All across the world COVID-19 disrupted businesses and public sector organisations end to end causing them to look again at their strategy, their people, their property, their tools, their investments, and their processes. More business was going to be done remotely and that suppliers that transformed their sales capability to be effective in the new reality were going to succeed and even thrive, whereas those that failed to embrace change were not going to grow and would be left behind with stagnant pipelines and low win rates hence risking significant decline and possible total failure.
It was clear that there was a need for a new consultancy, one focused on driving sales transformation for a more virtualised world. A team of agile specialists with deep experience in sales excellence, best practice, account growth, and win rate improvement. A team who excel at engaging virtually and who teach as well as implement new techniques across their customers’ sales and sales support teams.
For some time, prior to the formation of Digital Distance, Carl had been reflecting on the many months of professional training he had received throughout his career. Whilst much of it had been informative and useful at the time, only approximately 15 days had been truly transformational to his success. In further discussion with a wide range of colleagues, such an experience turned out to be surprisingly typical.
In a world where change comes quickly and time is a precious commodity, this ratio felt very wrong. It was a desire to redress the balance by devising andragogy that enabled a transformational change in one’s skillsets and abilities that inspired Carl to set up Digital Distance during the lock down of 2020. The disruption COVID-19 caused to the global economy meant that it had never been more important to ensure that any investment in training delivered tangible business outcomes.
Having been using virtual collaboration tools since the 1990’s, and after 30 years transforming, managing, and enabling sales and sales support organisations, predominantly in the highly competitive world of IT services, Carl has developed many unique techniques and best practices. His experience spans many industries including, financial services, manufacturing, advertising and public relations, transport, and government.
Carl has a passion for sales excellence and has always been happiest working directly with customers or coaching bid teams. Having found that the creative energy and general buzz around a successful bid team can become addictive, Carl has developed ways to replicate that environment virtually.
A certified Challenger Sales Trainer, Carl is well used to leading sales with “Insight”. Previously Carl has been a senior trainer for the McKinsey led Spartans sales transformation programme at Hewlett Packard whilst he was leading the Sales Enablement and Solutioning function in the UK, Ireland and the Middle East.
Carl specialises in transforming win-rates by systematically identifying and eliminating reasons one might lose a deal. It is this attention to detail and an ability to view opportunities with a fresh perspective, coupled with a strong desire to win, that transforms “bid teams” into “winning bid teams”.
Carl lives in rural Essex with his wife and business partner Katy, several horses and many rescue dogs for company.
Mike brings a rare combination of experience through buying services as a customer, but more recently, a proven record of leading complex sales teams and leading pursuits himself.
Mike worked for many years in the financial services industry, awarding many outsourced and managed services contracts before being instrumental in developing the digital strategy for a leading UK insurance company.
He then moved into the professional sales community as a new business hunter for LogicaCMG winning many new clients and long term ITO contracts. Mike then progressed to be a board member of Getronics in the UK following their acquisition by KPN. After 3 years of transformation, in 2011 Mike then joined CGI to head up their operations in Northern Europe and returning them to growth. Following the acquisition of Logica by CGI in 2012, Mike lead the UK private sector for CGI, a $700m operation.
Since 2017, Mike has advised small and medium enterprises on their go to market model, sales strategy and sales effectiveness. This included a private equity backed software house developing leading edge digital solutions for the automotive space. Latterly, Mike has completed an interim role changing the go to market model for Fujitsu in the UK. Win rates doubled under Mike’s leadership.
Living on the south coast, Mike spends most weekends across the UK attending various competitions as he is also the Chair of the Great Britain Mounted Games Association
During a successful career at EDS/HP/HPE predominantly as part of the EMEA Strategic Sales organisation, Sally had developed a reputation as being a sales growth specialist. Coming from a Business Services and applications background, Sally was regularly consulted on how to drive new breakout growth, digital and transformational services both directly with end clients, and through channel partners, in many cases creating joint go-to-market services.
Sally’s collaborative style has been critical in fostering enduring relationships across the globe both internally in hiring, establishing and managing teams across EMEA, APAC and Americas, as well as with partners, clients and third-party advisors.
Prior to joining EDS, Sally held roles as a Key Account Manager, Bid and Programme Director and coached start-up companies as part of a local government initiative.
Sally lives on the south coast of England between the idyllic New Forest and the beach with a menagerie of rescue animals.
With nearly 40 years in the Telecoms and IT industry, Tony is a dedicated, results-driven leader with extensive experience in business strategy development, sales support, and marketing. For over 16 years Tony has been managing and coaching bid teams. With many of these teams being dispersed geographically and many international in nature, he has a long track record of working successfully with virtual tools to deliver winning outcomes.
Tony firmly believes that real customer focus and the desire to learn from every customer touchpoint is key to a truly successful sales organisation. He recently ran an effective, integrated customer experience and win loss programme for a major international IT services company. This highly successful programme delivered insight into what customers really wanted and, in turn, transformed the way each subsequent sales engagement was executed. When reviewing the customer insight assembled from the extensive programme output, the Senior Vice President of Europe referred to it as “pure gold”.
Tony has a proven track record of bringing innovation and continuous improvement to the design, implementation, and lifecycle management of sales bid management and solution design methodologies and processes. This includes the introduction of best practice tools and supporting frameworks aimed at improving win rates, quality, and profitability, as well as driving down the cost of sale.
Tony lives in Milton Keynes with his wife and has a passion for cycling on and off road.
Jacqui specialises in supporting Boards and Executive Managers to make and implement key decisions in all areas of Human Resource Management.
Up to 2006 Jacqui worked as an HR Director and HR Manager for several large organisations such as ICL / Fujitsu, Adobe Systems and Cable & Wireless, and also several smaller organisations. For the following 7 years she undertook full-time assignments as interim HR Director for several central government departments and NHS Trusts. Since the end of 2013 she has worked providing specialist consultancy assignments to government departments and small and medium sized organisations.
Jacqui is a recognised TUPE expert and works as a specilist consultant within the Digital Distance team providing our cutsomers with support in this complex area for the various bids we are involved with.
After a varied and successful career including senior roles at Dell and Hewlett Packard.
Katy has gathered extensive experience running several successful businesses. Her career spans a variety of industries including leisure, property, horticulture and engineering. Her responsibilities covered both front and back office activites, including sales operations and administration. Katy also spent some years transforming a social care department in local government ensuring vulnerable and special needs children got appropriate services. ALl this whilst being a great mother to her two daughters.
Katy has a BSc in Business Studies majoring in Information Technology and Marketing.
Outside work Katy enjoys horse riding, travelling, gardening, and has a keen interest in nature preservation activities.