A Day in the Life of Adam Stout

Tell us about yourself, your background and how you got started in the industry? What brought you to APT SKIDATA and led you to make this career choice?

I’ve been in sales since I left University (a while ago now, we still used fax machines put it that way!) and joined a graduate trainee scheme for a big corporate firm. Over the years I’ve worked for a few large multi-nationals, and a couple of companies near their start-up phase, and I’ve learned a lot via every role and via some great people and mentors. 

My background has always involved selling high value solutions in a business-to-business setting – from explosion proof critical-communication systems for the likes of nuclear power stations, integrated electronic security for prisons, hospitals and big global enterprise clients, and now on to Parking and Mobility as well as our Sports and Entertainment solutions here at APT SKIDATA. 

When I was in my early thirties, somebody saw something in me from a leadership perspective and I was trusted to run a large sales team for the first time. Within the same business I received a few promotions to run progressively larger sales organisations which really accelerated my personal development as I had to learn very quickly and adapt each time. 

Five years ago I was contacted by a member of the senior team here at APT SKIDATA, when they were looking for someone new to lead change in their sales organisation, and here I am today having enjoyed the last five years very much.

This is a difficult one to answer, every day really is different in my role, but I’ll do my best! I aim to spend as much time as possible communicating with my own team, colleagues, partners and customers. This could be via phone, Teams/Zoom or in person. We do have a few regular diary meetings to discuss forecasts, management meetings, key objectives etc but in general I like to make sure I am available for as many conversations and meetings as possible as long as they are relevant to my role, that of the sales team or the development of our business. 

There is quite a lot of travel involved in my role, sometimes over to Europe but mostly around the UK (I live near Manchester so I’ll often travel down to Hemel Hempstead for meetings or take a train to London). With it being fairly early in the year we’re still bedding in some new key objectives and we have a number of highly significant customer projects under discussion so it is a busy time and I do sometimes have to react to other people’s timescales rather than my own (which is fine, I’m used to it!).

I also work closely with colleagues in Marketing around events and we’ll be attending a number that we’re very excited about this year – these always require a lot of planning as well as attendance on the day(s). 

What do you find the most challenging?

I do sometimes encounter challenging situations but, having seen plenty over the years, I find the best way to succeed is to see any work-related challenge for what it is – namely an opportunity to learn and work together to improve.