Vendman’s Isobel Kershaw (pictured), is building an enviable reputation as a vending industry expert. Isobel who? Read on…
The role of Client Manager at Vendman is not one for the faint hearted.
It’s not only the mind-numbing amount of product knowledge one has to absorb, it’s also the marathon of motorway miles between clients; a demanding combination that would sap the stamina of most people.
Luckily, for Vendman customers, Isobel Kershaw, is not ‘most people’.
‘I’d be in the gym every day if I could’, she admits. She looks as though she makes it there more often than not… Young – just 25 – confident, knowledgeable and enthusiastic, Isobel, or ‘Issy’, to her colleagues, is the personification of potential, spotted.
With so many graduates scrambling to get a foothold, Vendman’s recruit, hand-picked from hundreds, brought with her a CV consisting of six months of bar work. ‘She’d worked her way through university by waitressing, working behind the bar, all sorts of things’, Daniel Hamby, Vendman Sales Director, recalled. ‘That showed that she had a kind of determination to get what she wanted and we liked that about her. She was used to working hard and being behind a bar had taught her how to handle people, that was for sure.’
It was a hell of a leap for Isobel. With a 2:2 from Liverpool John Moore’s University her only safety net, she crossed over from a bar-maid’s apron to the keys to a company car.
Some twenty-two year old heads might have been turned by such a visible totem of advancing status, but not her. Neither was she thrown in at the deep-end. For six months, she was nurtured along the learning curves of accountancy, software and the vending industry. Thereafter, she was judged ‘ready’, and part two of her induction began. For three months she became Daniel’s ersatz shadow, travelling the country meeting customers.
‘I remember coming out of a meeting and sitting in the car and thinking ‘what on earth am I doing here?’
Isobel admits she found it hard going. ‘I remember coming out of a meeting and sitting in the car and thinking ‘what on earth am I doing here?’ she said. ‘We had this heavy discussion where I was saying things like ‘I know nothing’ and ‘why would they ever listen to me?’ Whatever confidence I’d had was pretty much knocked out of me during those first few weeks on the road.’
And if ‘on the road’ may strike you as glamorous in some way, think again: ‘to begin with I was deployed to do Blackberry training. ‘Most of the time, that involved sitting around in cramped rooms in damp warehouses with various bunches of blokes who’d already clocked up twelve hours on shift and really wanted to be somewhere else’, Isobel joked. (However, her expression makes you suspect that there’s at least an element of truth in the story…)
Almost three years later, she’s done more than simply grow into the demanding role of a Vendman Client Manager. In fact, she has thrived in it and her burgeoning expertise, particularly in the implementation of Vendman’s ground-breaking Route Management software, is making her name in the business.
It was whilst she was focussed on implementing Route Management software at Benson’s Vending, in Preston, that Daniel and Vendman MD Rob Little became the delighted recipients of an entirely unexpected e-mail, from Benson’s Managing Director, Matt Haselden. Matt wrote:
‘I’m very proud of the team at Bensons and their innovative approach to our business and any projects we undertake. In the case of Route Optimisation, Craig and Joanna have spent a great deal of time trying to flex the system to best suit our business and to think through the implications, some of which are immediately apparent, some less so. Much of this pre-launch assessment work has increased the pressure and workload on Isobel, for example our decision to split into 4 work areas quadrupled some of her work.
‘I think it is important to acknowledge Isobel’s contribution to our project. She has taken the time to understand the elements of our approach that are unique to Bensons and has therefore in my mind, elevated her contribution from that of supplier to a key player.
‘In short, Isobel is a credit to your business and I have great confidence that she will help make Route Optimisation a great success within your other customers businesses. I’m sure you already value her highly, but if you do get the opportunity to recognise her work with route optimisation here at Bensons, it would be well deserved.’
Phew, not bad… I’m sure you’d agree, an endorsement like that would make a pretty impressive page in anybody’s brag file…
‘In short, Isobel is a credit to your business.’ Matt Haselden
‘When you hire somebody there’s always a risk’ Rob said. ‘But Daniel and me had a good feeling about Isobel; we thought she’d fit right in and that, in time, she’d become a real asset to the business.’
Evidently, that time has come.
