Our Core Team

Nik Nikic - CEO & Managing Partner Nik brings over 20 years of sales and management experience in helping clients improve business development and increase top line revenue. Nik’s expertise is focused on sales and management development in the areas of demand creation, account development, winning deals, fundamental selling skills, executive selling and tools to maximize productivity and utilization. Charles Oliveria - CIO & Principal Charles brings over 25 years experience in providing lead edge business solutions with companies like Delta, Tandem Computers, NCR, AT&T and their customers.  Over the past 4 years, Charles led a team as a partner and Chief Information Officer for Applied Concepts. His primary responsibility is; overseeing development of the Sales Optimizer TM software, integrating it with on-demand CRM leader SalesForce.com, and leading the solution architecture team to deliver creative solutions for our salesforce.com customers.   Michael D. Lorusso - Principal   Michael is an accomplished senior level Marketing and Sales executive with a demonstrated 20 year track record of success in marketing, direct sales, securing strategic partnerships and directing service delivery of multi-million dollar client projects. Michael is currently a partner with Applied Concepts Institute and is responsible for building the North East marketplace. Laurie Mahoney - Principal  Laurie brings 20 years of sales and marketing experience to her clients - as an award-winning sales professional and manager, change agent, and executive - having driven superior results and consistently exceeded objectives in challenging markets for the IT, Services, and Telecom industries. Critical experiences include 3 start-ups, unique cross-sector experience in government and education prior to entering the IT industry, when Laurie was recognized as the catalyst for computerizing more than $400M in school aid at Connecticut’s State Department of Education.  Tom Martin - Principal   Tom is a 15 year veteran of the sales process, methodology and training industry, with an extremely diverse set of global experience crossing sales (direct, indirect and inside), marketing, service, negotiations, sales force automation, consulting, finance, legal, training, systems and operations.   As Managing Partner/Senior Director for 5 years with Siebel Systems Sales Methodology Experts (aka OnTarget Inc.), Tom managed worldwide operations. Leo Decker - Principal   Leo has owned an operated his own businesses for over 20 years, developing the practical experience necessary to understand the issues, challenges and obstacles small-to-mid-sized companies encounter on a daily biases. Leo also has over 10 years of experience as a financial investment professional working with full service brokerage firms. Martice Nicks - Partner & Master Trainer  Martice has 25 years as a successful consultant in government and private sectors. He focuses on optimizing and integrating systems that drive revenue and facilitate organizational performance. Martice has held multiple executive and management positions in companies including founding and self-directed teams. His approach brings a sense of urgency to drive positive behavioral change and most importantly-measurable business results. Larry Coco - Partner Professional Services   Larry is an accomplished senior level executive with a strong track record of success in Sales, Management, Marketing, and Training. For the past 25 years he has focused his career in the world of Document Management working with both Dealer and Direct organizations. His ability to develop people and companies has been the hallmark of his career. He is highly experienced in the formation of strategic plans, skilled in the areas of creating and driving key processes in order to achieve improved results, and understands the value of people when building high performance elite teams. Alex Nicholas - Strategic Partner - SME   Alex brings a wealth of practical sales, sales management and general management skills and insight that allows him to provide exceptional value to all his clients.   Alex’s personal strengths lie in his contemporary thinking around sales employee development as well as first and second level management development.    From 1991 until 2004, Alex was the owner of Applied Concepts Institute and the Company’s primary program developer.  From 2004 when Alex sold the Company Nik Nikic, he has remained active in the Institute as a client Strategic Advisor. Alex also owns Applied Concepts, Inc, who offers business development services to the retail auto industry. Scott Ashby - Tele-Sales & Customer Service - SME   Scott Ashby has 28 plus years of successful teleselling consulting involving a wide variety of business-to-business industries, markets and selling situations; He has hands-on experiences with over 300 clients regarding consultative, relationship-building telephone selling, with exceptional satisfaction Scott has a wealth of practical experience with varied perspectives. Kim Bronson - Office Manager Kim has been with Applied Concepts for 13 years as the customer services and support manager... Kim’s primary role as the office manager is managing client logistics, the production center, coordinating seminars and supporting the field team. Carlos Cortes - Partner Professional Services   Carlos brings over 10 years of experience in the call center industry where he participated in a variety of projects from being part of the first call center in Costa Rica to deploying 4 large call centers in India. Over the years Carlos has built extensive experience in telecommunications, call center, financial services, and strategic planning. Bryan Snyder - Partner Professional Services Bryan is an accomplished sales executive with over 20 years of experience. Mr. Snyder’s efforts have helped drive the adoption of software and infrastructure technologies that serve as the backbone for many of today’s web-based business systems. Prior to leading the worldwide sales efforts at Context Media, Bryan led Interwoven's Emerging Markets team, where he focused on building the company's presence in the professional services market.  Before joining Interwoven, He held senior sales positions at leading companies, including Alegis Corp., Cisco Systems, Optika, and Information Advantage. Bill Dehlinger - Partner Professional Services Bill has earned the reputation as a keen marketing strategist, an analytical problem solver and an excellent communicator with over 16 years experience in direct sales, marketing and system analysis. Bill has now focused on leveraging that knowledge, especially as it relates to CRM and Sales Force Automation, for his clients’ success. Bill has been a regular sales and marketing speaker nationally and internationally for fortune 500 companies. In recent years, Bill has traveled to over 40 countries, working with many of the computer industry’s major vendors’ direct and indirect sales forces including IBM, Hewlett-Packard and others. Justin Snyder - CRM Manager   At Applied Concepts Institute, Justin is combining his customer service background with his Level II Salesforce Consulting Certification to help companies implement and deploy Salesforce.com.  In addition to CRM support, he assists in project deployment, individual customer coaching, and field team support.  Justin is a graduate of the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University and is responsible for the early on-boarding process for our college recruiting initiatives.   We have assembled a unique team of professional men and women committed to making a positive impact on professional sales. This team has a blend of talent that is suited for today’s sales environment which requires the traditional selling and management skills to become integrated to CRM tools and technology in order to increase overall productivity. Our professionals have the sales and management expertise along with advanced salesforce.com consulting certifications. These professionals have the ability to help develop a solid sales and management process, configure salesforce.com to support and reinforce that process and teach and coach from the most basic to advanced strategic selling skills. In order to understand and appreciate how truly unique and valuable this is to your organization; compare our approach and our team with any of our competitors.