Here’s Sean’s Story
Gamekeeper turned poacher!

If you don’t know me very well or are new to what I do and how I do it, here’s some more information about me and what I’m all about.

I stumbled into the sales training arena in 2002. Prior to that I had a reasonably successful commercial career but call it a mid-life crisis or a moment of madness, I handed in my notice to a £75,000 a year job to see if I could cut it as an "entrepreneur".

Yes, you’re right. Most people called it madness!

I always enjoyed coaching, building successful teams and business improvement so that’s what I was going to do.

After a non spectacular start to building my Richard Branson like empire, a small company asked me whether I could deliver sales training for them and of course I said yes! (even though I had no previous experience in this whatsoever!) Well, needs must and all that!

The one thing I did have in my favour was that I had been sold to more times than a lot of sales people had actually sold themselves! I was an expert buyer and used to eat sales people for breakfast. I knew all of the tricks and techniques that sales people would use on me and I would use this knowledge to my advantage.

I’d murder their margins and work them really hard for the sale. So I approached that sales training event completely from the buyers perspective. I turned the sales process on it’s head and rather than "making a sale" I wanted to run the training so that their sales people would make it "easy for the prospect to buy" and that the decision to say "Yes" would be a no-brainer!

I was delighted to receive 10’s across the board on the feedback forms and 3 weeks later got an email from the MD stating that their sales had improved by 65%.

MTD Sales Training was born and I had found my niche.

Word soon got around about the results I was getting for my clients and then the media started calling. First it was the BBC, then a CNN International live interview in front of 145 million people. Then ITV wanted a piece of the action and then the daily newspapers, magazines and radio. Today, I’ve been featured in over 250 publications.

All of a sudden I was called terms such as a "sales guru" and "sales jedi" – it’s weird the slant that the media put on things but I loved it nonetheless! All I was focused on was building my own business and brand and helping our clients to make more sales or to improve their management skills (Yes, MTD Management Training was not far behind the inception of our sales training division)

As of today, we’ve trained over 20,000 staff
from 800 different organisations

As of today, we’ve trained over 20,000 staff from 800 different organisations and no, I haven’t done it all myself! I’ve got a great team of trainers, admin and customer service staff behind me.

My role has changed over the years. I’ve gone from working "in my business" to "working on my business" and I’ve handed over the nuts and bolts of the day to day operations to my staff. Of course, I know everything that’s going on in the business but I’ve got a very talented group of staff. Sometimes I can be in the way!

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