems, a manufacturer of a whole-house reverse osmosis system for which Diamond is a dealer.

Williams says, “I love sales, and I love the water treatment business.” In this business, he says, customers “are actually able to see how you help them, and there’s not that many [industries] out there where you’re able to show a customer that big of an improvement.”

He entered water treatment in 1994 shortly after college (California State/ Fullerton) and quickly made his mark in sales at several companies — Rayne of Las Vegas, EcoWater, and US Filter/ Culligan — before helping to start Diamond Water.

Although Williams concedes that Las Vegas’s economic boom has been a help, he also says this has “brought a lot of competitors out of the woodwork” (including a few low-ballers). This situation, he says, calls for a “passionate, personal” approach to customers, time to educate them, plus honesty and integrity. Without the latter, he says, “they’re never going to refer you.”

“Every product I’ve sold, I’ve had in my own house,” he explains. “I was always taught that, first, you have to make friends with the customer, finding some common ground. And typically, you buy from your friends.”

Williams is on his way to another record year, according to Paice. Williams says hardness and minerals in Las Vegas water makes people appreciative of the whole-house system he sells.

But that won’t keep him from continuing to do, as he puts it, “a lot of door-knocking.”

— Tom Williams (no relation)

Big cooler clients all in her day’s work
Jennifer (Hayes) LoPresto
Spectrum Water Coolers
Jessup, MD

Selling to big companies like Barnes & Noble, Microsoft and HSBC Bank may seem tough to some, but for Jennifer (Hayes) LoPresto, it’s all in a day’s work.

As national account manager for Spectrum Water Coolers in Jessup, MD, LoPresto sells to and manages the company’s key, large accounts. She writes contracts for water cooler rentals, negotiates terms and sets customer service levels.

“They will contact us and say, ‘We’re opening a new store. We want one of your coolers.’ I arrange to get it there and get the paperwork done,” says LoPresto, who has been with Spectrum six years.

A former international sales manager with a New York City software company, LoPresto says she is comfortable working with Fortune 500-type clients — and, she explains, maybe they aren’t that different from smaller ones: “You build a relationship with the people, and they get to know you by name.”

LoPresto began her career in customer service at a publishing company. Success in sales brought her management opportunities.

“I never really thought I’d be a salesperson, but, everyone was always saying, ‘Your personality is perfect for sales,’” she admits.

She’s learned that being turned down is not necessarily a negative experience — just an opportunity to move forward.

“It’s okay if people say, ‘No.’ You put a period at the end of that experience and move on to the next one,” she says.

Spectrum CEO Jeff Doughty calls LoPresto “a fantastic resource for her clients before and after the sale. She understands that we are in a service-based business.”

From offices in Texas, California and its Maryland headquarters, Spectrum provides service for clients in 38 states and Canada.

“It’s a very fun, forward-thinking company,” LoPresto says of Spectrum. “It’s been around 18 years and every year it still shows a big growth.”

— Paul Panek

In residential sales, he gets checkered flags
Michael Glaser
Aqua Solutions, LLC
Lakewood, NJ

Michael Glaser — president of Aqua Solutions, LLC of Lakewood, NJ, since 1987 — works seven days a week and, as a co-worker puts it, has an energy level “that is endless.” Not bad for someone who as a child was confined to a wheelchair and told he would be permanently disabled.

His view of that now: “I don’t like self-pity. The day that you concede to an ailment is the day that you’re done.”

Glaser’s sales success starts with good old-fashioned networking. Tammy Hig-gins, his office manager, says that no matter where he goes, “Mike knows thousands of people.”

Glaser makes his business accessible: “On my letterhead and my invoices is my home address. Not a PO box… I go to bat for my consumers and they know they can get hold of me.”

His interest in water treatment came in his youth when he noticed that the area he lived in had poor water. At the age of 24 Glaser started Aqua Solutions in hopes of changing that. He now sells equipment, does installation and service, and is on 24-hour call. He’s also invented a filtration system for well water.

Glaser is passionate about his customers: “They know that if we start a job today it’s completed the same day no matter what.”

Glaser’s approach is simple: “I don’t undersell, I don’t oversell, I sell what they need to give them perfect water.” His advice: “Sell from the heart.”

In his spare time, Glaser, married with three children, rides his motorcycle, plays softball, and hopes to return to race car driving, from which he retired seven years ago.

He’s in the fast lane in water treatment: sales last year of about $2 million in residential equipment.

“I’ll never slow down,” he says, “If I slow down, that’s gonna kill me.”

— Debra Gorgos

Still making music — in water treatment sales
Rick Hansen
EcoWater of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

Pop music and water treatment don’t go together. Or do they?

Rick Hansen went from being the lead singer in the New Christy Minstrels (after Kenny Rogers left) to being the lead salesperson at EcoWater of Los Angeles.

Hansen fondly remembers the music industry — he was also José Feliciano’s personal manager and record producer — as a great way to meet people, and he’s also found that as a sales rep.

Arnie Shaw, owner of EcoWater of Los Angeles, said Hansen has a “zest for life,” and adds, “Rick approaches each presentation without prejudice, but a sense of wonder, and sells our products the way the customer wants to buy.”

Hansen started in water treatment at a Culligan dealership after his music management company went bust. A friend got a job with Culligan and urged Hansen to give it a try.

“I was trying to keep the mortgage payments going,” Hansen says. “I thought I would give it a go and found out from my very first time out that I was good at it, so I ended up staying.” On his first sales call, he recalls, he sold a “double” system (water softener plus RO).

A sales rep since 1989, Hansen has now been with EcoWater of Los Angeles for almost four years.

The man who once sang at the White House now has some other achievements: $650,000 in sales this past year, a consistent closing rate of 80 percent of his presentations, and average sales of $2,500 per demo.

“I’ve always liked people… and when you find something to like in a person you can really relate to them,” Hansen says, “My goal has always been in every negotiation to come up with a win-win situation.”

The connection between seller and the client is what counts, he says.

— Debra Gorgos