The Art of Sales Leadership and Team Empowerment with Simon Cooper

A former FTSE100 Marketing Director, since selling his human insight and coaching business Chemistry in 2015, Simon Cooper has been leading, facilitating, and coaching change across a range of organisations.

A Partner at Positive Momentum, Simon has many years of business change and growth experience having been a Marketing Director at Cable & Wireless following a career in commercial leadership roles in technology, consulting, and telecommunications businesses.

After Cable & Wireless Simon grew the human insight consultancy Chemistry from a start-up in a village in England to standing toe to toe across the world with established leaders in human data analytics, behavioural change and business consulting working with clients such as Vodafone, Experian, and Diageo. He sold that business in 2015.

Prior to Cable & Wireless, as Marketing Director, Simon shaped the cultural and sales turnaround at Energis, a bankrupt business, when he and the team arrived. Simon drove fast, dramatic change across the marketing team, sales capability, customer experience, culture, brand, go-to-market strategy and external marketing, and was intimately involved with the successful exit for the shareholders netting them $750m.

Before Energis he lived in the USA whilst working with AT&T as Global Chief Marketing Officer for their Concert business, before heading back to Europe to join Accenture where he led the sale of +$100m outsourcing deals, working across Europe with clients such as Microsoft, Iberdrola and Nokia.

His early years in management were spent at BT where he introduced market shifting new services (including their first ever BT shop on the internet, yes really!) and formed a market defining partnership with Sky.

Simon has a Post Graduate Diploma in Behavioural Change from Henley Management College and an MBA awarded jointly by INSEAD in Paris and McGill University in Montreal under the direct tutorage of business guru Henry Mintzberg. Henry quoted Simon in his book at the time. The MBA study included periods at Kobe University in Japan, Bangalore Institute of Management in India and Lancaster University in the UK.

He’s never more energized than when playing football on a Friday night and describes his greatest burden in life as his love for Derby County (apparently they won the leagues in 1972 and 1975 – who knew). His humour will most definitely make you laugh, but he saves his widest smiles for his wife Carol, daughter Laura and son Jonathan.

In this week’s episode, Simon unravels the qualities that exceptional leaders possess to inspire their sales teams and surpass revenue goals. We delve into the crucial role of setting a vision, fostering growth, and constructing a high-caliber team. We debate the player-manager conundrum in sales leadership, considering if directors should directly close deals or focus on coaching their teams. We emphasize hiring for attitude over experience, plus the power of networking for genuine connections. We also explore the harmonious relationship between sales and marketing, especially in professional services, and the significance of articulating value propositions.

Topics covered during this episode include:

• How exceptional commercial leaders drive team performance, even in challenging economies like today’s.

• Why a clear vision and roadmap for teams is critical for success.

• How fostering an environment of growth can empower teams to achieve and exceed targets.

• Why building a world-class sales team often involves frequent assessment and development.

• How sales leadership roles balance deal making with team mentorship and strategy development.

• Why hiring for attitude and cultural fit can be more important than industry experience.

• How attitudes and behaviours are critical factors in successful sales team composition.

• Why networking for genuine connections surpasses networking for mere contacts.

• How marketing leaders can craft compelling value propositions for financial decision makers.

• Why understanding the economic impact of marketing efforts is essential for business growth.

• How predictive modeling of marketing campaigns can improve accuracy over time.

• Why collaborative negotiation techniques can transform competitive situations into success.

• How empathy and curiosity are potent tools in high-stakes negotiations.

• Why leaders should understand core values as they deeply influence professional behaviours.

• How recognizing the influence of values can aid in hiring the right team members.

Simon Cooper on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simoncooper11/