Day in the Life of Mike (Eastern Canada Sales Manager)

Meet Michael Kalisz, the National Sales Manager at Central Smith. This is Michael’s fifth summer on the job. Let’s get the inside scoop on what it’s like to be a National Sales Manager.  

I would have to say the best part of my job is that every day is different, I get to work with many different types of people and businesses. I love helping people, from the mom and pop ice cream shop to the large multi-unit national account. I work from home, the office and I get to travel – so I have the best of all worlds. I have many key responsibilities; distribution account management, national accounts, co-packing, direct accounts and sales broker management. I love working with my team both at Central Smith and across the country. Teamwork makes the dream work.

Wake up / morning routine: “The early bird catches the worm” alarm goes off at 5:30. I love my morning brew while watching the news. I try to stay active with a morning bike ride or walk this helps me clear my head for the day.

I spend most of my time working on account management and business development. I am very lucky because I live about 12 min from the office so no long morning commute for me. I do a lot of meetings, virtual meetings, emailing and talking on the phone to better engage with our clients and partners (if you ask me, it's all about the relationship). It is very rewarding working with my team and our customers to make ice cream dreams a reality.

Sales and marketing is only one aspect of a business like Central Smith and to be better at my role, I am currently immersing myself in the other departments at Central Smith. It all starts with Sourcing/Production to make the product, then QA to make sure the product is safe and up to standards and finally Logistics to get the product out across the country. As a salesperson, I am always dreaming about the next big opportunity but sometimes, I need to be grounded and gaining a cross-functional perspective will help me in my journey. Working at Central Smith is great because I am empowered to learn and grow within the organization.

When I am on the road, I can have a very early start to pick up dry ice (to keep the ice crema frozen), get samples organized and get on the road to beat the traffic. Being on the road and sampling ice cream is one of my favourite parts of my job, it’s a lot of fun meeting with current or potential customers and seeing first-hand the unique types of business we service. 

At the core, I am a people person, I love learning about people’s business and how I can help them with Central Smith’s amazing ice cream so we can both be profitable and grow.