40 AT 40: John Rolison
Job Title: Senior Sales Consultant

The people are what sets Bandit Lites apart from the rest of the industry. Once a week, for 40 weeks, Bandit will showcase an employee that has made a substantial contribution to the company, whether it be in an office, on the road or somewhere in between. Bandit would not be celebrating its 40th Anniversary without the hard work and dedication of every one these employees.*

*Employee Spotlights are released in no particular order.

John Rolison graduated from the University of South Florida with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatrical Design Technology. Rolison had planned to get some real world experience before going back for his master’s degree and started working for a company in Florida. From there his sales career was born. After moving to TN in 1998, Rolison joined the sales department at Bandit Lites. Ten years later, he is the Senior Sales Consultant. Below are a few questions we asked to get to know him a little better.

Q. What is your title? Please describe your job responsibilities.
A. I am the Senior Sales Consultant. Basically, that’s a catchall title for sales, project management, system design and layout, on-site system sales, on-site technical support, and really anything else they need.

Q. How is your sales experience at Bandit different from previous jobs?
A. Bandit has been a change because there is less technical sales but there are a lot more design and installation responsibilities. It is more intensive but less day-to-day sales than my previous jobs.

Q. Has your job changed or evolved in the ten years you have been with Bandit?
A. Well I started out at Bandit more sales-oriented and it has evolved to more design and consultations. I spend time not only selling product and talking to people about products, but now I also get the opportunity to work with architects and engineers and do the actual layout and design and spend time on-site during the installation process.

Q. What sets Bandit’s Sales Department apart from other companies?
A. We concentrate more on system sales. We work more from a design build standpoint. This means that we start from concept through execution internally. We see it through every step of the way. We don’t do much in the way of small sales so we really concentrate on larger sales, design build, bid projects- we’d prefer to provide the whole package instead of pieces and parts.

Q. Where do you see the sales department headed in the future?
A. I think ultimately we’re going to be doing more of what we’re doing now- installations and larger sales. I think we’ll also get more into video technology because that’s becoming more of the normal lighting package.

Q. Do you have advice for someone trying to get into this industry?
A. Get as much hands-on experience as you can, either at school or at churches. Any opportunity to get experience will help people to decide if this is what they want to do.