Dave Mattson is a best-selling author, sales and management thought leader, keynote speaker and leader for sales training seminars around the world. As CEO and president of Sandler Training, Mr. Mattson oversees the corporate direction and strategy for the company’s global operations including sales, marketing, consulting, alliances and support. His key areas of focus are sales leadership, strategy and client satisfaction.
Since joining Sandler in 1988, Mr. Mattson has guided the firm to its position as a global provider of sales and management training with over 250 operating units in 25 countries. Under his leadership, the company has also been recognized four times in the Top 20 Sales Training Companies by TrainingIndustry.com, and nine times by Entrepreneur magazine’s “Franchise 500” as the number-one sales training company in the United States.
Mr. Mattson joined Sandler Training as vice president of operations after meeting Sandler’s founder, David Sandler, and embracing his philosophies on sales management and training. During this time, Mr. Mattson developed programs designed to enable the success of Sandler’s franchisees and increased franchisee retention by 60 percent.
In 1990, Mr. Mattson was named Sandler’s chief operating officer, and expanded company operations to serve enterprise and multinational accounts. This initiative developed into the Global Accounts Division, which quickly became the top-grossing division within Sandler Training, growing total company revenue by more than 100 percent.
Mr. Mattson was promoted to vice president of sales in 1994. In this position, he expanded the Sandler® brand in the marketplace, secured additional large sales training clients, helped franchisees close deals with their own clients and laid the foundation for scaling Sandler’s sales, implementation and delivery processes. As part of his strategic positioning, Mr. Mattson capitalized on rapidly advancing technologies in 2001 to create an e-strategy, the central component of which is Sandler’s digital library. The library became the firm’s most profitable revenue stream, increasing earnings by over 65 percent.
Sandler named Mr. Mattson its CEO in 2007. During his years as CEO, revenue from the company’s Global Accounts Division has increased by 53 percent, international revenue by more than 145 percent and total company revenue by 35 percent. Business not only remained stable through the recent recession but, in fact, experienced an increased profit margin.
Mr. Mattson has served on Sandler’s board of directors since 1995. During his tenure with the company, he has been quoted extensively in national industry magazine and newspaper articles including those running in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. He has also written four books: Magical People Skills, Five Minutes with VITO, The Sandler Rules, and Sandler Success Principles.