One of the highlights for me last week was the privilege of presenting Brown & Bigelow’s Cindy Jorgenson with the 2014 Counselor<\/em> Woman of Distinction Award. And hoo boy, does she deserve it. Read below for the full text of what I wrote about Cindy for the upcoming issue of Counselor<\/em>. And I’d just like to add that in addition to being one of the most talented people in the industry, Cindy proves one thing: For those who say that nothing good ever happens at God-awful Shenanigans (yeah, it’s a hellhole, but it’s OUR hellhole…), know that Cindy and I first met there 13 years ago have been each other’s industry girl crush ever since.<\/p>\n And now, without further delay, the many reasons why Miss Cindy Jorgenson is this year’s Woman of Distinction…<\/p>\n — M<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n “If you look at the management teams and boards of directors across the industry they\u2019re still very male dominated,\u201d Jorgenson says. \u201cBut on the sales side it\u2019s very female dominated. In general, women don\u2019t take as many risks and can lack assertiveness … We tend to play it safe. However, our attention to detail, ability to multitask and to emotionally connect with people give us an edge that can\u2019t be ignored. My goal is to continue to motivate women into this industry and once here, help them move beyond support positions into sales and management.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Bill Smith Jr., president of Brown & Bigelow and Jorgenson\u2019s boss, concurs. \u201cCindy has been a role model for many people at Brown & Bigelow, especially women. She has mentored sales assistants in their transition into sales, new sales people learning our industry as well as experienced sales people making the transition to selling national accounts. Credibility is her greatest strength. Sales people respect her because she\u2019s actually done what she recommends.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n And it\u2019s this kind of commitment to mentorship that Jorgenson, who\u2019s a past president of UPMAPP, is quite familiar. \u201cI worked for a small distributor prior to joining B&B,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI started, at age 21, as an assistant to the owner who was also the largest producing salesperson. I held this position for 18 months before moving into sales, and I now know \u2013 without question \u2013 that first 18 months is why I\u2019m in management today. Not only could I see the sales process, but I had the opportunity to view and come to respect the management side of the business as well. The owner\/salesperson I worked for in the beginning told me that when I become successful, I must reach back and take someone\u2019s hand, just as he took mine. Serving on the UMAPP board allowed me to do that; my position at Brown & Bigelow now allows me to do that every day by coaching sales partners on prospecting, time management, generating leads and proving a return on investment.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTalk about a go-getter \u2013 if you can keep up with Cindy, good luck,\u201d says Rena Ashfeld, national sales manager for MN-based supplier Advance Corporation. \u201cI\u2019ve had the privilege of being on UMAPP Board with her, being one of her suppliers and her best friend \u2026 to see her at work is amazing. She mentors and cares deeply about this industry. This girl can multitask during the day for her clients, spin around like Wonder Woman and network at night like a rock star. She\u2019s truly a force to be reckoned with.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Jorgenson advises that the best course of action for younger sales professionals is to start on the inside. \u201cThe learning curve is enormous in this industry,\u201d she cautions. \u201cMy advice would be to learn on the company\u2019s dime. Collect a salary, learn the business, make mistakes and get some product knowledge under your belt. When you have that, then transition into sales. You\u2019ll go with more confidence and less costly mistakes.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Speaking of those, Jorgenson points to a doozy of a faux pas she made early on in her career: \u201cI took too long to realize the importance of the supplier-distributor relationship,\u201d she admits. \u201cThat first distributor I worked for had the mentality of \u2018we are the suppliers\u2019 customer and they must do what we say.\u2019 That couldn\u2019t be more wrong. Our suppliers are just as important, if not more so, than our clients. Without them, we have nothing to sell, and without their processes, procedures and quality control measures nothing would ever get delivered. If you\u2019re still beating up your suppliers stop and start partnering with them \u2013 I promise your business will grow.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n For Jorgenson, the woman who never met a goal or challenge she didn\u2019t like \u2013 all while wearing heels as high as carjacks \u2013 her love of the industry remains constant. \u201cIt\u2019s the products, the people, the independence, the fact that salespeople define their own lives and income, the creativeness, the constant change you must make in yourself to stay competitive, the crazy, chaotic deadlines, the pull-your-hair-out, must-have-a-freaking-cocktail-right-now pressure,\u201d she says. \u201cI love it<\/em> all.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi Everyone! I’m just back from Chicago, where I spent a week at the ASI Show, the Counselor Best Places to Work conference and squatting at my BFF Sharon Biernat’s house, an oasis of cool in the middle of the city that I never want to leave. Sharon, a distributor sales rep with Skokie-based Creative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,11,6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asi-shows","category-editorial","category-interviews","category-personal","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cindy](\"http:\/\/asicentral.com\/images\/blogs\/bellblog\/cindyj.jpg\")
You would think — considering that she\u2019s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, swam with whales, cage-dived with great white sharks and repelled through cavernous waterfalls \u2013 Cindy Jorgenson, what with her penchant for putting herself in precarious positions, is a charter member of the Justice League. In fact, as an 18-year industry vet and the current vice president of sales for <\/em>Counselor Top 40 distributor Brown & Bigelow, she\u2019s intent on tackling a Herculean challenge closer to home \u2013 completely upending the industry\u2019s reputation as one of an old boy\u2019s club.<\/em><\/p>\n