Duncan Stevens Realigns 50 Avantor Sales Leaders and Sharpens How They Influence

With Duncan Stevens, behavioural psychologist, keynote speaker and best-selling author

"It was a great session and helped realign and gain new insights into supporting and influencing my team, colleagues and customers. I would highly recommend Duncan in the future."

Russell Smith

National Sales Manager at Avantor

OUTCOME 1

Sales team realigned

Avantor’s sales leaders left the strategy meeting realigned and pulling in one direction for the year ahead.

OUTCOME 2

Influence as support

Leaders began to see influencing as a way of supporting people, from their teams to colleagues and customers.

OUTCOME 3

Fresh insights to use

New insights they could take straight into their next team conversation, colleague call or customer meeting.

THE CHALLENGE

Avantor needed its sales leaders realigned around one strategy and better at bringing people with them.

A strategy meeting only works if everyone leaves pulling the same way. At the end of September, Avantor gathered around 50 sales leaders for its strategy meeting, at a time when priorities were shifting and every leader had customers waiting on answers.

Russell Smith, National Sales Manager, invited Duncan to speak. He wanted the group to leave realigned and with fresh ways to support and influence their teams, their colleagues and their customers, whatever role they held.

DUNCAN’S SOLUTION

A tailored keynote on collaboration and influence, built around Avantor’s strategy and its customers.

Before the meeting, Duncan spoke with Russell to understand Avantor’s strategy, how the sales group works with colleagues and which customer conversations mattered most.

He built a 45-minute keynote on collaboration and influence, using on-stage behavioural psychology demonstrations to show how people really make decisions. Leaders took away a few simple principles for supporting their teams, working across functions and asking customers in a way that’s easy to agree to, all tied back to the strategy on the table.

THE RESULT

A sales group realigned around its strategy and ready to influence with more care.

Russell Smith said the session helped him realign and gain new insights into supporting and influencing his team, colleagues and customers, and he’d highly recommend Duncan in future. In the survey, 95% of leaders said they’d recommend Duncan.

The audience survey below shows how the session landed with the people in the room.

Bringing your sales leaders together around a new strategy? Check Duncan’s availability or explore his Beyond Collaboration keynote.

THOUGHTS FROM DUNCAN

Influence works best when it feels like support.

A strategy meeting can feel like being handed a target. Sales leaders need more than a target: they need to feel understood, and they need simple ways to bring their teams, colleagues and customers with them. So I start with what people already do well, then show how listening first makes every ask easier to say yes to.

Avantor’s group were open, thoughtful and generous with their attention, and I’d love to work with them again.

HOW AVANTOR'S SALES LEADERS RATED DUNCAN'S COLLABORATION KEYNOTE

95% of Avantor’s sales leaders would recommend Duncan, and 99% are extremely or highly likely to use his takeaways. The words they used most to describe the keynote were insightful, motivating and relatable.

Survey of 50 Avantor sales leaders, completed straight after the keynote.