One of Obam’s greatest strengths is their fantastic team. They have a huge amount of technical, product and market knowledge whilst their experience and quality of service is second to none. They very much have the best interests of their customers at heart and are always determined to find the best solution for them.
We are therefore going to be profiling some of the members of the Obam team in an occasional series of articles for the Obam website. Our first profile is of Obam Sales Manager Mark Buckley.
Mark is a relative newcomer to the Obam team, having only joined the company as Sales Manager in January 2015. He was born in Newcastle and went to school there before moving to the East Midlands to attend university in Nottingham. He read Modern European Studies at university, which included how Europe evolved into what it is today from a collection of independent nation states, and involved modules covering politics, law and history. Although he acknowledges it is nothing to do with his current job, he found it very interesting and does believe that it taught him important analytical skills and an understanding of how to look at things from different perspectives – skills which are very useful in his new job.
After university he moved back to Newcastle where he spent the majority of his working life. First he worked for a local authority for a year in their Direct Payments department, which involved looking after people who needed respite, and then he joined a company called Easiaccess in February 2009 as their Business Development Manager. During his time at Easiaccess the company grew in size dramatically. Easiaccess is a manufacturer and supplies modular ramps nationwide and, in fact, supplies modular ramps to Obam. Mark’s time at Easiaccess has given him a lot of experience and knowledge of the adaptations industry and of ramps in particular.
After nearly six years working at Easiaccess, Mark felt it was time for a new challenge so applied for, was offered and accepted the role of Sales Manager at Obam. He now wants to bring his work ethic, knowledge and experience to help Obam grow in size.
Nine months in to his new role, Mark feels that it is a challenge, but a good challenge. He feels that although Obam has always been very good technically and has excellent customer service but he recognises that in the past there has not been enough emphasis placed on promoting the company. His role will be to concentrate on promoting and marketing the company and also to continue to grow and improve the company. This will include how Obam deals with customers and how the business can be run more efficiently to make sure that everything is as good as it can be. He will not be making change for the sake of change, but will be doing what is right for Obam and their customers.
A key part of Mark’s role includes communicating with and listening to Obam’s customers in order to provide them with the right product. He will be meeting with local authority and housing authority customers more regularly, as well as private individuals, in order to find out what they want and to ask questions in order to improve the service Obam provides. He also feels that it is important to move with the times when it comes to communicating with clients and that an online presence is vital, and so the Obam website has recently been redesigned and Obam is now regularly posting to its Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Upon being offered the new role at Obam, Mark moved 150 miles from Newcastle back to the East Midlands to live in rural Lincolnshire. He doesn’t have any family ties such as a wife or children which gave him the freedom to be able to move easily, and he is now looking to buy a house in Lincolnshire next year so that he can settle properly. Lincolnshire is very rural compared to what he was used to in Newcastle, but he loves the peace and quiet and doesn’t mind having to drive to places.
In his spare time Mark enjoys running and recently (Sunday 13th September 2015) took part in the Great North Run Half Marathon to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust. He completed the course in 2 hours 19 minutes. At the time of writing he has raised over £900, nearly double his original £500 target. You can view his JustGiving page and sponsor him here. As well as running, Mark enjoys playing cricket and football, is a Newcastle United fan and also enjoys amateur dramatics. In fact, he likes getting involved in many things and likes to keep busy and if he enjoys something, will do it “until the cows come home”.
To speak to Mark or any other member of the Obam team, please call 01427 787532, email info@obam.co.uk or for more information please visit the Obam website https://obam.co.uk/.
