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A Profile of Joel Cataldo, SMT President
by Lesley Boyer, Business Relationship Strategist & President, Sterling Ed
“No one plans to get into Sales Training.” Joel Cataldo exclaimed, Director, Organization Effectiveness and Global Sales Excellence, Arrow Electronics, Inc., in Melville, New York. “It’s not as if we had flip charts and markers in our bedrooms while growing up. Right?” he laughed.
Explaining his work history, he went on, “I worked for Ross Acquisitions, all through college and for a few years following. I was in account management and I did a lot of formal presentations, so I had honed both my platform skills and my understanding of what it took to build sales relationships”.
“While there, I had an opportunity to interview for a general position in Human Resources at Arrow. I went through two weeks of interviews, someone mentioned ‘sales training’, in the midst of a conversation. I scratched my head and thought that sounded interesting but I didn’t believe I was necessarily qualified.
Arrow disagreed and brought him on. Now Joel is Director of Organization Effectiveness and Global Sales Excellence and acknowledges, thoroughly, how much SMT has helped his growth. “Paul Nichols, a former boss in the 1990’s and a mentor to me,” Joel explained, “encouraged me to join this organization because he advised that it would be a great opportunity to network. He was right.
“SMT has given me a huge reservoir of external resources, a repository of ideas, content and generally ‘good stuff’ to help me.” He laughed. There are so many clearly defined practices, well developed processes, not to mention very capable people, that I could see I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
Joel began his wheel-turning upon graduation from St. Joseph’s College, majoring in Human Relations, and an he received his MBA from Dowling College. A Long Island boy, his father and the aforementioned Mr. Nichols, taught him much. Cataldo senior “was perpetually optimistic…always willing to try something different. And Paul taught me how to be a professional.”
The professionals at Arrow Electronics’ “make stuff work” and it is up to Joel to lead his team to work their stuff. “We develop people by means of a matrix of responsibility and help them understand their competencies,” he described. We try to wrap our arms around learning and performance management; i.e. what do you do and how do you do it? What kind of trail did you leave? At the core of this, I believe, is that training need to be aligned with skills and competencies - and it is always a struggle to keep that balance.”
He went on, “The other piece of the challenge puzzle is that we are always asking ourselves ‘how do we find people to match our competency model?’ I think we need more cooperation across Learning and Development, not just across time zones. For example, we have broad structural designs with content,
but we could present the life cycle of a sales order to narrow the specifics?”.
What is a day in the life cycle for Joel at Arrow? “I work for a wonderful Leader who allows us to do our jobs, who has clout within Arrow and advocates for us when we need it. In addition, there is lots of excitement – a revolving door, if you will – each day is different. Each day presents an opportunity for new things.”
Joel’s cycle at home might be of the tri- kind - a moment-by-moment replica of new things but in a different way. He and his wife are parents of 3 1/2 –year old twins and a 3-month old boy. And he owns a high-end guitar shop called “The Groove Shoppe”.
No strings? Straight Arrow? Maybe a bit of both. As SMT President has made stuff work and the organization is better for it.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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September 2007
Give Your Sales Training a Second Life!
There Is No Place Like Work: Seven Leadership Insights For Creating a Workplace to Call Home
Authors: Dr. Sheila L. Margolis and Dr. Ava S. Wilensky
By Book Reviewer: Robert Klein
Stop Acting like a Seller and Start Thinking Like a Buyer
Authors: Jerry Acuff, with Wally Wood
By Book Reviewer: Renie McClay
SMT Annual Conference
November 12 - 14, 2007
Fairview Park Marriott
Falls Church, VA
Click Here to Join the SMT Family
SMT Welcomes Our New Members
Acclivus Corporation
Arrow International, Inc.
Express Scripts
Sales Momentum
Sony Electronics, Inc.
WellPoint
"Being a member of SMT provides me with an invaluable network of sales and marketing training professionals that have an incredible amount of experience and knowledge to share... I rely on this prestigious group to support me in dealing with business challenges unique to our profession...
SMT members are my peers, my mentors, my friends... SMT is the only professional organization I belong to..."
Mary Elliott Bassett, Worldwide Director, Sales and Customer Training, Entertainment Imaging, Eastman Kodak Company
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