Copyright © 2022 Steven Jenkins. All rights reserved.
Where did business coaching come from?
What is coaching and mentoring?
Why do business people come
coaching and mentoring?
Time to think
Confidence and growth mindset
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
Case study
Presentation skills
study
Difficult and challenging conversations
Strategic thinking
Developing a coaching culture
Case study
Case study
leadership
study
study
Testimonials
The world seems to be full of people offering coaching services. There’s well-being coaches, life coaches, sports coaches, business coaches –and that’s just the obvious ones. But how do you determine if they have any potential value to you and your company?
There has been an explosion in people offering coaching services in recent years for a variety of reasons. For example, the massive growth in technology is replacing many jobs that were previously undertaken by people. More people are looking at alternative roles and careers. The ever-growing demands of employees and the highly competitive race for talent acquisition and retention are creating a greater demand for people development within the workplace.
The fact is the business world is becoming ever more competitive with profit, performance and share growth driving company managers to seek competitive advantage and ways to improve productivity. A succession of stock market crashes and the resulting recessions have resulted in many people losing their jobs and questioning the whole ethos of company loyalty.
The new workforce sees itself as individuals and not employees. This places greater emphasis on getting a competitive edge, sharpening up skills and getting yourself noticed.
This combination of factors has fuelled demand for services which improve individual and corporate productivity and upskilling driven both by companies and by individuals.
I am a qualified executive coach and mentor bringing 45 years of corporate experience to my clients.
I work at all levels in the organisation but am particularly interested in working at C-Suite / Director level where it is possible to help stimulate change from the top that will have the greatest impact on the organisation.
I began my career in academia but quickly realised that this was too narrowly focused. I wanted to change the world!
My formative years were spent as a marketing manager with Mars Drinks where I was responsible for building the KLIX and Flavia coffee and tea systems into a £200 million business from scratch. I worked with amazing people and looked after UK, Europe, North America, Scandinavia and Middle East markets during my time with Mars.
It was at Mars where I was asked to manage a number of sales teams which was a seminal moment in my career. I learnt how to work in a very hands-on way with my salespeople and to help them use their own sales statistics to self-develop.
In addition to receiving fantastic training in speciality sales, need creation, negotiation and management techniques I learned that the only way to run a sales team was at the coal face.
Whilst at Mars I became a specialist in lead generation using direct marketing methods and after 8 years with Mars I left to found my own Direct Marketing agency. I ran this agency for 15 years and built it up to a £10 million turnover and the most profitable agency in the market. The business was sold to the HAVAS global advertising group and I became Vice-Chairman of the UK company, Brann Worldwide.
During my time with the agency I was responsible for all new business, generating £1 million every year for 15 years. I won major Blue Chip clients like Coca-Cola, Schweppes, Toshiba, Commercial Union and Sainsbury’s. We had the best client and staff retention in the marketplace.
Over the last 20 years I have been involved in two business start-ups working at Board level with companies like Nestle and PepsiCo. I have also worked as a consultant helping companies that wanted to grow, become more profitable and exit.
For the last three years I have worked as a business coach and mentor using my 45 years of experience to help managers at all levels to achieve their goals. Sales productivity and business development remain my area of speciality.
Most people associate coaching with sport.
You might be very surprised to know that the roots of business coaching go back to the Inner Game system developed by Timothy Gallwey back in the 1970’s. In 1971 Tim Gallwey (the founder of the Inner Game method) was working as a tennis coach. He had previously captained the tennis team at Harvard University, and he was taking a sabbatical before starting his career (in other words, getting a proper job!)
He noticed that when he left students to practice on their own, they would often find ways to correct faults or develop a new method on their own without his help. He began to realise that when people were given the time to carefully analyse what they were doing, they began to coach themselves.
Gallwey started to develop an alternative approach to coaching his students. This was based on helping students become very self-aware and raising the awareness of their own body movements, the motion of the ball and the relationship of racket to ball.
By using specific awareness-generating questions he was able to get his students to become conscious of exactly what their body was doing at each level of activity in the sport.
He realised that in every person there are two Selves. Self One provides a running commentary of everything that Self Two does. Self One’s commentary is usually a critical one. For example:
“you are going to hit the ball in the net”
“you know you can’t control a slice spin”
And more damaging…
“you’ll never be any good at this” and so on.
Self One reminds Self Two of all its previous failings and faults and represents all the negative baggage that we all carry around with us and plays to all our self-limiting beliefs. This creates an inner tension that gets in the way of releasing the true capability or potential of the player.
Gallwey created the Inner Game equation: Performance = potential – interference (inner voice)
Effectively, removing the mental baggage or interference will enable the individual to perform to the very best of their potential.
Some of the students of the Inner Game asked Gallwey if the same ideas could be applied to work situations. The first company to try the Inner Game method was AT&T where Gallwey was asked to improve the quality of customer service, in particular the courtesy of customer service representatives.
He got operatives to think of the customer’s voice as the tennis ball and asked them to give it qualities of tonality - loud, soft, angry or nervous - and then to think about the tone of their own voice. They were then asked to rank these qualities on a scale of 1 to 10.
The impact of the Inner Game approach was radical and immediate. Customer Service staff completely changed their view of customers and enjoyed their work far more. All because they were thinking about their work as a game.
Coaching is only effective when both coach and student can develop a positive and empathetic relationship between themselves. So you must choose a coach whom you get along with.
Coaching is a deeply personal relationship and must be underpinned by trust and security. All accredited coaching relationships are governed by strict codes of conduct which demand a safe space for you to develop your skills.
So you should first look see if your coach is qualified and accredited by one of the global coaching organisations.
The ICF (International Coaching Federation) is the largest global accreditation body. To be accredited by the ICF, a coach must have gained a professional qualification certificate from a credible institution like a Business School and also undertaken a number of paid coaching hours with clients.
The next step is to look at the relevant background experience of your coach. Have they actually worked in industry? What roles and positions have they had? Do they have any specialist skills which are relevant to you? Check out their website or LinkedIn profile to see what other people have to say about them. Why not contact some of their previous clients and ask them for a reference?
Coaching refers to a method of training, counselling or instructing an individual or a group how to develop skills to enhance their productivity or overcome a performance problem.
Mentoring is a protected relationship which supports learning and experimentation and helps individuals develop their potential. A Mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a Mentor influences the personal and professional growth of a Mentee.
In practice, there is considerable overlap between the two interventions as the above definitions suggest.
I like the simple definition below…
“
Coaching is knowing what questions to ask, and mentoring is knowing what answers to give”
It is important to understand that in both relationships, the focus is on the person being coached and mentored. A Coach should never be seen as a superior but more as a facilitator to the growth and development of the client.
Sometimes it is a personal choice they want to overcome barriers or improve specific skills. More often their employer wants to help their staff grow and develop within the business, and deal with weaknesses that both parties agree require focus.
Senior executives will often arrange coaching for individuals who are newly promoted to the Board in order to help them gain the confidence to function at the more senior level.
Mentoring tends to be required where an individual or organisation requires specialist advice and chooses an individual who has long and relevant expereince of the subject in mind. A good example is my own speciality which is Sales Leadership. Paradoxically, a growing trend is to train managers to adopt a more coaching style of management so a Coach can become a Mentor in this particular task (see the later Case Study in this book).
With the decline of the industrial base with its traditional command and control style of management, companies are moving towards a style of management which encourages individuals to think for themselves and to feel empowered to do so.
Also, individuals are seeing themselves more as free agents than long-term employees and, as such wish to be treated more as individuals and are increasingly resistant to traditional styles of command management.
The development of the internet has made both coaching and mentoring much more accessible and more realistically priced. The advent of web conference call platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams have made coaching and mentoring more costeffective and flexible. This so-called “virtual coaching” can be highly effective and efficient; it can reduce travel costs, quickly create a safe learning space online, and sessions can be booked far more conveniently for both parties.
In any business, both staff and stakeholders will look to those at the top for a clear idea of the way forward and for inspirational leadership. But we are all human beings with occasional feelings of inadequacy, the so-called Imposter Syndrome. When you head up an organisation, it is not easy to admit to colleagues that you don’t have all the answers. And a Board member may not want to admit they don’t have the experience to resolve particular issues.
Coaching provides a hugely valuable safe and confidential space for company leaders. Senior executives can open up about their fears and insecurities. They can also explore new ideas and concepts as well as help them reconnect with their inner strength and confidence that got them to the top in the first place. Many of my clients tell me they find the time spent focusing on themselves (and not everyone else) to be very cathartic.
As executives get closer to the top of the organisation, they can find working life quite lonely.
These are common issues with executives who come to coaching.
There are many reasons why people lack confidence and very often these are rooted in childhood. Being able to reflect upon these issues is a great way for individuals to shake off the shackles of their upbringing and let their true potential shine through.
Similarly, there are techniques to develop a positive attitude otherwise known as a Growth Mindset. Much research has been undertaken in this important area by Martin Seligman and Dr Carol Dwek.
Failure is an opportunity to grow I can learn to do anything I want Challenges help me to grow My effort and attitude determine my abilities Feedback is constructive I am inspired by the success of others I like to try new things
I have studied NLP for a number of years and find it an extremely valuable tool in my coaching work. To explain, the human brain is a powerful computer, and an individual can harness the creative powers of their brain to create changes in their behaviour and attitudes. All sensory input to the brain by sight, sound, touch, feel etc are transmitted to the brain in digital format, just like a computer. The brain stores these images in multi-sensory format.
Coaches can use NLP to help clients re-create powerful memories from their past and enhance any or all of the multi-sensory elements. For example, an individual who is suffering from a lack of confidence could be encouraged to recall times in their past when they felt empowered and supremely confident.
The Coach can get the Client to significantly enhance every sensory element of this experience to the stage at which the memory is extremely powerful. The Coach will then show the Client how to use physical ‘Triggers’ to enable the them to re-create these memories and their associated feelings at will when they feel the lack of confidence arising within themselves in the future.
NLP is a valuable technique in helping people overcome phobias and can work very quickly. NLP can be a valuable tool in helping overcome the fear of presentation or in overcoming Imposter Syndrome.
NLP uses perceptual, behavioural, and communication techniques to make it easier for people to change their thoughts and actions.
I undertake pro-bono work in the NHS which is hugely rewarding. One senior manager came to me asking for help in gaining resilience. She found that if she faced a difficult or upsetting interaction during her day, she could not shake it off and it would affect her sleep patterns. Clearly, for someone involved in many day-today interpersonal interactions, this needed to be dealt with quickly.
Using breathing techniques, I got her to achieve a state of deep relaxation with her eyes closed. (This was achieved over Zoom!).
I then asked her what her power colour was. I then asked her for a shape that came to mind to represent a feeling of power and happiness. Taking this shape and making it the power colour I made her focus hard on the mental image and associate it with feelings of calm, happiness and power.
I made her visualise these feelings very intensely and then told her that whenever she faced one of these upsetting experiences, she was to close her eyes and breathe deeply for a few minutes whilst mentally bringing this image to mind. I suggested she should buy a key ring with this shape and colour to help act as an NLP Trigger. In our next session, she told me she had purchased a necklace with the power shape and colour and had found the technique successful in overcoming problematic interactions. This was achieved in only one 60-minute session.
Being able to sell your idea to your colleagues or inspire your salesforce at the annual conference as well as making a polished presentation to the shareholders’ meeting are all essential skills the executive must master. We receive little training at school in making presentations which, in my opinion, should be a key component of the National Curriculum. I have coached many clients to become excellent presenters. The process is multifaceted and incorporates breathing skills and delivery coaching among other key skills. However, having very clear objectives of the desired outcome or take out from the presentation is vital. Also understanding the mindset and focus of the person or group you are presenting to is critical before putting content together. A presentation to a Board is totally different to a motivational speech to a conference.
PowerPoint is both an asset and a liability to presenters. Too often, PowerPoint becomes a crutch for the inability to make a strong verbal argument. Slides must support the verbal messages and not replace them. Audiences have short attention spans, and they shorten the higher up the organisation you go! Getting the point across persuasively is critical. Using rhetorical devices and considering objections in advance will help get the argument across.
I use role-play at the final stage to polish the delivery. Too few people actually practice their presentation properly in advance. The role play provides a platform for more sophisticated presentation skills which draw much from theatre.
Presentation skills are vital in business. And yet, public speaking is for many people their worst nightmare.
I was asked to help develop a senior manager into a Directorship position. It was clear from the outset that she was a high calibre individual with an extremely good work ethic and people skills. I worked with her on strategic planning skills which certainly helped her construct a robust 3-year business plan. The problem was that she was a terrible presenter! I was very concerned that when she presented her plans to the Board that the impact would be lost through the actual delivery. I set about turning her into a polished presenter. We discussed what the key communication points were to be. We also agreed on what support and financial input she needed to deliver her plan. We then constructed the presentation around these key elements. She then showed me the presentation she had constructed and I saw an immediate problem. The slides were copy-dense, and she was reading from them. I demonstrated to her how this style of presentation took focus away from the presenter and would lead to a loss of interest among the audience due to the density of the visual communication.
I set her the task of reducing her slides to 5 (from 20). We then used role-playing to fine-tune the presentation and incorporate rhetorical devices to gain impact and buy-in. I made sure that; at no time did she turn to her slides but maintained eye contact with the audience. The result was a huge success. She got the support she needed for her plan and then she went on to double her first-year plan performance. She got her promotion only six months after we started working together.
As a postscript, her presentation at the national sales conference was the most impactful of all the presentations which raised her profile still further. She will be the first to admit the importance of presentation skills!
Presentations may not just simply be to groups of people. They may be the case you make to your boss for a pay rise or a promotion and so these critical sessions must be handled and prepared for carefully.
In our working life, there will be many occasions where difficult issues have to be addressed often on a one-2-one basis. So often we go into these poorly prepared and fail to achieve our goals. We may not deliver our arguments well due to anxiety or nerves and we may react badly when the meeting does not go our way. Very often we do not get a second bite of the cherry. For this reason, coaching can be hugely valuable in preparing for such interactions.
Coaching is an excellent way to prepare for really important discussions. I use Gestalt Coaching or Empty Chair methods in this area. The process starts by imagining you are in the meeting and the person you are meeting is sitting in the empty chair in front of you. Making your point of view is the first stage. I then get the individual to look at this position from the viewpoint of the recipient. We then progressively look at the interaction from different perspectives so that by the end of the session a very different approach is taken to the original delivery.
Presentation is not only undertaken in a formal, planned and prepared manner. Many important conversations happen on an unplanned basis every day in business. As a Coach, I help managers prepare for occasions where their opinion is requested or an update on a situation is needed by senior managers.
Handling these situations well can significantly enhance the profile of managers within the organisation. I use roleplaying in coaching sessions to simulate a senior manager like the Managing Director, coming into their office and asking them a question about their role.
The first element to address is breathing. Good breathing techniques will reduce anxiety and provide space for thinking. Secondly, I encourage my Client to make sure they understand exactly what is being asked and to seek clarification. This also provides time and space for thinking. It is important that the individual understands the specific area of interest of the person asking the question and to address their response to those interests.
For example, a Managing Director is measured on financial performance and so a response explaining how a specific issue can improve financial performance will meet that need. I take on the role of the senior manager and will try to handle responses in the way they would. By putting a Client on the spot in this way on a regular basis, I can coach them to not be nervous in such situations and to respond to them in such a way that their profile is raised.
One of the tools I use is known as the Strategic Bridge. This sets out the core delivery requirements for a business or division over a period of time and then examines in detail the key areas which need to be addressed to achieve these goals.
This forces individuals to understand that there are many variables which need to be considered. Simply stating a goal to grow revenue and margin from x to y has implications across the board and includes an examination of investment, resourcing etc that are frequently overlooked.
I have worked with many Directors and senior managers to develop their strategic thinking skills.
The world of work is changing dramatically. The recent recessions and the experience of companies cutting their workforces, often quite brutally, have resulted in a new attitude towards the employee/employer relationship.
People are now expecting to make several changes in employment over their working life. They will stay with a company if it fits their requirements for progression and development. Younger people are now very focused on the ethical approach their companies take and seek reassurance on company purpose. All of this has created a need to change traditional management practices. The old “command and control” management style is now unacceptable and outdated.
This has not only created growth in demand for coaching as part of individual development but the development of a coaching style of management. Instead of a manager telling a person what to do and how to do it, the more enlightened companies are training their managers to develop a coaching style with their own direct reports. Instead of telling, the approach is changing towards empowering people to think for themselves. If companies are developing future leaders then the development process needs to start early.
A client of mine was in the retail display sector. I was working with the Sales and Marketing Director with a mandate to achieve substantial growth in turnover and margin and to produce a 3-year business plan. The company had recently been bought out of receivership and so needed to restore the confidence of customers.
The new holding company would not invest in muchneeded funding without evidence of the ability to grow and to provide a credible 3-year business plan.
I worked with the Director to produce a Strategic Bridge, a process which determines the growth required and identifies the key processes needed to achieve it. I then coached the Director on how to present the plan to the Board. The Division doubled its turnover in the first year and achieved full investment funding for additional plant and personnel to support the aggressive 3-year plan.
One of my clients operates in the engineering sector providing high-value components for global infrastructure corporations. The Global Sales and Marketing Director has a team of regional managers around the World. The selling process is highly technical, and sales cycles can be a combination of emergency (breakdown supply) to longer-term contractual work. I have been coaching the GSM Director for some time on sales leadership and marketing strategy skills, but he was becoming frustrated by the constant demands on his time created by regional managers asking for permission to discount. We spent time discussing this and I suggested he take a coaching approach to deal with the problem.
Using role play I got him to ask the manager why he felt a discount was needed and what the implications could be on future orders.
I then got him to ask if there were alternative ways of giving something to the customer that was of high perceived value to them but would cost the client very little. This effectively empowered the regional managers to negotiate more effectively and reduce the amount of discount offered. It also started a process of developing managers for future managerial roles. The GSM has reported that he now spends far less time dealing with discounting issues and has identified a growing sense of empowerment in his team.
Developing a coaching culture is definitely the way forward!
I have built Blue Chip customers and presented at Board level with global companies like PepsiCo and N stle. I have had to deliver high volumes of sales revenues myself in order to secure consistent growth. I have done this in the UK, Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East.
Over this time I have identified 9 core reasons why companies fail to achieve their sales potential. It is not just about spending large amounts of money on long-term sales training but by addressing these 9 key areas, it is possible to achieve significant results in as little as 90 days. My ebook on this subject (Build a High-Performance Sales Team in under 90 days) explains this in greater detail.
I believe that every company has a sales challenge and companies must create corporate cultures which support and prioritise sales. The reality is that without sales there will be no company!
This is one of my core specialities. Over my 45-year career, I have run large sales forces, dealer and distributor networks as well as building up three companies I founded.
I took over the management of a large sales force responsible for selling drinks vending machines. This was a very difficult sell at the best of times! I had monthly sales meetings with each of the regional teams and for this, I needed sales reports. These turned out to be pretty numerous. There were Daily Sales Reports, Weekly Sales Reports, Monthly Sales Reports, Pipeline Reviews and, of course, expenses. In those times, these were all posted to me and were needed in order for me to have a productive sales meeting. I found that I only ever received the expenses on time! When I did get the reports, they were inadequately completed and frankly did not tell me very much. So I scrapped the whole lot! I replaced the report with just ONE main document which incorporated the expense reports. No report received; no expenses paid. Needless to say, the reports all arrived on time. I organised the reports by the key stages in the sales cycle and trained the sales people in key ratio management i.e x calls to appointment, y appointments to order etc. I made sure that I field
accompanied every salesperson at least one day in every 4 week period and so I had a pretty good idea of each of their strengths and weaknesses. At the end of the monthly team meeting I had a one-to-one session with each member, and we analysed their performance against key ratios. This enabled us to set key objectives for the next period and I would be looking to this in our next field accompaniment day. In time, each person was able to use these key ratios to review their own performance and commitment to self-improvement or training. Within three months, performance across the team had improved very significantly and the sales team felt empowered to manage their own performance and some of these in time were promoted to managerial roles where they continued the same regime with their new teams.
Client X is in a highly competitive market offering display solutions to major global fashion brands. The Divisional Director asked me to help them grow their sales within the various global accounts they had. To do this we created a sequential process of getting contact higher up the food chain in each account and getting access to a wider number of potential buying points. In parallel, I worked with the sales team to improve their planning and organisational skills and to establish effective contact regimes.
We used role play to improve their skills in gaining commitment in the sales call. I coached the team in presentation skills. I coached the Unit Director in running more effective monthly team meetings focusing upon progress towards the major goals of the division. Once we had gained a seat at the top table with two global accounts, I worked with the team to create a powerful presentation day for each.
This resulted in tenders where again I coached the Director in getting the key people in the tendering process to work effectively together. The result? They won huge amounts of business with one global player (within 90 days of starting the programme) and have since become the Preferred Supplier of this well-known brand. The second company has put a date in the diary for a top table meeting in the next couple of months. As I am sure you will appreciate from your own experience, achieving Preferred Supplier status in Global accounts does not normally happen quickly. In the first case, it did, and the second account is looking to progress the same way.
“Blaze has been fortunate to work with Steven since October 2020 providing coaching in both presenting and negotiating skills to 6 individuals within the Sales team. Steven’s demeanour and personality are infectious and so engaging, he skilfully channels his work ethic and the benefit of vast experience through each session. As a result we have seen impressive personal development in all individuals who have participated and an added layer of confidence which is reflecting in day to day customer relationship-building and, importantly, with our New business spearhead team.”
“Steven brings passion and a consistent, straightforward approach to coaching sales staff. His work goes a long way to help build confidence and skills with the objective of driving accelerated development of the individual. Steven brings passion and a consistent, straightforward approach to coaching sales staff. His work goes a long way to help build confidence and skills with the objective of driving accelerated development of the individual.”
“Whilst working with Steven over a 12 month period, I found him to be not only extremely knowledgeable, and highly experienced, but most of all very engaging. The techniques he applies provide a very in depth view , and involved learning experience into various situations and behaviours. All of which I feel I have personally benefited from, and as a result of that I wouldn’t hesitate in personally recommending Steven, and his services, to any organisation that is looking to invest in and develop their staff.”
“I have worked with Steven for over 12 months. He has supported me from my previous role as an account director and through my transition to Business Unit Director. Steven has provided me with valuable tools required to operate at a more senior level and has coached me through a number of challenges as well as helped me to develop my presentation and communication skills. Steven is strategic, attentive and very supportive, I would highly recommend him as both a coach and mentor.”
“I worked with Steven for just over 12 months developing on numerous skillsets and learning new ones to improve on my role of Business Development. During this time I found Steven to be attentive and thorough, providing thought provoking scenarios that can and were used in everyday situations. Without Steven’s mentoring my development would not have been as rapid. I would not hesitate in recommending Steven for any form of coaching and mentoring, whether it be an entry level candidate or a director of a business, Steven can tailor to all.”
“My experience of working with Steven has been exceptional from both a personal and professional perspective. Steven has provided hugely valuable insights and always does this in a clear, knowledgeable, friendly and patient way. It is a pleasure to draw on his experience and enthusiasm. Thank you Steven and I look forwards to our continued work together.”
“I did not realise the benefits of being coached and mentoring until I began working with Steven. Steven’s experience, knowledge, advice and attention to detail has vastly helped me to improve on my presentation and audience communication skills as well as career training planning. Steven listens, absorbs and provides structured and honest feedback in order for me to make my personal tailored improvements. Highly recommend using Steven.”
“I have known Steven for over 20 years and worked with him in a number of roles. He is first and foremost sales and marketing driven and understands intimately and with a lifetime’s experience the world and psychology of business getting. He is irrepressible in his energy, openness and curiosity about people and business and always self-aware and questioning. He is an effective coach, who never pulls his punches but always tailors his delivery to the individual and enables others to see themselves in a new light when required. I have seen him unlock positive changes in behaviour, which is the ultimate test of any coach; and also be frank and candid when stated aspirations are simply not realistic.”
“Steven has been a constant source of wisdom and support during our time working together at The Hexcite Group. He has genuinely been a brilliant soundboard for me in my strategic planning and delivery. He brings valuable experience from his years running highly successful businesses. In addition I have seen first-hand how his coaching support has empowered the teams around us to be stronger sales leaders; filling them with confidence and energy. Steven is an energetic and enthusiastic supporter of people, as comfortable coaching managers as he is advising C-Suite leaders. A great asset to any team!”
Independent Information Technology and Services Professional
“Steven Jenkins is one of the most charismatic ultra-bright people I have ever met. He is creative and enthusiastic and genuinely ‘lights up a room’. I’d have him on my team any day.”
“I worked with Steve in the Mars Group within a sales & marketing role. He was focused, dynamic and a good team leader. He was fun and also easy to work with, which is important within any management team. His creativity within direct marketing was exceptional which formed the basis of many successful campaigns. There have been a small number of people who have impressed me within business generation; Steve is one of those people.”
