Top tips for success from Adobe’s solution consultant of the year

When you join Adobe’s worldwide field operations team, one thing is clear—there’s no shortage of opportunity and reward! To exemplify this, each year at Adobe’s Worldwide Sales Conference, ten Adobe employees are honoured with the “Of the Year” award, which highlight their outstanding performance and demonstration of Adobe’s core values.

Today, we feature one of these winners—Rupert Wills, Senior Solution Consultant in the UK, who shares his recipe for success, how he develops strong teams and the tenacity it takes to be named Solutions Consultant of the Year.

What is your recipe for success?

I am not sure if there is ever a complete recipe for success. However, I have found that no matter what the customer interaction is, you need to be flexible, open-minded and have the customers’ trust. I try to listen to what the customer requires, understand their challenges, identify where they see value (whilst constantly verifying understanding) and then match these against our Adobe solutions.

Teamwork should also never be under-estimated. To succeed you need to work as a team engaging with your colleagues, using their experiences to help you and of course, supporting them as well.

What is your strongest asset or quality?

I would say my strongest asset is my tenacity and determination to succeed.

How do you go about developing a strong account team– from the beginning of the deal, through to customer success?

I work very closely with my account managers, colleagues and the customer to build a team that brings together the correct balance of skills. It’s important to build a relationship where our customers see us as trusted advisors.

I tell my team not to just focus on the immediate challenge in front of you; explore what it means to the customer and try to identify other areas in the business where we could add value. If we can show our customers the value of our solutions and how we can help them make their business more successful, they will see us as long-term partners.

How do you deal with setbacks or failure in customer engagements?

When it comes to setbacks I don’t see them as a negative, I see them as an opportunity to learn, diagnosing where we went wrong and using that learning to minimise failures in the future.

How do you keep motivated?

I am motivated by challenges and problem-solving. There is nothing better than a customer throwing a particularly tough challenge or highly specific requirement at us that at first looks unsolvable; getting stuck in and working out a solution is deeply satisfying.

On a perfect day off, what do you do?

A perfect day for me would consist of either going out on my bicycle for a few hours or going to the local lake to take a run out on my wakeboard or wakeskate – you can’t think about anything else.

Last year, I took part in a charity bike ride which took me from London to Paris over four days – that was a great experience. This year, I am entered in the Prudential Ride London which is a 100-mile challenge that I hope to complete in around six hours.

Any favourite quotes?

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst.” Jack Reacher (Lee Child)

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