"Every great company starts with understanding what its first customer needs."
Jeff Connally
Credentials:
- President & CEO, CMIT Solutions, Inc
- Founder of Uplink Corporation; co-founded Gener8Biz
- Worked for twenty years as a top sales and marketing executive in software, hardware and information service companies, including Stratfor/Infraworks, ReCompute, Globalsoft, and IBM
- MBA from the University of Texas; B.A., business and humanities, St Michael's College (Vermont)
Jeff Connally is an entrepreneur who understands that every great business revolves around the needs of its customers. Trained by IBM in sales and marketing, Jeff has worked to develop and take to market everything from advanced software-design tools to personal computers to advanced GPS-based golf-course-management systems--the specialty of UpLink Corporation, which he founded in 1998.
Jeff's customer-driven approach to building a business guides his teaching: "Yes, you have to understand product development, channels, how to manage a sales force and all the skills that a traditional business school has to offer, but those tools are worthless unless you first listen to your customers and find out what they need." The Acton approach allows him to emphasize this. "The case method teaches you how to listen first and talk second; how to ask questions before you offer solutions; how to put yourself in another person's shoes and understand his perspectives."
Jeff draws on his expertise in sales and marketing every day at CMIT Solutions where he has led the company to become the leader in innovative IT Support to the small & medium business market. "Marketing is important, but it's selling one customer at a time that builds a great company. My students will leave here knowing how to sell."
