Personal insight: A day in the life of David Hatley

I’ve been with BT Wholesale for five enjoyable years. Prior to that I’ve been in sales for over 20 years with various positions across the BT organisation. Before joining Wholesale I ran the Service Provider Group in BT Business.

In Sales it’s all about the numbers so I focus on getting high revenues and margins as well as offering great service. My team help deliver success by ensuring we win a large percentage of our customer’s new business and help them gain advantage over competitors, reduce their costs or move them into new markets.

During a typical working day I will meet with customers to sell new and existing products and services. I also give the sales team the support to push themselves into new areas so we can compete outside of traditional areas of calls, lines, broadband, etc. as the new and exciting products tend to pull through the traditional ones. I do also have a fair share of problem management – unfortunately we don’t always get it right the first time so I deal with customers asking for help – I like to take charge and make sure the issue is closed off.

I definitely enjoy being in front of customers as I can see the meeting prep paying off and it’s a stimulating environment as you need to think on your feet.

I find it particularly frustrating when individuals don’t deliver against a promise as it has a knock-on effect to someone else’s day or business. Another pet peeve is when I see people not committed, enthusiastic and giving 100% to do a top job – it’s difficult to hide and that mentality rubs off on others. In an ideal world I’d also have a little more thinking time rather than going from meeting to meeting.

We’ve just moved into a new year with new targets so the main challenge is gaining the support of the organisations on the interventions to deliver success in 15/16. The other challenge that’s on everyone’s lips is Ethernet delivery as it often becomes the talking point with customers and internally as it underpins so many other services – we need orders to be more fluid and divert discussion to new and exciting areas, such as hosted voice.

Something sports related. Perhaps a PE teacher.

I’d love to be able to play the piano.

Ex-England and Tottenham manager and player, Terry Venables. I’d love to hear some of the mad stories of Gazza – the best player I’ve seen play for Spurs and England!

Watching football – with youth no longer on my side I’m restricted to this! But I do have a season ticket at Spurs. I enjoy a little golf when I have the time and support my daughter who plays a fair amount of netball at a high level. I also like to give back to the community and am the Chair of an inner city Career Academy that supports young people aged from 16-21 to be the best they can be.