Plant / operations
Uptime, capture at the tool, floor space, whether the crew will maintain it.
The job
What a Camfil APC salesperson actually has to do
This is capital equipment plus a consumable annuity. The box is Gold Series. The business is diagnosis, a defensible system, and ownership of the hopper after startup. If you only remember one thing: application quality is the constraint, not lead volume.
01Territory and account planning
Field sales / district manager · Weekly, not annual
Map plants that make dust, not companies that 'might need air.' Prioritize metal fab, laser/plasma, welding, pharma OSD, food powder, grain, and any site with an aging Donaldson or baghouse.
Must learn
- Who already owns Camfil housings (protect the annuity)
- Who owns a competitor housing (OmniPleat door)
- Which plants just got an OSHA visit, insurance letter, or new laser
- Buying group: plant, EHS, maintenance, engineering, purchasing
How this dies
Spray-and-pray call lists. Activity without a thesis about dust, compliance, or filter spend.
AI leverage
Turn a territory list into a weekly call plan with a reason-for-visit on each account.
02Lead intake
Inside sales + field · Same day
Inbound filter quotes, application-finder hits, FABTECH badges, distributor referrals, and 'our collector is blinding us' calls. Sort into three buckets: filters-only, packaged cell, engineered system.
Must learn
- Dust and process in one sentence
- Is anyone hurt, cited, or down
- Budget owner vs. requester
- Timeline driver (new line, insurance, failed bags)
How this dies
Treating every inbound as a Gold Series III quote. A filter inquiry is often the better first order.
AI leverage
Score and route the inquiry. Draft the first reply that asks the five questions an AE actually needs.
03Discovery
Sales engineer · 1–2 calls + a walk
This is the job. You are diagnosing an air, safety, and uptime problem. You are not pitching modules. If discovery is sloppy, application engineering becomes theater and the quote is fiction.
Must learn
- Process, material, moisture, temperature, oil, particle character
- Combustible? Kst / Pmax / MIE. DHA current? (NFPA 660)
- Capture method and real CFM, not nameplate hope
- Current collector brand, age, ΔP, filter life, emissions, complaints
- Indoor vs outdoor, footprint, compressed air, power, discharge
- Why now, who says no, what happens if they wait
How this dies
Skipping explosibility. Quoting a dry cartridge on aluminum, magnesium, or sticky sugar.
AI leverage
Turn raw notes into a structured brief and a list of missing facts. Role-play the EHS objection set.
04Site survey
Sales engineer ± application engineer · Half day on site
Measure, photograph, and sample. Hoods, duct, utilities, discharge, neighbors, and where a vent would fire. Bring a dust sample path if Kst is unknown.
Must learn
- Duct velocity and transport risk
- Can the collector sit outside
- Explosion-vent direction and personnel paths
- Who will install — plant, contractor, or turnkey
How this dies
Survey by memory. Missing a 20-foot stack or a make-up-air problem that kills the project in week six.
AI leverage
Convert photos + notes into an AE-ready survey packet and a customer recap the same day.
05Application engineering
Application engineer, sales owns the story · Days, not weeks, if discovery was clean
Select technology first, size second. Gold Series III / X-Flo for most dry industrial. Camtain for containment. Packaged GSXP / Mini for laser cells. Quad Pulse when it must sit on the process. Wet scrubber when dry is unsafe. Mist line for machining oil. Then modules, media, and the NFPA package.
Must learn
- Canister vs wet vs mist — physics, not preference
- Module count from real CFM, not a guess
- Media: HemiPleat / Gold Cone / specialty
- Isolation, venting or suppression, abort, spark arrest
How this dies
Sending AE a 'need a collector, 10k CFM' email. They will size a box that loses to Torit on price.
AI leverage
Pre-size and flag red paths so AE time is spent on the 10% that is actually hard.
06Proposal and TCO
Sales + AE + inside · The week after survey
Quote the system, not the steel box: collector, explosion protection, filters, monitoring, freight, startup. Put a five-year TCO next to the competitor's cheaper housing and shorter filter life. Write to EHS and the plant manager in different languages.
Must learn
- Lead time and what is actually on the critical path
- Who has to sign, in what order
- Performance language you can stand behind
How this dies
A parts list with no narrative. Purchasing will bid it as a commodity baghouse.
AI leverage
Draft the executive narrative, the EHS compliance page, and the TCO exhibit from the survey.
07Technical selling
Sales engineer, AE on the hard ones · 1–3 meetings
Walk the buying group through capture, media, protection, and energy. Let them touch a HemiPleat if you can. On combustible jobs, speak NFPA 660 fluently. On pharma, speak containment and changeout.
Must learn
- Incumbent's real failure mode (ΔP, emissions, filter cost, citations)
- The one metric each stakeholder cares about
How this dies
Feature tour. Gold Cone geometry does not close a $300k job. Risk and uptime do.
AI leverage
Build a one-page battlecard for this plant, this dust, this incumbent.
08Negotiate and close
Sales, manager on exceptions · Variable — this is where cycle time dies
Trade lead time, startup support, and filter program — not just price. Get the PO structured so aftermarket is not an afterthought (GoldLink+, first-year media, changeout plan).
Must learn
- Walk-away vs. must-win
- Whether the alternative is Torit, a local shop, or doing nothing
How this dies
Discounting the protection package out of the job. You just sold an unsafe system.
AI leverage
Prep the concession map and the 'do nothing' cost before the meeting.
09Handoff, startup, first 90 days
Project / service, sales stays visible · Through commissioning
The relationship is won or lost at startup. Be present. Confirm capture, ΔP baseline, and that someone owns filter inventory. Introduce the aftermarket owner by name.
Must learn
- What changed vs. the survey
- Who will reorder filters
- Whether GoldLink+ is live
How this dies
Sales disappears at PO. Service inherits a stranger. The first filter order goes to a catalog house.
AI leverage
Startup recap, open items list, and a 90-day cadence the customer actually reads.
10Aftermarket and installed base
Aftermarket specialist + field · The real job, forever
Camfil APC's published retention is the point. Filters, OmniPleat conversions, extra modules, mist add-ons, GoldLink+. A $180k collector that throws $22k of media a year is the $250M engine.
Must learn
- Every housing in the territory, Camfil or not
- Changeout interval vs. promised interval
- Which plants will trial OmniPleat this quarter
How this dies
Hunting only new boxes. That is how you miss the quieter half of the number.
AI leverage
A due-now list every Monday. Conversion scripts for Torit and Nederman hoppers.
The buying group
A $300k combustible job is never one person. Write the proposal so each of these can find their page.
EHS / safety
OSHA, NFPA 660, combustible dust, exposure, insurance. They can stop a cheap quote.
Maintenance
Changeout time, compressed air, ΔP, spare filters on the shelf.
Engineering
CFM, static, duct, make-up air, integration with a new cell or process.
Purchasing
Price, lead time, approved vendor list. They will bid it if you let them.
Corporate / multi-site
Standardization, one spec, one filter program, risk across plants.
Wave 1 — Sales, now
Do not try to replace a Jonesboro-trained sales engineer. Remove the drag around them: sloppy qualification, slow briefs, weak TCO, silent installed base.
- Application qualifier that refuses to send garbage to AE
- Same-day survey-to-brief
- Deal-specific battlecards and EHS language
- TCO that makes HemiPleat and protection packages defensible
- Aftermarket radar for due filters and OmniPleat conversions
- GoldLink+ lateral: retrofit any panel, not only new boxes
- Rep coaching so distributors ask Camfil-standard questions
Wave 2 — Once sales is smoother
The same pattern — structured inputs, domain rules, then language — ports to the rest of the company.
- Service: GoldLink+ / ΔP troubleshooting trees
- Operations: lead-time and exception comms customers understand
- Marketing: application pages that sound like a survey, not a slogan
- APC University: scenario drills that grade discovery quality
- Quality / warranty: pattern detection across startups