FORTY UNDER 40
Tom Wirbel
Vice president, sales and marketing, CPI
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By DAN SHINGLER
Plenty of top-notch sales people focus much of their time on closing deals. Some even specialize in it.
Tom Wirbel focuses on the other end of the process. He prospects like its California in 1849, all the time.
“My philosophy on selling is "you can't close something that's never been opened,'” Mr. Wirbel said.
Mr. Wirbel has wanted to sell since he was in high school, when he took his first commissioned sales job, selling shoes at a mall. He liked it so much that he wanted to skip college and instead continue focusing on retail sales.
“But my family is a fairly educated one — and that didn't fly,” he recalled.
So, Mr. Wirbel went to college, earning his bachelor's degree in business from John Carroll University in 1991 and his MBA from Cleveland State University in 1996. But he never stopped loving to sell, and he quickly went back into it after receiving his first degree.
He began selling telecommunications — from beepers to local and long-distance phone services used by large companies.
But with his MBA in hand, Mr. Wirbel figured he needed to amp it up a notch.
“MBAs aren't sales guys, they're consultants, so I wanted to get a consulting job,” he said.
He went to Butler International, a staffing agency that specialized in providing engineers and other technically skilled professionals to large corporate customers. With Butler, Mr. Wirbel managed the Cleveland office and helped the firm establish an office in Detroit.
But when the company told Mr. Wirbel it was closing the Cleveland office, he declined to move to the Motor City to run the office there as requested.
Instead, Mr. Wirbel formed his own firm, Magnet Staffing, but it succumbed to the economic downturn following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. So, in 2003 Mr. Wirbel went to work for CPI in Solon, a 40-person payroll and human resources benefits consulting firm.
There, he quickly took over the company's sales efforts and was named vice president in 2006.
CPI president Jim Hopkins, in nominating Mr. Wirbel, credits him with saving clients millions of dollars by guiding them to innovative solutions that help them manage employee benefits. He also describes Mr. Wirbel as a valuable sounding board and an integral part of the company's strategic decision making.
But Mr. Wirbel isn't satisfied — nor is he done selling. His next milestone will be to sell himself and his belief that prospecting is the most important part of the sales process.
Mr. Wirbel has set up a web site, AlwaysBeProspecting.com, and is working on a book with that same name. He said he hopes to convince other sales people that a systematic approach to prospecting can help their sales, just as it has for Mr. Wirbel and CPI.
“Tom has forged marked improvements in our sales organization through his development of a detailed sales process — now used by our entire sales staff,” Mr. Hopkins said.
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