Spotlight on Charlie

With 47,000 trades and growing, we shone the spotlight on Charlie Barwick, our National & Regional Accounts Director. Our Enterprise Team is our fastest growing customer segment of trade customers and we’ve got big plans to take it up a notch over the coming years too.

Here’s what Charlie’s shared with us… 

 

So Charlie, you are a few years into building our National Accounts function, what excites you about being part of Checkatrade?

“I love the pace. We’re ambitious, innovative, and entrepreneurial, and that’s reflected in how we work. The teamwork ethos we have as a business makes it such a great place to work – everyone supports one another in pursuit of our goals. And the people, along with the culture and values we live and breathe make working here a pleasure.”

What are your plans for Enterprise over the coming year?

“As we move into a new financial year, High Value Trades will continue to grow rapidly, both in size and revenue, but also in prominence within the business. As we continue to expand, the department is growing to include more dedicated support roles to help us ensure we build the right product and technical features to deliver our high spending customers the type and volume of leads they want.”

You’ve built a good-sized team over the past few years, what does good look like in relation to a National Account Manager (NAM)?

“A good NAM needs to be adept at both new business acquisition and account management. They need a strong commercial acumen coupled with great relationship building skills, a passion for delivering exceptional service as well as the strength to balance delivering for their customers and for our business. Proving value, both for new and existing customers is vital. And in an innovative and growing business, embracing change, and seeking new approaches is a must.”

What is a typical day for a NAM?

“A typical day will include customer meetings, which can be a mixture of in person and video, with both prospective and existing customers, to sell, retain and grow the commercial relationship with their customers. It will also include prospecting for new customers, planning for meetings, production of campaign performance metrics and invoices, along with in life optimisation of customers’ programmes. Most days there will be contact with colleagues, either in a call or in training, or perhaps to seek help and support, along with regular contact with our Support Team and their Sales Manager.”

What about Charlie inside and outside work. Tell us a bit about you…

“I’ve worked in media my entire career. I’ve been with Checkatrade for two years (having targeted here as a place to work well before that), and in that time I’ve set up and grown our National Accounts channel. We provide Checkatrade’s service to regional and nationwide companies, whose presence on our site and in our directories completes the choice for homeowners, many of whom may want to consider a larger as well as small business.

Outside of work I try to keep myself as busy as in work! I love running, cycling, skiing and mountain climbing, sometimes combining these together! Travel and holidays, often to less obvious places, and wherever possible to mountains, are where any spare pennies get spent, and I’ve found that shared activities and adventures have strengthened the bonds my wife, children and I have.”

Big thanks to Charlie for giving us glimpse into the world of National Accounts.

If you are an experienced NAM and open for opportunities, please reach out to [email protected] for more info.