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Spend just 10 minutes talking to Rusty Engle, and you’ll know why he chose sales over accounting, which was his chosen field of study at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Meet Rusty Engle
“My first job out of college was in accounting, and it didn’t last long,” says Rusty, Sage Metering’s new Eastern Regional Sales Manager.
The fact of the matter is that Rusty’s personality was, and still is, too big to be contained within the four walls of an office.
This outgoing, native North Carolinian is easy to talk to, a good listener and a problem solver— all the hallmarks of a great salesperson.
“I have fun at work,” Rusty says. “I love meeting new people and I love working with reps!”
Rusty’s brief wrong turn out of college led to the perfect right turn down the road to a successful lifelong career in industrial sales.
At one point in his long sales career, he even carried Sage Metering’s HVAC products as a manufacturers’ rep. For the past four years, Rusty has been a strategic account manager for Badger Meter, focused on selling wastewater flow meters and analytical equipment.
Everything Comes Full Circle
It was at Badger that Rusty met and worked with Fred Whorff, Sage Metering’s Vice President of Sales and Business Development, who obviously has great respect for Rusty’s sales acumen.
“Having worked with Rusty before, I am always impressed with his level of professionalism,” said Whorff. “When combined with his technical capabilities and problem-solving skills, he quickly becomes a trusted resource for the representatives he works with.”
Listening to Rusty talk about Sage and Fred, it’s clear he’s just as enthusiastic about joining the Sage Metering team. When asked why he decided to join Sage, Rusty said, “Fred is great. I really respect and admire Bob (referring to Bob Steinberg, Sage Metering’s President and CEO), and Sage sells great products, period!”
Lifelong Relationships
“When people ask me what I do for a living, I always tell them I’m in the relationship business.” Rusty says, “It may sound kind of corny, I know, but for me, It really is all about people.”
Like any great salesperson, Rusty understands it is not all about the sale. “My goal is not to sell you something today. My goal is to sell you over a lifetime. You can only do that if you’ve built a trusted relationship and have a great product.”
Having been a manufacturers’ rep before at one point, Rusty says he “gets it” – he understands what reps want, what their pain points are and what they need from him to get past any barriers to success.
“If you want to capture mind share,” says Rusty, “you have to really know your market, who your reps’ customers are, and you have to help your reps gain a solid understanding of which meters are right for the type of application their customers use.”
It appears Rusty has already captured the mind share of his colleagues at Sage.
“He’s going to be a huge asset for us to have working and fostering relationships with our current manufacturers’ reps and forging new relationships with future reps,” Fred says.
Welcome aboard, Rusty!
We can’t wait for our representatives and distributors to meet Rusty Engle. He officially starts on April 1, when he’ll be at our Sage headquarters in Monterey for training. Rusty will manage eastern regional sales and support the U.S. reps and distributors in his territory from our office in Charlotte, North Carolina. No doubt he will be reaching out to many of the reps soon. If you’d like to introduce yourselves, reach out to him by email.
