The 
marketing team at Acuative sat down with one of our newest Enterprise Sales Principals, Jim McMenamin, to learn more about his background, approach to sales, and the unique perspective he brings to our team.
With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Jim is passionate about building strong client relationships and driving success through a deep understanding of our customers' needs. Jim is an expert in analyzing market trends, identifying new business opportunities, and developing strategies to expand client bases.
In this interview, he shares insights into his journey, what excites him most about joining Acuative, and his unique approach to sales in the managed services sector.
Tell us about your background in sales.
My sales career began in the 1987 when I started a custom t-shirt business, hiring high school friends and eventually selling that business out … in the 90s, I worked in 3rd party debt collection and sold people on the idea of repaying old debts which then after seeing Dial up Internet at a friend’s house, I knew where my future was going to be … in Telecom.
1998 I started working at a local ISP in Bucks County PA selling dial up internet and shared webhosting, this turned into dedicated Ethernet networking, colocation, hosting and consulting services learning as much as I could from engineering resources at each firm.
2000 I stared at VERIO selling Webhosting, Colocation, Dedicated Servers, and IP transit networks to clients globally until 2004. Verio was acquired by NTT while I was employed there.
2004: I started at PCCW Global selling Colocation, Dedicated Servers, and IP transit networks to clients globally until 2006 when I realized consultants were truly handling customer projects versus only having the transit piece I was specializing in.
2006 I started at Alliant Technologies and spent the next 10 years supporting the AT&T network practice selling PNT, AVPN, ADI, UVN, IP Flex reach, IP Toll Free, Mobility and Network Integration services consisting of Cisco UC, Route/Switch/Security, Netapp SANs, VMWare, Structured Cabling and WAN/LAN Managed Services. I parted ways with Alliant to found my own firm specializing in AT&T and shortly thereafter, Alliant Technologies became Ten Four and later was acquired by Acuative.
2016 I started Marble Hall Group LLC and spent the next 8 years support AT&T as a Solution Provider exclusively. I designed and implemented AT&T AVPN, ADI, UVN, IP Flex reach, IP Toll Free, ASEOD, Mobility services with my team. We won Bronze, Silver and Gold Partner of the year for revenue production. The operation was expanded in AT&T public sector support for Ohio as of 2020 until 2024 when I retired from the operation.
2024 I joined Acuative inspired by a desire to learn new technologies and wanting to be part of a global organization to apply my technical knowledge, business experience and drive to win internally and externally in helping people reach their businesses goals using all the really cool technology available today.
What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned in your sales career so far?
Dream big and deliver even bigger than you thought possible. Sales is believing you can do whatever the goal is, and once you believe, it is getting others to share your enthusiasm. From there it’s just good solid project management, weekly cadence and being able to identify, position and execute on the next five opportunities in that client. Develop new relationships directly and indirectly in your ongoing interactions as people move around and remember who is a resource when they need one at their new gig.
How do you approach building long-term relationships with clients, especially in a fast-evolving industry like managed services?
My approach is to use 8 principles of building a relationship in Business and life are the same…
1. Be honest, direct and accurate as possible with your interactions real and virtual.
2. Be on time and prepared to roll, every time without question.
3. When there is a change, tell all relevant parties immediately.
4. Maintain a positive mindset at all times in every interaction.
5. Take insanely detailed notes and confirm your statements BEFORE sending a reply.
6. Have a good sense of humor and don’t be afraid to use it.
7. Your clients chose you over the competition for a reason every day. Be the reason they do.
8. And always remember, no matter how bad it was today in what happened, someday we will laugh deeply about this … just not today, but someday far from now.