Sean McDonald is back to being “chief cook, bottle washer and everything in between”

Former ICONZ CEO talks about the launch of his new business venture

By Vera Alves, Auckland | Wednesday, 12 October 2011
He entered ICONZ “by accident and not by design”, as a consultant, and ended up staying for over three years as the company’s CEO. Now Sean McDonald has left to start a new business venture, Sales Systems, with the goal of helping New Zealand businesses grow further.

McDonald resigned from ICONZ in March to start working on Sales Systems, which was launched about four weeks ago.

“There is never a good time to start a business,” the industry veteran says. “You just have to take the plunge.”

Sales Systems was in the works for about eight to ten months, according to the founder, and the past couple of months have been particularly busy, as the company properly launches and makes itself known to customers. “There has been a lot of knocking on doors and shaking of hands,” says McDonald.

Sales Systems “helps companies generate business through the development of six core competencies”. Those competencies are: sales prospecting and lead generation, sales collateral and documentation, B2B communication and presentations, CRM, sales and sales management training, as well as recruiting sales and sales management staff. Or, in other words, the things that companies “aren’t very good at,” according to McDonald. “We’re very good at the part of the business that most people don’t like to deal with,” he explains. “It’s something that I’m good at and it’s what I love doing.”

The company is comprised of four people, all working from their own home offices. McDonald says he doesn’t think there will be any need for a traditional office. “We have Skype meetings every two days and we also have boardroom facilities in the city,” he says. He is not sure if he is part of a trend but says he has met a “surprising” number of people who run their businesses working from home. “It is quite a vibrant community,” says McDonald, explaining that he might work alone but is never lonely.

It is not the first time McDonald has started his own business. Back in late 2002, McDonald founded Consultum Limited, a company specialising in providing document assembly and rich media content management solutions to sales and marketing-lead organisations.

In 2008, McDonald decided to sell his contracts to the other partners in the company. “I had international clients and spent 90 percent of my time in planes. I grew tired of that and I was missing my family,” he recalls. The deal didn’t exactly leave him with heavy pockets but was enough to allow him a good six month break before joining ICONZ as a consultant.

“I was at ICONZ by accident and never saw myself there long term,” he says. “Once you’ve worked for yourself once, it’s hard to work for someone else again. You just become intolerant of your board. I was becoming irritable and intolerant.”

Those feelings told him it was time to leave and become his own boss again. And so Sales Systems was born.

At the moment, he says his days are spent calling people to set up presentations on the company and the services he offers. He adds that there is “nothing like owning your own start-up business from scratch to keep you humble”.

“Titles in this mode mean nothing. I am chief cook, bottle washer and everything in between. Just the way I like it.”
He says the next 12 months will be all about business development and “doing for ourselves what we preach to others”.