Arlington, VA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/15/2013 -- Huthwaite, the world's leading sales and marketing performance improvement organization, has announced a new partnership with Al Khaleej Training & Education, a premiere training company based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Together, the pair will deliver sales and marketing improvement solutions throughout the Middle East.

John Golden, president and CEO of Huthwaite, said that the partnership offers vast opportunities for both parties. "Huthwaite has long identified the Middle East as a match for our services. The market is growing rapidly, allowing our firm the opportunity to really make a difference in sales performance," said Golden. "By teaming up with the highly regarded professionals at Al Khaleej Training & Education, we can have an even greater impact."

Huthwaite relies on in-depth studies of human behavior to drive real business results, using its unique SPIN® Selling technique to help companies improve sales. The company does this by assessing an organization's needs and developing a customized performance improvement and coaching program for sales and marketing professionals.

According to Walid Hussein, general manager at Al Khaleej Training & Education, the timing of the partnership couldn't be better. "The growing sophistication of buyers in the region is driving a need for equally sophisticated selling skills," said Hussein. "Huthwaite's SPIN Selling methodology and Buyer Focused Solution Suite represents the most effective and globally recognized sales and marketing performance improvement programs available in today. Al Khaleej Training & Education is honored to add this to its portfolio of best-of-breed training solutions."

Al Khaleej Training & Education offers a diverse suite of services throughout the Middle East, including corporate sales and management training, computer and English language training, educational solutions, professional call center services, learning solutions, recruitment solutions and more. By bringing together the research-based sales performance methodologies of Huthwaite and the educational and training services of Al Khaleej, businesses throughout the region can take advantage of world-class sales and sales management solutions.

About Huthwaite
Huthwaite is the world's leading sales performance improvement organization. Founded on scientifically validated behavioral research, their methodologies—which include the internationally renowned SPIN® Selling—guarantee sales success. Huthwaite assesses its clients' needs and develops customized sales performance improvement and coaching programs for sales and marketing professionals that drive real business results. Continually recognized as a leader in the field for its successful work in sales performance improvement, both Selling Power magazine and the website TrainingIndustry.com added Huthwaite to their lists of top companies in the sales training industry. For more information, visit http://www.huthwaite.com, the company's blog, Twitter stream or Facebook page.

About Al Khaleej Training & Education
Al Khaleej Training & Education is a leading training company in the Middle East that serves more than 2,500 companies and 50,000 individuals annually throughout the region. Headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Al Khaleej provides corporate sales and management training to businesses seeking to improve the performance of their employees. In its 81 locations around Saudi Arabia, Al Khaleej also provides training in the fields of information technology, English language and recruitment. For more information visit http://alkhaleej.com.sa/ or the company's Facebook page.

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Programs Help Improve Sales Performance by Focusing on the Customer

Arlington, VA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/21/2013 -- Huthwaite, the world's leading sales performance improvement organization, today announced two new customer-centric sales solutions. The Focus on the Buyer Solution Suite is a comprehensive sales and marketing performance package that relies on buyer-oriented strategy to improve business performance. The Buyer Focused Account Strategy workshop helps develop business tactics based on a company's priorities. Both solutions, which are founded on scientifically validated behavior research, drive real business results.

According to Huthwaite CEO and President John Golden, buyer-focused solutions, such as those offered by Huthwaite, are truly shaking up the marketplace. "In 2011, the Aberdeen Group surveyed more than 800 organizations to uncover how they were using sales training to achieve better results. Their research shows that Huthwaite's customers outperformed all other firms surveyed when it comes to quota, customer renewal rate and lead conversion rate," said Golden. "That's because we focus on understanding the buyer in order to drive sales performance."

Huthwaite's new Focus on the Buyer Solution Suite puts the customer at the heart of every transaction by honing in on the following areas:

- SPIN 2.0, buyer-focused messaging and social selling and buyer-focused playbooks
- Buyer-focused opportunity strategy and buyer-focused account strategy
- Buyer-aligned negotiations
- Buyer-focused pipeline management
- Buyer-focused marketing, buyer-focused prospecting

The Buyer Focused Account Strategy workshop is a two-day, in-person workshop that assists participants in analyzing data, formulating reasonable objectives and developing overall strategies for an actual account. The workshop gives sales and marketing executives a competitive edge in areas such as understanding buyers at a strategic level, gaining access to key people and leveraging influence within an organization, connecting their capabilities to what is most important to their buyers, understanding the type of communication that the buyer seeks during each stage of the buying cycle and more.

Huthwaite has performed extensive research on buyer behavior, and that research has helped shape the firm's programs and solutions. In 2012, the Huthwaite Center for Research (HCR) released the global research study, "Focus on the Buyer," which uncovered dramatic new findings that are now helping sales and marketing executives improve sales results by identifying where buyers really are in their information-gathering process at each juncture of the buying cycle. The data also highlights the types of communication buyers require at each of the buying cycle phases, and identifies ways sales and marketing groups can accelerate the process by delivering provocative and compelling messages.

In addition, Huthwaite's research stems from a comprehensive two-year study that targeted business executives, and examined, in-depth, the changes they were seeing in buyer behavior. The firm then surveyed more than 3,000 buyers, whose responses reinforced those findings.

About Huthwaite
Huthwaite is the world's leading sales performance improvement organization. Founded on scientifically validated behavioral research, their methodologies—which include the internationally renowned SPIN® Selling—guarantee sales success. Huthwaite assesses its clients' needs and develops customized sales performance improvement and coaching programs for sales and marketing professionals that drive real business results. Continually recognized as a leader in the field for its successful work in sales performance improvement, both Selling Power magazine and the website TrainingIndustry.com added Huthwaite to their lists of top companies in the sales training industry. For more information, visit http://www.huthwaite.com, the company's blog, Twitter stream or Facebook page.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Pharmaceutical Industry Dominates Trend, Driving Bottom Line Impact

Arlington, VA -- (SBWIRE) --12/14/2011 -- Smartphones and tablets are speeding up communication between sales reps and customers, according to a new survey by Arlington, Va.-based Huthwaite, the world's leading sales performance improvement organization. Of the 8,500 managers, directors and associates who participated in the worldwide study, 47 percent cited that accelerated pace as the devices' greatest advantage.

The survey found that about half the sales reps who said they benefited from faster communication also met their third-quarter sales targets. The correlation suggests that sales reps who are easiest to reach are the ones who seal the deal with customers.

"This just shows that when you give your salespeople the right tools, they can focus on the person who matters most: the buyer," said John Golden, Huthwaite's CEO and President. "Quick and efficient information is the currency of sales conversations. It is clear from the survey that smartphones and tablets will be a driver for successful companies in the years to come."

The survey also included the following findings:

- Only 13 percent of companies gave tablets to their employees. Of those companies, 85 percent gave their employees iPads. Although Android leads in the consumer market, the tablet lags severely in the business world, with only five percent of surveyed companies using it.
- 64 percent of survey respondents had a company-issued smartphone, the majority being BlackBerrys.
- The pharmaceutical industry had the most sales reps using tablets, at 18 percent of survey respondents. About 35 percent of companies in the financial services industry said their websites contained mobile-friendly content and apps, compared to other industries, where only 19 percent of companies offered apps.

"Technology solutions combined with Huthwaite's selling methodologies significantly enhance our ability to support the buyer," said Golden. "Our Business Development team can now respond to clients more rapidly, stay more organized and build stronger customer relationships. Combined, this give us better insight into buyer trends and enable us to better anticipate their needs."

Golden recommends the following ideas on how sales teams can better leverage smart technology to enhance their sales efforts:

- Arm sales team – or at least some of your team – with a tablet that can be used to plan sales calls and be present during a sales meeting.
- Sales managers/coaches should work with sales reps to measure the productivity of using the tablet. i.e. length of sales cycle, time between advances, preparedness for sales calls.
- Take advantage of apps that will sync with office computers such as CRM apps, LinkedIn or 3rd party apps.
- Coordinate with the marketing team to create a mobile friendly website and content.
- Develop apps that work with multiple platforms.

For more information about Huthwaite and sales excellence, or to request the full results, visit http://www.Huthwaite.com, follow them on Twitter and like their page on Facebook. Huthwaite's latest whitepaper, "Focus on the Buyer" can be downloaded at http://www.huthwaite.com/en/Resource%20Center/Whitepapers.aspx.

About Huthwaite Inc.
Founded on scientifically validated behavioral research, our methodologies—which include the internationally renowned SPIN® Selling—guarantee sales success. Huthwaite assesses your organization's needs and develops customized sales performance improvement and coaching programs for sales and marketing professionals that drive real business results. For more information, please visit us: http://www.huthwaite.com. Follow Huthwaite's blog, Twitter stream and Facebook page.

http://www.huthwaite.com/

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Global Quarterly Survey Points to the Need For Better Marketing

Arlington, VA -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/19/2011 -- Marketing departments failed to generate enough significant leads for businesses to hit set sales targets in the last quarter. That's according to a new survey of more than 6,400 sales managers, marketing executives and general managers.

The survey by Huthwaite, the world's leading sales performance improvement organization, revealed fewer than 10 percent of sales executives, managers and directors were happy with the number of leads generated by their marketing teams with 44.9 percent indicating they could do with more leads and 30.1 percent saying they were receiving nowhere near enough.

Marketing executives and managers offered an only slightly better assessment of their departments, with almost 49 percent indicating they could do better in generating leads and only 15.6 percent stating they were very happy with the number of leads.

Huthwaite's most recent survey, which polled senior staff from such diverse U.S. industries as banking and finance, information technology, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, professional services, advertising and media, real estate and retail, also found strong dissatisfaction in the quality of leads being produced.

Only 10.2 percent of sales staff sampled rated the quality of leads they received as high while 31.6 percent described the leads being generated as low quality.

Huthwaite President and CEO John Golden said the survey results showed marketing had to urgently lift its game in the current ultra competitive marketplace.

"More than 80 percent of the businesses that didn't hit their sales targets said they had either received not enough or nowhere near enough leads from their marketing departments while only 7.1 percent described their leads as high quality," said Golden.

"These results point to a strong dissatisfaction with marketing departments across the board and account for why we're seeing the creation of the "Chief Revenue Officer" role and the implementation of new strategies to aid in banging sales and marketing heads together to deliver new customers and drive top line results."

The full survey results can be downloaded here: http://learn.huthwaite.com/content/salesandmarketing

About Huthwaite Inc.
Founded on scientifically validated behavioral research, our methodologies—which include the internationally renowned SPIN® Selling—guarantee sales success. Huthwaite assesses your organization's needs and develops customized sales performance improvement and coaching programs for sales and marketing professionals that drive real business results. For more information, please visit us: www.huthwaite.com. Follow Huthwaite's blog, Twitter stream and Facebook page.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm