Our Team
Our team not only understand sales, they love it. All have worked in sales and led sales teams successfully. We know what it is like to sell and the issues around being a sales manager. We bring that understanding and empathy to our consultancy work and our training delivery.
Lars Tewes, Managing Director, SBR Consulting
Experience
Lars has over 25 years’ experience in sales and sales leadership as Sales Manager and then Managing Director, responsible for establishing three successful and currently profitable companies on behalf of the Southwestern Company.
In 2002 his passion for professional selling and sales performance improvement led him to set up SBR Consulting, to directly tackle the issues of business development, from strategic viewpoint, through to implementing tailored Business Development Programmes. The ultimate goal is to, ‘Liberate sales potential worldwide’.
Over the past 10 years he has worked directly with over 250 firms from entrepreneurial start-ups to global financial and engineering and consultancy practices, helping improve their sales potential. His cross-industry experience in blue chip companies and SMEs, encompasses implementation of programmes to:
• Develop sales cultures within organisations
• Help companies restructure, define or create a sales process
• Establish the correct KPIs, strategy, and incentives and how they should be used
• Enable top sales people to make a smooth transition into sales management
• Ensure that rigour is introduced into the sales function
• Provide consistency in the sales approach to market
• Write company sales manuals & sales leadership manuals
• Establish the correct approach to recruitment & retention
Lars is committed to helping firms make Business Development a major part of their culture and to helping individuals find patterns for success that allow them to maximise their levels of performance, whilst having fun doing it!
• In 2003 he created The Art of Selling Consulting Services Conference, which has run successfully every year since, with over 1200 strategic and technical consultants attending
• He is the lead speaker in UK on sales and sales leadership for Vistage (global association for CEO’s – 400 members in UK) and won Outperformer of the Year 2011
• He developed and wrote SBR Consulting’s QUIS Selling™ – The Sales Methodology for Consultants
• He developed High Performance Sales Habits for Consultants©
• His writings are published monthly in The Consulting Times based on ‘Selling in a Consulting World’
Qualifications
• BA (Hons) Business Studies
Interests
Married and bringing up 3 wonderful kids in the big City, London, Lars is a keen tennis player and loves to ski and motorbike.
Stuart Lotherington, Director, SBR Consulting
Experience
Stuart’s career started in direct sales in 1988 and during 1990s he progressed through the ranks, recruiting, managing and leading award winning sales teams and organisations in both UK and USA. In 2000, he collectively founded and built a £2.5m gourmet food company and due to the rigor he put into people development, it was awarded Investors in People within six months (unheard of at the time).
Stuart has spent over 25 years understanding the complexities of sales, making it his mission to demystify it in order to help individuals, teams and companies achieve their goals. He has in-depth knowledge and understanding of sales from the grass roots of direct sales to complex multiple stakeholder sales. His wealth of sales leadership has helped him lead and manage sales teams in excess of 250 people in different vertical and international markets.
At SBR Consulting, he has worked with over 40 companies from Fortune 500s to SMEs in various industries, helping them to develop sales strategies, train sales people and sales leaders, consultants and professional services.
His passion to help individuals, teams and organisations achieve their goals means he is a much sought after trainer, speaker and coach.
Qualifications
Currently studying BSc Psychology
Interests
Settled in Sevenoaks with a family of four daughters, Stuart volunteers with his children’s youth group and is a committee member of his triathlon club. When not doing that you may see him running marathons (sometimes of the ultra variety), triathlons and Ironman competitions. In May 2007, Stuart’s team came 1st in the Polar Challenge, a 350 mile race to the Magnetic North Pole.
George Constantopoulos, Director, SBR Consulting
Experience
With over 30 years experience in consultative and solution-oriented sales, through a person-centric approach, business efficiency, and reliability, George has built strong executive-level relationships with customers. He has earned a reputation for managing and delivering complex and challenging projects in markets of diverse cultures on time with profitability. Through his strong business development leadership, empowering and motivating his sales and professional services teams, George was clear about adding value and articulating the excellent ROI to his customers. His efforts had bottom-line impact, winning him honors from international vendors including IBM, Google, SAP, and Cisco.
An early pioneer in the southeastern Mediterranean IT industry, George founded Byte Computer and built its customer base from scratch. He secured a game-changing contract with Lotus Development Corporation that defined Byte’s position in the market. As he continued forging exclusive value-added partnerships and strategic alliances with global vendors, namely IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Google, Cisco, HP, and others, he gained a competitive advantage and created a launch pad for million-dollar contracts.
George envisioned and established Byte’s customer-centric solutions development division, creating an actionable strategy designed to provide sustainable long-term profitability. By placing emphasis on excellence in execution and aligning the company’s professional services to meet the needs of its clients, a consultative sales culture was born, thereby clearly defining Byte’s value proposition and differentiation.
Based on this success, George was recruited by IBM to develop the market and secure a leadership position for Lotus software. He doubled revenues each year through securing business partnerships and applying solution selling.
He was an early adopter of workflow concepts and knowledge management practices, and introduced solutions to the regional market, paving the road for IBM to fully absorb Lotus Development Corporation. After engaging in a highly matrixed environment, George was brought back as Managing Director at Byte Computer and continued to expand the company’s revenue streams with an influx of new solutions and practices.
At SBR Consulting, George is providing specialised sales performance consulting to IT companies, particularly in the high growth area of Cloud Computing, as the dominating force that is contributing to the digital economy.
Qualifications
George studied Electrical Engineering Technology at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, General Engineering at Waterloo University in Waterloo, Canada and Pure and Applied Science at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada. He is a member of Intellect UK and a founding member of the Business Software Alliance.
Alan Morton, Principal Consultant, SBR Consulting
Experience
Nineteen years into a career that has involved selling, leading sales teams and developing organisations in the US and across Europe, Alan is passionate about continuing to hone and develop the habits of a high performer in himself and in others.
As Senior Consultant, he works closely with his clients to ensure that they have the right habits, tools and processes to drive revenues, increase productivity and develop high performance sales cultures.
Prior to joining SBR Consulting, Alan spent 14 years working in sales and sales leadership positions and was recognised as a finalist in the National Sales Awards for Sales Trainer of the Year.
Now in his sixth year of working with SBR Consulting he specialises in winning business and designing, delivering and embedding sales and business development programmes within IT, professional services and consulting organisations.
Specific areas of specialism include:
• Client Relationship Management
• Key Account Development
• Sales Leadership
• Performance Coaching
• Complex deal management
• Consultative/solution sales technique
Qualifications:
Ba (hons) History Bristol University
PgDIP Marketing Bristol Business School
PRINCE2
Interests:
A keen guitarist and sportsman who enjoys nothing more than time with his young family.
Fredrik Sandvall, Principal Consultant, SBR Consulting
Fredrik Sandvall, Principal Consultant
Experience
MBA qualified international manager with more than 20 years experience in sales, working with a broad range of projects and deals (largest deals exceed €100m). Fredrik has worked as sales leader, entrepreneur, managing consultant and partner and has in depth knowledge of understanding people and organisations, including how to make them more aligned on tactical and strategic levels. His international work experience includes managing multicultural teams in 33 countries.
In his current role as Principal Consultant at SBR Consulting, Fredrik has been engaged in a number of global customer engagements across more than 10 industries, including:
- Top tier deal support and coaching on numerous bids in the range £1m – £100m on solution in the Consulting, IT and Telecoms sectors
- Development & delivery of core modules in a pan-EMEA Sales Campus with a leading global IT and Telecom company
- Coaching and training consultants, partners, technicians & professionals to become more confident with sales & business development to successfully achieve their goals
- Proven his sales and customer development skills reaching more than 100% growth per year in sales to new and existing customers
Before joining SBR Consulting:
- Officer with the Swedish Royal Marines for 16 years with International Operations as his core task
- Set up and ran five companies in consulting, IT, media and real estate of which four are still operating.
Qualifications
MBA from Lancaster University
MSc in International Business from Stockholm University
BSc in Business Administration
Prince 2 Practitioner
Fluent English and Swedish
Conversational German, Danish and Norwegian
Interest Organisations
Fellow of Institute of Consulting and Practice Lead of the London Board
Fellow of Chartered Management Institute and Lead of younger managers on the board of the Central & Westminster’s London branch
Fellow of Institute of Sales and Marketing Management
Interests
Entrepreneurship, investments, multi-sport and Global Underwater exploration
SBR Consulting parent organisation is the Southwestern Company. In USA, our sales performance consultancy is known as Southwestern Consulting.
Dan Moore, President, The Southwestern Company
Dan Moore is the President of The Southwestern Company in Nashville , Tennessee . He is a 1976 Honours Graduate from Harvard University and holds an Honours MBA degree from Vanderbilt University Owen School of Management. As the President at Southwestern, he is responsible for product development, sales training, public relations, business statistics, forecasting and the development of new profit centres.
Dan has been invited as a keynote speaker to a number of organisations, both academic and professional, located in the USA , Britain , France and, most recently, Estonia. Dan has trained more than 60,000 salespeople to be much more motivated and productive between sales calls, and far more effective within them.’
Lee McCroskey, Director of Sales Development, The Southwestern Company
Lee McCroskey is the Director of Sales Development for the century-old Southwestern Company. Every year, Lee is responsible for transforming more than 3000 top university students from North America and Europe into “lean, mean, selling machines.”
Lee is a recognised expert on GenX, GenY and generational issues in the marketplace. He is a member of the Board of Sales and Marketing Executives of Nashville (VP of Education). Lee McCroskey comes to us with over two decades of expertise in training, sales, and sales management. One of Lee’s greatest accomplishments is his contribution to the standardisation of the sales training process across different continents. Lee has been featured on radio and TV on numerous occasions.
Professional Background: Recipient of Master Recruiter Award, Sales Manager of the Year. B.A. & M.A. in English; Lecturer at the University of Kansas 1979-82; Adjunct Faculty at the Owen Graduate School of Business, Vanderbilt University.
Henry Bedford, Chairman & CEO, The Southwestern Company
Henry Bedford was named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company in January 2006. He began his career with The Southwestern Company as a Student Dealer in 1972. Henry achieved a B.A. in Economics from The University of the South and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. He has had more than 30 years in sales and business management with progressive promotions within the Company.
Spencer Hays, Executive Chairman of Board, The Southwestern Company
Spencer Hays has spent more than a half-century building and leading both sales organizations and textile manufacturing companies. Beginning as a student entrepreneur at Texas Christian University, he established new benchmarks in sales and organization building through the Southwestern Company’s renowned summer program for college students, building the largest sales organization in the history of the company.
Beginning in 1967, he also applied his passion for the clothing industry by founding the Tom James Company, which as part of the Individualized Apparel Group is now the largest custom-clothing company in the world. Tom James is a vertically integrated company which takes the manufacturing process from plant fibers to whole cloth to custom apparel. His expertise in textile manufacturing extends to plants in the U.S., Chile, and the United Kingdom serving customers around the world. Having personally overseen the acquisition of and development of all manufacturing and sales of this $500,000,000 company, Mr. Hays is uniquely qualified as a member of the Southwestern Consulting team.
Dustin Hillis, Co-Founder, Southwestern Consulting
Dustin Hillis is the Co-Founder of Southwestern Consulting, a multi-million dollar professional sales training company, he trains and coaches thousands of sales professionals across the world. He specializes in training sales teams how to execute the fundamentals and coaches sales professionals how to break through personal belief barriers in order to reach their maximum potential.
Dustin is the current #1 ranking sales professional in a long list of over 150,000 salespeople for the over 155 year-old Southwestern Company, recognized by the Direct Selling Association as one of the leading companies in the world for direct sales. He is the author of, “Navigate: Selling The Way People Like To Buy”. He is the creator of, “Navigate: How To Navigate Referrals” 3 disc DVD series. And he is the co-author of, “Speaking of Success”, along with Stephen Covey – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Ken Blanchard, “The Once Minute Manager”, and Jack Canfield, “Chicken Soup for the Soul”.
Dustin holds a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Psychology from the University of Tennessee. He has spent many years studying human behaviour and the psychology of selling, not only in academics, but with hands-on experience, selling door-to-door to over 12,000 customers, as well as giving over 10,000 B2B presentations. His expertise in face reading, body language, and both verbal and non-verbal behavioural identifiers is unmatched. Dustin has learned to adapt to every situation and behaviour style imaginable and this knowledge and experience is delivered through his unique training.
Navigate: Selling The Way People Like To Buy will teach you how to:
- Solidify in your mind what are the 4 buying behavior styles
- Identify someone’s buying behavior style in 7 seconds
- Modify your natural selling style to your prospects buying style
Rory Vaden, Co-Founder, Southwestern Consulting
Rory Vaden is a Self-Discipline Strategist, Co-Founder of Southwestern Consulting, and New York Times bestselling author of “Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success”.
His insights have been shared on Oprah radio and featured in print media such as SUCCESS™ Magazine. Rory has degrees in Business Management, Leadership, and an MBA from the University of Denver.
His speaking client list includes: Bank of America, Trane, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Shaw Worldwide, YPO (Young President’s Organization), The Direct Selling Association, American Income Life, Wells Fargo Advisors, Mary Kay, AFLAC, and others from all over the world.
He is the perfect speaker for increasing employee engagement, overcoming procrastination, raising productivity, growing sales, maintaining better work life balance, managing change, having more effective time management and motivating people to do the hard work necessary to achieve success in life.
Rory is a regular contributor for The Huffington Post, American Express Open Forum and he is also the weekly radio host of Take the Stairs Talk on the Lifestyle radio network. His book Take the Stairs is a #1 USA Today, #1 Wall St Journal, #1 Amazon, #1 Barnes and Noble and #2 New York Times bestseller. He is also an all-time production record holder for the 150 year old network marketing organization, The Southwestern Company.
Rory is also on a “Take the Stairs World Tour” where he is taking the stairs to the top of the 10 tallest buildings in the world to raise money for America’s high schools.
Gary Michels, Co-Founder, Southwestern Consulting
Gary Michels, leading motivational expert, has impacted thousands nationwide through his remarkable techniques for balancing career success and thriving personal lives. Gary has a unique ability to relate to almost any audience, inspiring them to reach for their personal best. His insights into having a positive mental attitude have been life-changing for many who have heard him speak.
He spent 19 years at Great American Opportunities, Inc. in sales and management. There he lead the company in sales for seven of the last 10 years, out of over 250 sales reps. During his career he has had the opportunity to speak to and motivate over 700,000 people across the country. Gary has published many articles on achieving excellence in both personal life and his career and is the author of, “Gettin’ In and Gettin’ Out, How to Get In Every Prospect’s Door and Get Out With a Sale”.
Ron Marks, Performance Management, Southwestern Consulting
Ron Marks is author of best selling book entitled, “Managing for Sales Results” which is designed to help sales managers get the most from their sales teams.
Not only is Ron Marks a sales trainer, but a sales leader who’s worked in the trenches and worked his way to the top. As Performance Management Consultant at Southwestern Consulting, his focus is on sales managers – teaching them how to hire, train and motivate their teams. Ron has also trained just about every type of salesperson, from Fortune 500 to individually owned companies, increasing their bottom line every time.
At the age of 17, Ron had the good fortune to work for the country’s top sales speaker. By 1985, seeing the need for sales training that didn’t turn salespeople into stereotypical sellers, he formed, “Results Seminars”. It worked and his seminar company became the driving sales force behind established headliner names like Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins and Tom Hopkins.
With an extremely successful sales company to his credit, Ron expanded, creating customized sales training programmes to offer his clients personal, hands-on-training. He truly tailored his programmes to his clients, taking the time to research each company and determine its sales weaknesses, strengths and goals.
As a part of his personal development strategy, Ron took a sabbatical from the training indsutry in 1996 to assume a general sales manager position with a company that had dealerships across the country. Ron exceeded every goal he was given and exceeded the previous annual revenue by $36 million in a 2-yr timeframe. More importantly, Ron came away with an even keener insight into the real world of sales and management.
Dave Brown, Professional Sales Trainer and Speaker, Southwestern Consulting
Dave Brown started his career as a Student Dealer for the Southwestern Company and was a record breaking sales person, knocking on over 50,000 doors before the age of 25. He generated as much as $27,000 per month in 2005 strictly from cold calling. As a top producer consultant, speaker and trainer Dave is regarded as one of the best prospectors in the world.
Amanda Johns Vaden, Professional Sales Trainer and Speaker, Southwestern Consulting
Amanda is a full time Sales Consultant, Executive Coach and Speaker. Since joining Southwestern Consulting in 2006 she has trained thousands of sales professionals across varying industries. Amanda Johns holds degrees in Advertising and Business from the University of Tennessee where she focused on creating directive selling techniques. She is the author of the upcoming books, “Selling to the Sexes” and “4-Dimensonial Follow-Up”.
Emmie Young, Professional Sales Trainer and Speaker, Southwestern Consulting
Starting her career as a Student Dealer for the Southwestern Company whilst at university, Emmie Young achieved the position of District Sales Manager for The Southwestern Company, managing over 100 sales people. During her career, she has trained thousands of sales professionals across the nation and is always in the top 1% in personal sales production.