Diploma in High Performance Sales & Business Development

• Identify and align the key factors required to ensure strategy and sales are aligned
• Recognise the systemic issues that affect sales performance and growth strategy execution
• Identify factors that limit growth potential at three levels: business, team and personal.
• Pinpoint measurable improvements to support sales growth and overall performance
• Apply new frameworks, models and tools to your growth strategy

• Develop a sophisticated understanding of leadership, its associated challenges, and a range of tangible leadership practices to influence sales performance
• Understand leadership as a ‘craft’ activity, emphasising the importance of experience, engagement, intuition and emotional awareness
• Acquire a range of practical coaching skills that form a crucial part of a good commercial leader’s armoury

• Investigate how firms must develop differentiated products and services, based on sound customer insights and enhance their capability to effectively implement their strategy
• Present compelling value propositions that allow suppliers to demonstrate and document superior value compared to the next best alternative from the customer’s perspective

• Explore different selling approaches given specific buyer types and journeys
• Acquire new frameworks and a set of tools to visualise buyer and seller engagement
• Consider the latest thinking on digital tools to support the client engagement process
• Understand the importance of personal brand in winning and growing clients
• Understand the key components of trust and EQ – key fundamentals to enhance buyer seller engagement
• Apply new frameworks to better understand client relationships

• Examine the differences between selling approaches and understanding proactive customer and client development
• Consider buyer seller relationships in terms of how to identify win-win solutions with potential and existing clients
• Understand what areas of sales process development are necessary to improve deal movement and selling skills
• Acquire value-creating negotiation strategies and practice their application

• Develop an understanding of why talent development is critical in your role as a commercial leader and your career
• Learn to adopt practical approaches to talent identification, development, and succession planning
• Consider the complex environments other leaders perform in
• Acquire new frameworks to drive great collaboration
• Understand the power of reflection and slowing down as a commercial leader

Programme Director: John O’Gorman

John O’Gorman is the Programme Director for the Diploma in High Performance Sales and Business Development in UCD Smurfit Executive Development. He is a six times author and has spent twenty-six years exploring performance potential across 12 industries including Pharma, Financial Services, Sport, and Technology.  He is a Managing Partner of Growth PitStop where his focus is on helping leaders to measure, model and unlock performance potential of critical growth projects and vital teams. John is a PCC Certified Coach – one of just over 13,000 coaches certified to this level globally. He is curious about collective performance, complex systems, and sport. The interconnection of sporting excellence, business excellence and human potential is an ongoing applied research project. His current executive and team coaching clients include Bank of Ireland, Merck, Citco, Irish Life, Pfizer, and several technology providers.

Pamela holds a MSc. in Executive Coaching and an Advanced Diploma in Organisationsal and Coaching Supervision from Hult Ashridge and two Postgraduate Diplomas in Coaching from the UCD Smurfit School. Pamela is accredited as a coach and coach supervisor by Ashridge Hult and the EMCC. Pamela is a relational coach and her training is grounded in Gestalt. As part of her CPD she has completed Gestalt training in the Dublin Gestalt Centre and in the Gestalt International Study Centre in Cape Cod. Her role as coach is to provide a supportive presence for clients to safely explore how they are in life at present and what changes they might want to make. She is a thinking partner for clients and a witness to their change. As a coach tutor Pamela brings herself fully to her work and has been described as “the coach’s coach” due to her collaborative professional approach.

Dr Andrew Keating is an Associate Professor in marketing at the UCD Smurfit School of Business. Andrew earned his PhD in 2008 from UCD and also holds an MBS in Marketing, a DBS in Business, and a BA. His research interests at present are in the areas of the intersection between entrepreneurship (venture creation and development) and marketing, the internationalisation of new ventures, as well as exploring consumers and austerity. His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (FT 50 Journal), Industrial Marketing Management, Consumption Markets and Culture, and the Journal of Consumer Behaviour. He is the academic director for the UCD CEMS MSc in International Management and lectures in the area of consumer marketing and marketing and innovation. Andrew has also been involved in delivering executive education across many of the school’s executive education programmes including for the likes of Alltech, Enterprise Ireland, Google, InterTrade Ireland, and Bord Bia.

Dr Gearóid Hardy

Gearoid is accustomed to asking the challenging and often unpopular questions that draw business leaders and teams out of their comfort zones. He continually prompts them to reassess the situation, which leads them to new found clarity from within. In today’s fast-paced world, managers rarely have time to look at the big picture, tweak it for the best results and move towards a more efficient way of working.

Gearóid has earned his business colours over more than 35 years. He has worked with many global organisation and executive management teams to help them rethink their strategies and develop resilient, energetic businesses. He has helped clients succeed in Ireland, the UK, the US, Poland, Holland, Bahrain, Jordan and Hong Kong.

Gearóid is particularly experienced in advising on and implementing lean and agile business principles for performance improvement. These help increase competitiveness by improving process efficiency, reducing operational waste and creating value.

Stephen Boyle is a negotiation trainer, lecturer and consultant. He teaches at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, where he delivers courses in negotiation, influence and decision making on executive development, MBA, and other postgraduate degree programmes. Stephen also designs and delivers customised executive development for corporate clients and has delivered workshops in Europe, Asia and the United States in sectors as diverse as automotive, construction, financial services, food and agribusiness, government, healthcare, law enforcement, pharmaceuticals, retail and technology. Prior to embarking on an independent training and consulting career 19 years ago, Stephen held roles in management consulting, and in communication and change management at a Fortune 500 company.