INTRODUCTION
Co-Founder
Local Merchant Solutions
Innovative Apartment Group
Certified Chef, Restaurateur, Technologist, Marketer, Landlord, Entrepreneur
Michael Rutherford started his career, , while still attending high school at the age of seventeen, in 1977 where he studied in a career technical program as the first Apprentice in the Correspondence Course offered through the American Culinary Federation Educational Institute. The year before the ACF forever changed the culinary industry by elevating the position of the executive chef from service status to the professional category in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Dictionary of Official Titles.
Michael was awarded with the honor as an Apprentice of the Year in 1981.
As a registered ACF apprentice cook in 1977-79. he was signed as the very first Apprentice on the roster, in the entire United States, being offered for the first time through the American Culinary Federation correspondence course. he was sponsored by Robert H. Nelson, CEC, CCE, AAC and mentored by Chef Larry Farhat at the Spring Lake Country Club and Mr. Jim Singerling, CCM, HAAC, HBOT.
It was the same year that Chef Ferdinand E. Metz, CMC, W GMC, AAC, HOF, Dr. L.J. Minor, Chef Louis I. Szathmary and Lt. Gen. John D. McLaughlin were successful working with the Department of Labor in elevating the status of Chef from the “Services” to the “Professional” category.
As a Senior at Washburne Trade School/ Culinary Institute, he was chosen to represent his classmates along with six other students at the National Restaurant Association/American Culinary Federation Culinary Classics where they won a gold medal & a team first place trophy.
motivating, collaborating influencing credible style
Accomplishments include:
- A track record of successful sales & marketing, training and operations management.
- Proven ability to deliver predictable and consistent results.
- A consistent history as a contributing stakeholder to growth through development and implementation of corporate strategies.
During the first half of Michael’s career he served on many opening teams, community services, industry association board of advisors, and earned his way as a director operating more than 30 different concepts ranging from very large well branded & high volume venues, stores, hotels, clubs and restaurants to making Nation’s Restaurant News Hot Concepts and Orange County, California #1 Restaurant & Nightclub list for 4 years in a row. Michael’s career store sales contributions were between $1MM to $28MM with the average business location of $5.5MM.
For more than fifteen years, Michael expanded his career into solution sales; where he consulted with industry leadership on Tier 1 information technology solutions with system investments ranging from $20K to $150K for each customer’s location. As sales, operations & marketing engagement leader for training & performance improvement processes, he led professional teams to manage consistent “Customers for life” relationships. While supporting over 1,200 business accounts 24/7 annually, and selling “hardware, software & professional services” to hundreds of new customers across the country. Michael’s background includes managing successful relationships, implementing strategic business best practices, acquisitions & mergers, and change management.
Michael is a successful service sales engagement leader that leverages industry and product knowledge, project execution and management skills to guide the sales & implementation teams in producing optimal business solutions. Michael’s background allows him to perform as an experienced “change agent” who continuously keeps the objectives in mind, ensuring the transformation of requirements into successful solutions and business outcomes.
If your organization will benefit from an energetic professional with the following attributes, please visit http://www.michaelrutherford.com to view artifacts and more information.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- 15+ years of B2B / C-Level sales & operations management with $28MM sales contribution.
- Enterprise account management with over 1,200 Information System supported customers.
- Successful strategic planner of sales, marketing. forecasting, contracts with a 75% closing rate.
- Practice leader with superior interpersonal communication, judgement, consultative selling skills with a technical systems background as a high performance strategic leader.
- Extensive start-ups and turnaround experience operating multi-million-dollar properties.
- Strong process discipline with skills to align planning objectives with a pipeline development to grow and develop account revenue, customer acquisitions & relationships .
- Track record of over-achieving quota (ranked top 5% of industry channel sales leaders).
- Expert administrator of SalesForce.com and CRM database software systems for reporting, metrics, incentive plans, ongoing KPI assessments & performance improvements.
- Presentations creator, customized and standardized for in-person and online meetings.
- Fiscal budget & financial management with sales & operational problem solving skills.
- Application specialist background, mobile technology, projects from concept to delivery.
- Marketing publisher, editor, design, production for digital brochures, social media networks & enterprise web-based applications.
- Training programs creator and methods for ongoing learning campaigns, e-Learning and instructor-led content for ongoing career professional development.
- Technical trade show manager along with executive sales & marketing boot camps.
COMPETENCIES
- Conceptual & Analytical Thinker
- Teamwork – Actively assists to move the team toward the completion of goals
- Communication Skills – Effectively listens and expresses ideas and thoughts verbally and in written form.
- Collaboration – Establishes collaborative relationships to achieve objectives.
- Develop Others – Effectively manage and develop others.
- Drive for Results– Develop strategies, action plans, and metrics to monitor results.
- Customer Focus – Solicits and uses feedback for continuous improvement.
- Accountability – Takes responsibility for own actions and results.
- Managing Performance and Process Improvements – Leadership and Team Development.
- Proposal Development/Generator/Diagnostic Gathering
- Fiscal P&L, Budgets, RFPs, SOW, SOP & MSA’s
- CRM, Goldmine, ACT!, Salesforce.com
- Technology, Hardware, Peripheral , Software Enterprise & Modules, Streaming Media. Early Adopter
- Solid computer skills: MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
EXECUTIVE PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
MICHAELRUTHERFORD.COM 2000- Current
CONSORTIUM BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
Michael engages with business leaders that offers professional resource relationships & business ecosystems through a network of business affiliates. A consortium of professionals with the purpose of serving the local business community.
“The mushrooming of the startup ecosystem has generated specialized service providers whose services fit the requirement of startups, small to medium size businesses.”
NETWORKS with Accounting & CPA Firms, Banks, Insurance Brokers, IS Resellers, Software Developers, Hardware Manufacturers, Social & Digital Marketer’s, and Leadership Development Companies.
THE PURPOSE is to alien resources together that provide synergy and innovative solutions to small businesses that works within an enterprise management service to improve performance, best practices & business processes.
SPECIALIZING in a consultative sales approach for small business providing solutions in operations, marketing, finance, analytics, loyalty, and technical security & support on the subjects of information systems, software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, digital marketing, mobile solutions, managed services, and payment, payroll & HR processing.
Today by partnering we can offer our customers and members an extensive, flexible suite of business solutions, tailored to meet their individual needs. What does a partnership mean to you?
- Information Technology | SaaS Managed Services | Digital Enablement | Business Development
- Merchant Business Systems for software managed services, loyalty, online media, organize data, analytic tracking, commercial email advertising, SMS, media marketing, mobile marketing, and web development.
ACCREDITED PORTFOLIOS, LLC 2011- 2015
National Sales Manager /Enterprise Application Software (EAS) Web 2.0 Specialist
Introduced technology to Philanthropic Organizations for high school student-training, occupations and career development that provided collaborative tools within a (Private social network for modern mentoring). The Web 2.0 SaaS White Label Platform provides Expert Path Panels & Path Plans for certified micro-credentials for transfering knowledge in an online collaboration environment for connecting Education & Industry Leadership and Students together for Professional Development. [Schools, Universities, Employers, Organizations and Communities] Details link: http://wp.me/p6XnTR-1A
| The International Society for Performance Improvement
The Institute for Performance Improvement | The National Restaurant Association Education Foundation
Ohio Restaurant Association Education Foundation | American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute
American Culinary Federation Education Foundation |
- Develop vertical markets for private social networks for professional development – offering digital tools for collaboration in community of practice for assessments, certification & accreditations
- Market professional services for International thought leaders, multiple subject matter expert resources, including Instructional design, programmers, illustrators, and production managers.
- The Institute for Performance Improvement, Practice Leaders Link: http://www.tifpi.org/TIfPI_Practice_Leaders
- Supporting Systemic, Sustainable School Improvement Link: http://tifpiedu.org/
- The lead on project teams for the development, production, and communications for key stakeholders
- Evaluate client’s company-wide sales training programs; assess human resources developmental gaps and learning needs of client’s employees and suggesting innovated solutions.
- Responsible for data management processes for ad-hoc, performance-based modules & competency
models for assessments, marketing through web 2.0 community of practice platform. - Manage and designed graphics and print production for sales & marketing brochures including electronic media, popular social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, Google+ ,YouTube. and continue to grow using collaboration tools (Hangouts, Drive, Sheets & Docs) but Email & Calendar through the Google Platform.
24-7 HOSPITALITY TECHNOLOGY, LLC 2013 – 2014 Vice President of Sales – Central Region
- Consulted as an important Instrumental contributor for national provider for POS software products with the founding owners of Brink Software (headquartered San Diego, CA and 24-7 Hospitality Technology (headquarter in Chicago, IL) bringing both parties together to establish a reseller partnership.
- Worked through the successful transition into the new enterprise, product suite, and cloud-based service offerings. Par Technologies purchased Brink Software strengthening the relationships, service & support.
NCR – RADIANT SYSTEMS, INC. 2003 – 2011 Sales Manager – Western Region
Over 100 Independents
| Over 25+ Multi-Unit Chains
| Over 1,200 Locations
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- Annual revenue contribution went from $2.5MM to $17.5MM in less than 3 years
- Achieved 100% quota each year – as high as 125% from 2004 through 2009
- Sales Manager/Trainer for teaching, coaching and developing sales people in a consultative selling environment using best practice guidelines that revitalized the sales channel performance, clients operations and loyalties to consistently close 75% of B2B C-level customers.
- Responsible for partnering with resellers, project & program managers to implement sales & marketing objectives, strategies, and regional tactical plans to successfully sell, service and support enterprise software, hardware, professional services to independent, franchised and corporate chain accounts.
- As a sales leader; supervised, and coached the sales teams with appropriate, and measurable, training initiatives through sales processes using CRM, KPI, forecasting, pipeline, and territory management strategies (SPIN, TAS, Miller Heiman)
- Managed client relationships with IT engineering teams to maximize service expectations to execute sales & marketing and operational support plans by aligning strategies with service expectations through RFP, SOP, SLA’s & MSA’s
- Developed and manage financial projects, incentive plans, forecasts, budgets, territory schedules, application specialists for CRM, HRM & Enterprise managed services
- Managed and designed graphics and print production for sales & marketing.
- Received numerous awards and commendations for superior sales performance and contributions
- Received FOCUS certification for Sales Operations and Account Leadership
NCR – BRISTOL RETAIL SOLUTIONS, INC. The Appel Company 2000 – 2003
- Sr. Sales Consultant
- Personal first year revenue contribution as a sales consultant $1.1MM
- Sold, serviced & supported the grocery, retail and restaurant segment developing new business sales, resolve challenges and new marketing opportunities (Repeat, increase and larger checks)
- Managed relationships for mid-size 1 to 50 store accounts developing through post sale, managing roll-outs, and upselling services
- Consultant in all aspects of business development, product/service presentations, direct marketing efforts, and revenue generation
- Strong experience with POS Systems data analytics
- Reported on the competitive landscape to the rest of the company
- Participated in FOCUS groups for collaborating service, operations, sales & marketing efforts
- Practiced superior interpersonal communication for learning technical systems background
Various Private Clubs, Hotels & Restaurants
Executive Management – Director of Operations, General Manager, Certified Chef
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- Director of Operations with $28MM per year revenue contribution 15% NOI
- First Start-up catering business – Annual Sales $1.5MM
- Generated $750K new revenue per year by forging relationships with new markets
- Proven and successful track record with culinary, operations, sales & marketing, finance, and new concept development
- Operations Leadership for 30 management direct reports and 300 employees
- Developed, managed and assessed ongoing training programs
- Collaborated and managed over 30 restaurant concepts
- Budgetary processes, forecasting & fiscal responsibility
- An award winning ACF/NRA Gold Medalist as a Chef
EDUCATION
- University of Phoenix – Course Work/ Communications
- Louisiana State University – Course Work/ General
- Washburne Trade School – Certification Culinary Arts
- American Culinary Federation – Apprentice
- Grand Haven High School – Course Work/ General
REFERENCES
- Customers, Employers, Supervisors References HERE
- DropBox PDF File
- Connect on LinkedIn
- To learn more
localmerchantsolutions.com 