After spending just five minutes with Davinder Dhanoa, you realize that this is a person who could sell any product to any customer in any market. Davinder (Dave) is the kind of person who is so charged with optimism and energy that it is impossible to discourage or distract him from his goals.

I love to talk to guys like Dave--to see what makes them tick and what makes them excited, what turns them on and what gives them the special ability to sustain their performance level when their peers are fading. After spending the past 30 years or so surrounded by sales people whose chief creative outlet is telling me why they can't sell, why they cannot be successful in the North American market for whatever reason, it is a true pleasure to sit down with someone like Dave, a person who is just too plain optimistic to consider anything but success, so positive about his product and his company that he feels he is doing potential customers a great favor by letting them buy from his company.

I sat down with Dave a few weeks ago and tried to get into his head.

Dan Beaulieu: I always ask this question and most of the time the answer is, "By mistake" So, I'll ask you: How did you get into the PCB business?

Dave Dhanoa: I had graduated from the University of Ottawa and a High Tech College and I was looking for a job in a high-tech industry. I wanted to sell high-tech products, so I looked for a sales job in the PCB industry and was lucky enough to be hired by Coretec.

DB: How long ago was that?

DD: That was about eight years ago. Man, I was really happy that I got to work with a printed circuit board company like Coretec. I was living in Ottawa, but Coretec realized that my competitive nature would be perfect for the Toronto market (the toughest in Canada).

DB: Really? It's not often that you hear about an inexperienced salesperson being parachuted into a very difficult  territory. Is there really that much difference between Ottawa and Toronto? Or between Toronto and other parts of the country?

DD: Yes, a lot of difference. Business in Toronto is very competitive, very fast moving, something like New York City. Everything moves faster in Toronto. As opposed to Vancouver, for example, which is more like California, like Silicon Valley. The American South, on the other hand, is more like Alberta, Calgary. It's funny how you can categorize and compare different parts of Canada with identical parts of the U.S.

DB:  So let's backup a little bit. You said that when you got out of college you wanted to get involved in a high-tech industry and you sought out work in the PCB industry? Tell me about that--what are your thoughts about our industry? What attracted you to it?