Nick Johnston is a serial entrepreneur, a leading sales professional and a successful business owner. He started his career in London’s competitive financial sector before being lured to Hong Kong by a business acquaintance. Using his financial services experience, the recruiting company, Wall Street Associates, was established with his business partner in Hong Kong before Nick decided to go it alone and focus on the Japan market.

In 2010 Wall Street was sold to en Japan, and Nick moved to Singapore to start the next phase of his life. Nick is now a private investor and business advisor and has a keen interest in HR technology solutions and HR business processes. 

Craig: Can we start by talking about your experience as a sales executive; when you were an individual contributor and also when you owned a business. 

Nick: I was a recruiter, and I set up a recruiting business, but a lot of the sales practices apply in many sales strategies, especially B2B. I learnt from an early mentor who told me: “Talk to decision-makers”. It’s the most common sense and logical piece of advice, however, it has been a challenge through my whole career in managing sales teams. 

Getting sales professionals to talk directly with decision-makers is more difficult than it should be. People forget its importance. The decision-maker is in the best position to understand the requirements and the subtleties required to close the deal. For example, in the recruiting process, the decision-maker or hiring manager is in the best position to identify whether the candidates are technically strong or a great fit for their business. As well as this, some candidates undersell themselves. Therefore, my job was to get a great candidate in front of the decision-maker. This gave the best outcome.