Mark recently supported the Sales Enablement team to deliver our Sales Leadership Transformation initiative. Mark led the Sales Leadership Team of our Enterprise and Large Account division through a series of workshops and coaching interactions. We were seeking to recalibrate Sales Leaders focus toward greater prioritization, and success, driving the performance of their sales teams. This initiative and the workshops were designed to:
- Drive better pipeline management to improve deal velocity, deal success, conversion rates, forecasting accuracy and individual sales person development
- Enable Sales Leaders to utilize all available resources to gain better insights into key development areas for individual sales people
- Upskill Sales Leaders in the delivery of feedback, handling push-back and critically, coaching sales people to better sales performance
- Designing and delivering powerful and valuable Sales Team meetings
- And to facilitate this re-orientation, guide Sales Leaders to configure for themselves a new operating rhythm to centralise these critical sales leadership function, whilst managing their other leadership commitments
Mark built strong rapport with the Sales Leadership Team and his personal experiences in sales, and expertise as a sales consultant, quickly earned him strong credibility and respect.
We were impressed with how well Mark gained an understanding of the Tele2 business environment and our need to adapt to market changes. Speaking our business language ensured greater and faster engagement from the Sales managers. Inevitably some of the Sales leaders were faster than others in their willingness to admit to weaknesses and build on their strengths and Mark demonstrated high emotional intelligence in adapting his style to the different personalities.
Mark was able to bring his experience and knowledge of sales to life within the Tele2 world, enabling the delegates to convert learning into practical actions and activities. Post engagement feedback was very positive from everyone including our most senior and seasoned Sales leaders.
Furthermore, mark coached each of our Sales Leaders individually. Feedback was again, very positive.
In both group and one to one consulting, Mark also demonstrated great expertise in the development of the necessary mindset strengths and capabilities for sales and sales leadership. He helped the Sales leaders strengthen the right attitudes and equipped them with practical tools for mastering the mental toughness required for them to do great work.
Overall, Mark has the ability to apply his knowledge successfully in a wide range of scenarios and his enthusiasm reinforces his ability to develop more rounded and more capable Sales leaders.
Michael Kehoe
B2B Sales Transformation
Tele2, Sweden
I really appreciated working with Alasdair. He is a very focused person, great leader and really able to motivate others. His experience in communication is substantial and based on a long participation in the agency environment. Since he has been in the Middle East for many years now, working with multinational and local clients, his knowledge is absolutely valuable in any direction. I really appreciated working with him and hope our paths will cross again one day.
Manuel Schmidt
Managing Director
1000heads
Alasdair gave a powerful and energetic training and coaching session for Key Account Managers. He has so much power and such a charisma, but never puts himself forward. He gives a lot of space to think and always gives you the possibility to raise your thoughts.
If you are in a Training or Coaching with him, he will never lose focus, will always try to understand you and give you a very good feeling and asks the right questions to make you advance!
I have not felt a minute of boredom and Alasdair is a lot of fun!
I highly recommend a coaching with him and wish him all the best and great Clients!
Ramona Bordeian
Senior Key Account Manager
SThree
I appointed Mark to help me develop my leadership capabilities, and he has done a great job.
He helped me become more aware of what I want to be as a leader and what I want to achieve. He has worked with me to build the competencies and skills I need to get to where I want to be.
I would definitely recommend Mark to anyone who is interested in improving their Leadership skills and being all that they can be.
Thank you Mark!
Lalit Vase
General Manager
Red Marketing and Distribution
My Coaching sessions with Mark Garrod have changed my perception of life and helped me realize that I can take full control of it despite the tremendous career and personal pressure I have been facing. I was a typical victim of career-family-personal imbalance!
The immediate rapport that Mark managed to achieve gained my confidence from the very first session. The way he conducts the discussion without lecturing or imposing is key to achieving conviction…The follow up sessions covered actions and updates on steps that I have taken to meet my needs and values. In less than few weeks, I managed to achieve what I earlier thought would only remain a dream!
Hania Tabet
Managing Director
TBWA\RAAD\PR
I approached Mark with a specific area of my performance in which I wished to build both ability and confidence.
In this area, Mark helped me to enhance my weaknesses and also to see and appreciate where my natural strengths lay.
I recently put all this to the test and am delighted with my performance.
His ability to listen is tremendous, and his sensitivity to the subtle uniqueness in my personality was rewarded by tabbing and refining them reaching my objectives.
I would definitely recommend Mark for any kind of coaching, since he makes ‘heavy things feel light’ and he is a comfortable person to be around.
Roger Hobeika
Chief Executive Officer
TAHG
This is a personal testimony for Mark Garrod who operated as our Consultant and Facilitator for approximately two and a half years. I have always been very impressed with Mark during the time he has worked with us. Mark is professional, authentic, experienced and able to connect with people from a range of cultural and professional backgrounds.
Mark invested a significant amount of time prior to the program getting to know our business strategy, products, culture and my objectives for the participants. This enabled him to bring the program to life in a very relevant, interesting and practical way for the team. The feedback we received was very positive, making it clear Mark had adapted very well and had employed a style that was a very good fit for our people.
Shortly after this we engaged Mark to run the national rollout of the first two key programs of our new Sales Training Curriculum – . Foundational Selling Skills and Key Account Management. Mark lead the customization of the Key Account program to suit our specific requirements and delivered all of these programs up until his departure.
His commercial experience combined with his intimate understanding of the program and the subject enabled him to create strong credibility and connection with each of the groups he worked with across our business. These programs were extremely well received by both our frontline sales representatives, and our senior sales leaders.
In addition to Mark’s obvious strengths delivering the programs, the participants particularly noted that he had personal experience in sales and managing key accounts, and could bring this experience to the programs. They felt Mark understood their challenges and issues, and was able to provide relevant knowledge and tools to build their capability.
Mark is determined that participants leave the room feeling they are equipped with practical skills and tools, and that they feel confident in their use, having been well drilled in exercises and simulations. It is a testament to his enthusiasm and skill that he has been able to gain the engagement and commitment of participants to whole heartedly experiment and learn through role plays, not always something they are comfortable with.
We also engaged Mark’s extensive background in executive coaching to work with one of our Business Unit Heads. I was confident he was tackling the core issues that lay at the root of the challenges this individual was facing. I was also pleased with Mark’s ability to engage with this individual and encourage him to take the step into coaching in the first place.
In working with Mark I have found him to be thorough, well prepared, engaging and professional. Mark manages to maintain a high level of professional credibility while still being friendly and connecting with people on an individual level. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with Mark.
Gilly Brooks
Capability Development Manager
Syngenta
Mark Garrod is an exceptional trainer and facilitator whose insights and business acumen are an asset to any business. In my role as Organisational Development Manager at Thomson Reuters, I worked with Mark for over 4 years to implement and deliver our sales and communication skills programs. Mark has a truly consultative style, and was able to provide valuable insights and solutions that delivered tangible results.
Mark is incredibly knowledgeable, client focused and responsive. Mark brings a great energy to everything he does and is able to establish a connection with his audience to help bring out the best in them, build their skills and provide them the tools to increase their effectiveness back in the workplace.
Tarryn Donaldson
Organisational Development Manager
Thomson Reuters: Legal, Tax and Accounting
I have known Mark for 6 years. Mark worked with myself and the team to strengthen the capability of our sales and marketing area. His clear passion and genuine desire to help drive better individual and team performance enabled him to create a high level of engagement and openness with the group. This made people comfortable with his direct and insightful feedback. It also enabled him to challenge the way we did things and this enabled the team to gain extremely valuable and practical learnings.
In addition, Mark helped us think differently about our approach to pitching for large and critical sales opportunities. Subsequently we re-engaged with Mark to develop our pitching strategy. As a consequence of this work we won numerous pitches (to the value of approximately $10M) and the approach learned is now standard company strategy and has contributed to numerous additional wins.
Justin Roia
Chief Executive Officer
AS Harrison & Co Pty Limited.