About us

Martec was founded in 1967 to provide statistical forecasts and business critical information to both automotive manufacturing and motor dealer clients.

Martec was instrumental in assisting both BMW and Mazda to become established in Australia and provided invaluable insights for other major importers to gain a toehold in highly competitive markets.

In 1991 Martec opened a subsidiary company in the UK. Martec Europe Limited quickly established its profile as a highly respected and professional sales training partner, specialising in “one on one” sales coaching. read more

Two Australian characters, Rob O’Connell and Michael Aitken founded Martec after leaving the Ford Motor Company back in the 60’s. Having created the most well known and highly regarded consultancy in Australia they looked for a new venture in the UK. One of the services they provided all those years ago was a trading forum for dealers to get together, work out best practice and look for business improvements as a group. Those groups commissioned Martec to review salesperson training and consider the returns coming from the investments made.

Martec travelled the globe on their behalf, looking for the most effective sales training programme and discovered the Sales and Telephone Productivity Programme, the forerunner of TelephoneSuccess™.

The programme evolved from five specific discoveries:

  1. Most customers telephone a dealership BEFORE they visit. This was true in the 1960’s and is more relevant today than ever. We are all time precious and telephoning is hugely more efficient. When you consider the impact of the internet, you recognise the whole World Wide Web is a telephone enquiry engine.
  2. Customers who do telephone are keen to buy. No one wastes time ringing salespeople if they have zero interest in buying do they?
  3. Salespeople do a very ordinary job on the telephone. Even today, an untrained salesperson would be pleased to sell 5 cars out of 100 telephone prospects. That is just not sustainable in the long term is it?
    Prospects who make an appointment and get face to face with a salesperson are twice as likely to buy as a prospect who just walks in
  4. Sending salespeople on training is most often expensive and has low impact with new skills not being translated into habit back in the business
  5. The Martec team set to work to create a business solution that delivers a fast and easy return on the investment made. Focus, Accountability and Coaching were the cornerstones of the programme, along with the world’s most effective telephone script

Much has changed since 1967.

In the late 80’s Martec set up a partnership with Sewells and brought the Sales and Telephone Productivity Programme to the UK. That did not go so well, although some of the customers way back then are still connected with the business today.

By 1993 Martec Europe, as it then, changed out of sight. Ken Stuckey came from Australia to become Managing Director and principle shareholder. Ken’s style was to shape the company for more than a decade. In 1999 Ken effected a Management Buy Out with Neil Pursell who is a senior member of the team then and are still in place now.

Ken retired in 2000 and now spends his time in Sydney, mainly on his boat. Not that we are jealous of course. A further MBO happened in 2000 so that now the company is owned in the UK with all the partners playing an active part in shaping and delivering Martec’s programmes.

Despite change, we hold firm to our company principle of providing outstanding Return on any Investment made in us.

Back to now and the future

The TelephoneSuccess™ programme which has it’s roots back in Australia all that time ago has moved on a little. Can you imagine the end of March 2009 we listened to over 90,000 telephone calls and provided a full and detailed analysis for more than 32,000? That is a long way from my first days with Martec and my tape recorder. Our client list has grown by over 120% Year on Year with over 3500 salespeople being part of the programme.