Drew J Stevens, PhD Speaker Author, Consultant Selling Professional

Drew J Stevens, PhD

Profile

Drew Stevens is one those rare people that can say he is a speaker, author, consultant and selling professional and mean it! Drew is a career selling professional with over 25 years of experience. His consulting firm, Getting to the Finish Line, has attracted clients such American International Group, Hilton Hotels, AT&T, The Federal Reserve Bank, Reliv International, The New York Times, Mercy Health Plans Quicken Loans and over 500 other leading organizations.

Drew serves on the boards of directors of eMed International and St. Louis chapters of Meeting Professional International and American Society of Training and Development. He holds the designation of Certified Sales Professional with the National Association of Selling Professionals and founding member of the St. Louis Sales Professionals Association.

His speaking and consulting enables him to travel over 50 days per year to clients and conferences around the globe. In the last several years Drew has provided advice to well over 60,000 selling professionals. Drew is an adjunct instructor with several universities in the St. Louis area teaching graduate students in the field of entrepreneurialism and international business marketing and strategy. He is an instructor with Webster University and Maryville University's Graduate School of Business and holds frequent marketing and selling seminars with Webster University's Center for Professional Development. He holds a Ph.D. in Organization and Management with an emphasis in personnel development and work performance. Drew was recently appointed as a doctoral mentor.

Drew's prolific publishing includes over 150 articles on sales and selling strategy and four books including Split Second Selling, Spilt Second Customer Service and Little Book of Hope. Some of his works appear in Chinese and Pakistani.

He is interviewed and quoted frequently in the media, with prestigious periodicals such as Personal Selling Power and Sales and Marketing Management. Drew's career has taken him around the globe to places such as Singapore, Johannesburg, South Africa and New York City.

Drew lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wonderful wife and soul mate Christine and his two children Ashley and Andrew, (affectionately known as "I Want" and "Get Me").

Topics

Since 1998, Getting to the Finish Line has helped to maximize the selling results for organizations. Our clients include corporate giants such as American Express, Mercy Health Plans, Quicken Loans, The Federal Reserve Bank, The New York Times and American International Group along with entrepreneurial, high-growth firms. And we work with specialized growing firms such as Hawaii Top Ten Network, Reliv International and Sybron Chemicals.

Our work is collaborative, involving client personnel and resources and the transfer of skills to the client. Although 75% of our annual work is generally for existing clients, it consists of predominantly new project work. Our engagements are usually completed within three to six months. We work against specific objectives with clearly-established outcomes and timing, contributing to client business goals.

Our experience and results indicate that improved performance requires investment in people, systems and support structures. However, that investment does not require additional resources, but rather the redeployment of talents, resources and energy already present.

Our Philosophy

Our approaches revolve around a simple idea: Improving the client's condition. One of the fundamentals of our success is to utilize the existing talents and resources of the organization to enhance customer satisfaction and business goals, by directing talents and resources outward, not inward.

• Compelling Client Needs
  Acquisition and retention of talent in a dwindling labor pool.
  Development of staff from increasing need of productivity.
  Productivity and morale development in a disloyal work team.
  Cross cultural consideration of work teams and clients.
   
• Organizational Redesign
  For eMEd International we helped to design a new organizational structure, including national and local components and forms of governance, to maximize services to members. This involved creating new areas of reporting and new lines of accountability to ensure immediate communication to the firm's most important asset- the customer.
   
• Course Design
  For Sybron Chemicals we designed educational programs in topics ranging from communication skills to supervision, to performance and evaluation to presentation skills, utilizing cognitive and behavioral assessments, self-paced learning materials, and facilitator-led sessions. These programs have decreased union and non-union human resources issues and have led to a decrease in firm wide workman's compensation claims.
   
• Strategy Formulation
  For Compliance Services International we provided a strategy formulation process which we facilitated for the global management team, enabling the organization to allocate priorities and resources based upon a comprehensive, global business concept. One of the results has been to allow the organization to maintain its entrepreneurial nature while implementing basic systems necessary to maintain quality during dramatic growth.
   
• Service And Quality
  For Reliv International we designed a program that helped to develop greater emphasis on customer service and relationships, and the pragmatic business results that can be achieved from the "intangible" parts of the business. The program is used at the firm's corporate headquarters and has vastly increased the level of internal and external customer relations and support. We also worked with upper management to alleviate attrition and employee workplace stress.
   
• Workshops
  For Sybron Chemical a division of Bayer we designed and implemented programs for its Professional and Leadership Development Program in the areas of innovation, behavior change and professional conduct. Those programs have been provided for individual contributors and professionals from every business unit on a regular basis, utilizing pragmatic business concepts and immediate application to actual job concerns.
  
  At Popular Leasing wholly owned subsidiary of Banco Popular, we worked with management to develop a series of personal productivity courses. These workshops held regularly are used to assist with personal productivity that ensure better client interaction and business margin attainment.
   
• Human Resources Strategies
  For Hawaii Network we evaluated human resource capabilities and responsibilities in light of corporate business goals, and assisted in the design of a comprehensive human resources strategy and policies which focused on the measurable attainment of specific high-priority business goals. This resulted in the creation of a curriculum based upon business outcomes, creating a direct link between human resource interventions and business results.
   
• Sales and Service
  For Turfline International we assisted in the communications and counseling programs required to ensure the successful integration of relationship and customer service increases for this global distribution firm. Successful intervention included distribution management, supply chain leverage, customer relationships and customer acquisition. As a result of our recommendations and counseling the firm has seen record year to year growth of 30 percent!
   
• Call Center Conservation
  For Top Ten Hawaii we worked with the CEO and top management to assess and establish the appropriate management structure and staffing to meet projected customer needs in the future. We also implemented appropriate metrics to establish appropriate call times for appropriate relationship building and selling performance. Once identified, we introduced team-building, individual skills-building and customer assessment devices to implement the design. We also assisted in the retention of talent and new employee acquisition. The work included executive assessments and evaluations, and collaboration on the acquisition of senior people for key posts.

To book Drew Stevens or learn more, please contact us.