Antony covers Lancashire and South Cumbria and last year celebrated both his 20 year anniversary whilst also entering his 29th year in earthwork support and temporary works design, both huge milestones in his career. Having many fond memories and some good laughs along the way he reflects on his time in the industry.
Tell us a bit about your role
There are many important elements within my role that contribute to ensuring our customers receive the best service possible. Account management is a big part of my day-to-day job, ensuring customers have a great experience with MGF. Regular communication is essential whether by phone or site visits to ensure the solution we provide is the most suitable. From the smooth co-ordination of design to successful delivery of our kit to site ensures we provide our customers with a complete service. My speciality is within the water engineering sector and I regularly liaise with Tier 1 contractors across this area. During my career I have been involved in many of the AMP programmes starting with AMP1 through to current AMP7 works.
What is it that you enjoy about it the most?
I really enjoy meeting new people and building great relationships whilst providing them with a great service, I like taking the time to get to know customers and developing strong relationships with them over time. It’s always a great feeling when a customer refers to you on a first name basis as their first point of call, that’s when you know you’re doing a good job.
What was it that made you want to follow a career in Technical Sales?
My time in the industry started after having worked in electronics with alarm and domestic fire systems so the move into a different sector was something completely new to me when I went on to work as a hire desk controller for another company. It was after 8 years in this role that I decided to take the next step in my career and move into a technical sales, which is when I joined MGF. This seemed like a natural route of progression with everything I had learned from working on the hire desk, I really enjoyed being able to visualise and physically see in person what the kit was used for, how it came together and was installed on site to form a complete solution and I wanted to learn more about this.
Describe your background and how you got into the industry
I started work as part of a Grassroots programme as a hire desk controller, I learned a lot and gained priceless knowledge from the older generations which really helped me to progress in my career. Back in the day I worked with some great characters who really taught me a lot, through the sharing of stories and experiences of their time in the industry. I really enjoyed learning more each day about the different applications available and developing an understanding of why the company provided these solutions. I joined MGF 21 years ago and around 6 years ago I briefly moved into the role as Regional Sales Manager for the North West and Yorkshire area, however due to personal circumstances and my passion for being out on the road and working more closely with customers I decided to go back to a role as Technical Sales representative.
What do you find to be the most interesting projects to work on?
My experience and expertise lie in water engineering and AMP projects, which can have several different variations and requirements across a range of schemes such as Water Treatment Works (WTW), Waste Water Treatment Works (WwTW), UID’s, DG5’s, LDTM’s, supporting a wide range of excavations including FST’s and CSO’s.
What do you appreciate about having a strong working relationship with customers and how that benefits your job?
I think that early involvement as part of the supply chain is a huge benefit to gaining a good understanding of the contractors needs, as well as helping to develop a close network with them and their teams. I have met many people and characters over the years, both work colleagues and customers, its just a great industry to be a part of. The strongest relationship you can have with people is on a personal level, getting to know them and building trust with them so that you have that recognition.
