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About US

Delivering on Our Name

Business Efficacy shatters the traditional “sales training company” mold. We get in the trenches with you to identify issues, anticipate consequences, and prioritize the right actions that help you resolve performance challenges, realize sustainable improvement and ease the chaos of transformation.

By sharing responsibility for your desired outcomes, we stay true to our mission—to enable sales managers and sales leaders to make an impact—and to our name, Business Efficacy.

team meeting
Our Team

We’ve been there and done it.

Every Business Efficacy consultant brings deep, proven experience in sales leadership. They understand your challenges and have the expertise and commitment to tackle them.
Linda Maxwell

Linda Maxwell

ceo & co-founder
Lisa Wicklman

Lisa Wicklman

partner
Jay Helgren

Jay Helgren

senior consultant
Steve Sheeren

Steve Sheeren

senior consultant
Jim Hanson

Jim Hanson

senior consultant
Martha Smith

Martha Smith

senior consultant
Tim Wolfe

Tim Wolfe

senior consultant

Linda Morris

Senior Consultant

Christa Thompson, PhD

learning & development consultant
Eric Engwall

Eric Engwall

alliance partner

Al Frank, PhD

alliance partner
Greg Wicklman

Greg Wicklman

RESEARCH DIRECTOR
Jennifer Cheney

Jennifer Cheney

project manager

Brianne Bauer

communications specialist
Our approach

Building Your Road Map to Success

With years of experience to rely on, we know what needs to be done at each step of the change journey. Our step-by-step road map details the actions your reps and managers will take by week, by month, and by quarter. And we’re there every step of the way to guide, support and challenge your sales leaders as they discover new paths to success.
determine the right behavior expectation

Create bite-sized expectations to execute within a set period that generate success

Establish the Right Building Block Approach

Prescribe the skill, knowledge and/or activity application to be done until the behavior is fully in action

Enable the Right Support

Properly equip managers to provide focus, motivation and accountability

Define the Right Progress Metrics

Create appropriate measures of progress for each implementation stage

our values

In everything we do, we strive to be....

Excellent

“Good” is not good enough.

Respectful

We appreciate and seek other points of view.

Pragmatic

We always pursue the most practical solutions.

Authentic

We communicate genuinely, openly and honestly.

Accountable

We are committed to achieving our clients’ outcomes.

Linda Maxwell

Linda Maxwell

CEO & CO-FOUNDER

Early in her career, Linda Maxwell saw companies of all kinds spend thousands and even millions of dollars on sales training and strategies, only to see them fail to put those lessons to use. It was the impetus for her efforts to co-found Business Efficacy.

Today, as Business Efficacy’s CEO, Linda leads a team of experienced consultants who not only work to share a wealth of proven sales knowledge with clients but to drive execution on the activities that matter most. Working with sales managers and other leaders responsible for business development, she and her team help organizations transform their sales mindset and processes to achieve real and sustainable growth.

Linda’s insights help identify and eliminate barriers to success. She equips sales leaders with practical and effective tools aimed at fostering their development. And she offers strategies that help clients quickly and confidently lay a path to higher levels of performance.

Anyone who has worked with Linda knows it’s a challenge that inspires her and one that she pursues with great passion.

Lisa Wicklman

Lisa Wicklman

partner

Lisa delivers top and bottom-line results for her clients by equipping sales management to stop the insanity and focus sales execution on what matters most.

In her role as Partner, Lisa works alongside Business Efficacy’s CEO to shape and execute the company’s growth strategy and to ensure their clients achieve breakthrough levels of sales results.

Over the past 20+ years, Lisa has achieved real and sustainable growth with sales teams of all sizes, throughout multiple industries globally. She has amassed valuable insight for knowing what needs to be done to move things forward, especially in the key sales leadership roles.

Lisa views the impact of problems and solutions through the lens of the front-line sales manager, the salesperson, and the customer. This approach ensures pragmatic recommendations and faster execution to drive the desired change.

Lisa has worked extensively in the financial services industry, where B2B and B2C sales activities are highly scrutinized and regulated. She knows how to evoke change in the areas that matter most while being mindful of the given realities. These experiences have benefitted her clients across all industries.

To this day, Lisa still encounters many of the same issues that have plagued sales teams for decades. It’s time to stop the insanity.

Jay Helgren

Jay Helgren

senior consultant

Jay’s 20+ years of experience in a wide variety of corporate positions ranging from sales and marketing leadership roles, human resources and finance gives him a great understanding of the synergy and performance possible when teams work together toward success. He is a strong proponent for the field organization and works with sales leaders to develop their sales process, sales leadership skills, sales management disciplines, and recruiting and onboarding effectiveness.

Jay’s many different roles have helped develop and refine his expertise and passion for vision, strategy and execution, developing experienced leaders, personal accountability and empathetic leadership. Jay excels at uncovering growth opportunities for all team members and bringing them together through active and supportive leadership to create profitable growth.

From his roles in sales, sales leadership and sales coaching, Jay understands the importance of the sales leadership role and has developed high-performance teams and strong selling organizations. Active in coaching and mentoring his entire career, Jay brings a positive sense of urgency sprinkled with a good dose of humor to every opportunity. He believes commitment, ownership and passion are the key ingredients in any situation that will elevate strategy to successful goal achievement.

Steve Sheeren

Steve Sheeren

senior consultant

Steve is masterful at moving his clients out of their comfort zones and into new areas for breakthrough performance. For over 20 years, he’s trained and coached sales managers, sales leaders and sales professionals in numerous industries and cultures globally. He’s highly skilled at leveraging his vast experiences to recognize resistance in people and challenge them to rethink their viewpoints from different, more productive angles.

Clients appreciate Steve’s blend of IQ, EQ and humor that enables him to have impact and influence across a wide variety of circumstances. He believes in communicating from a place of honesty and integrity to help drive influence. His facilitation and coaching approach creates an atmosphere that helps his clients move past old habits that may no longer be serving them, ultimately driving impact faster.

Steve loves seeing sales managers have their “moment of clarity” — seeing them recognize what they can do differently and the impact it will ultimately have on their business and their life.

Jim Hanson

Jim Hanson

senior consultant

With over 20+ years of experience in sales and sales management — spanning a variety of companies, industries and cultures — Jim draws upon a vast knowledge of best practices on how to drive sales transformation. He has a unique ability to develop rapport with his clients and is committed to doing whatever it takes to solve a client’s problem, from plan development to full follow through.

Having truly walked the talk — Jim has been a sales manager, a manager of sales managers, and a consultant to sales managers — Jim inspires confidence that he can help his clients truly move forward. He has worked with all levels of management in large (and small) financial services organizations, and is a leading expert in the field for credit unions, having introduced a proactive, member-centric sales management system targeting small businesses in a way that’s proven to be highly effective for his clients.

Jim brings distinct ownership to the challenges organizations face. Their challenges and their goals become his. He knows how to prioritize what needs to be done with practical, no-nonsense solutions. Jim is particularly proud of his ability to work with sales organizations that seek breakthrough but are stuck or challenged in their current environment. He can engage with all types of leadership, produce a winning plan, and help them create a new culture that produces breakthrough success.

Martha Smith

Martha Smith

senior consultant

Martha is an expert at driving change by bringing strategy into practice. Her analytical skills are an asset in netting out root problems and providing systematic approaches for moving forward. With an emphasis on identifying and leveraging the strengths of individual performers, she helps to bring a higher level of productivity to teams so that they can be most effective. In her coaching and consulting work, Martha focuses on what really matters to the client, performance.

Martha has held a variety of leadership roles in a Fortune 500 and 1000 corporations, including sales management, sales training, operations, performance management, and leadership coaching. She has extensive experience in corporate restructuring specifically focused on re-engineering sales organizations for increased effectiveness. She has additional experience in non-profit board management and sales in Latin America.

Creating a culture of accountability is Martha’s true passion. She has a laser sharp focus on key success measures and an ability to see the big picture, while not losing sight of all factors that affect a situation. The ultimate strategic partner, she loves determining and prioritizing core issues to support the success of others. You can count on Martha to bring her direct communication style and sense of humor to any engagement with Business Efficacy.

Tim Wolfe

Tim Wolfe

senior consultant

Tim’s 20+ years of experience as a Senior Sales Leader and General Manager has resulted in the consistent delivery of financial commitments and strategic imperatives. As a driven leader, Tim brings a people-oriented philosophy that empowers people to take control to maximize their potential and deliver on a broad set of expectations.

Having been responsible for leading sales organizations as large as 1,000 employees and independent sales representatives, Tim has developed sales strategies and implemented plans that were designed to develop a world-class sales organization that would ultimately deliver a sales culture that enabled sustainable organic growth. Having developed and implemented multiple channel and organizational restructuring plans, Tim has firsthand experience with the change management and coaching needed to implement the transformation that will deliver on the financial and strategic imperatives.

Tim’s communication skills have galvanized business partners around a vision, aided in negotiating effective solutions with stakeholders and persuading people to act. Tim’s biggest rewards come from seeing an organization realize prosperity that ultimately facilitates or empowers the employees to be successful both, personally and professionally.

Linda Morris

senior consultant

Linda has a passion for coaching and advising leaders through change, helping them define a strategic path forward that elevates the performance of all. She guides leaders to leverage the unique strengths of their team members making sure they are well-equipped with the tools and insights needed to deliver outstanding sales and service results for their organizations.

Having been a successful EVP of Branch Banking and Physical Distribution for a major national bank, Linda’s approach is all about forward-thinking and growth – not just for the organization, but most importantly for the people within it. Through successful acquisitions and productivity gains, the bank grew from a small regional bank to a top five national bank. Linda has personally been in the trenches, from running a single retail bank branch to eventually overseeing a vast nationwide network, giving her a thorough knowledge of the myriad challenges leaders face at every level during strategic transformations.

Linda’s journey through numerous large-scale organizational changes has taught her that the biggest challenge facing leaders often lies in consistently being called on to implement new behaviors. That is exactly where Linda shines at Business Efficacy. She’s not just a consultant; she’s a listener and a thought partner. She dives deep with her clients, uncovering the core issues surrounding accountability, and helps them tailor solutions that lead to lasting, sustainable change in behavior and ultimately sales productivity. Linda stands shoulder to shoulder with her clients, pushing them to embrace transformation and successfully turn that challenging corner of change. Her clients truly value how she engages them, always there, right by their side, as they move forward together.

Christa Thompson

learning & development consultant

Christa Thompson has over 15 years of experience in Learning and Development with a focus predominantly in instructional design, strategic initiatives, and solution implementation. She has spent many of those years within the sales industry including sales enablement, sales management, and digital sales tools implementation. Solutions include enhancing and implementing sales processes through creative techniques, inspiring and empowering management training, and leveraging innovative tools and platforms such as AI and innovative user experience techniques.

Christa has a Ph.D. in Industrial Organizational Psychology, multiple certifications in psychological assessments and a research background in Emotional Intelligence. Over the years, she has learned to combine her psychological background and organizational experience to tackle unique challenges many sales sectors face to create deliverables that are engaging and pragmatic, with high impact for immediate results on sales employee performance.

Christa’s passion for the learner experience is always at the forefront for anything she creates with her clients. Her dedication to customizing each training specific to employee needs, organizational initiatives, and measurable objectives continue to fuel her creativity and desire for learning and development impact and success.

Eric Engwall

Eric Engwall

alliance partner

Eric’s entire career in business has focused on two passions: helping people and the organizations they inhabit to build stronger relationships, and being more effective at what they do. He has been a national account manager, led an inside sales group, a senior consultant for a leading talent management firm, and became the sales effectiveness practice leader. Currently, he is the owner and president of E.G. Insight, Inc. – a firm focused on equipping clients to gather feedback from their most valued customers.

As part of Business Efficacy’s extended team, Eric helps clients to measure the health of customer relationships and to gain deep understanding of what their most important customers expect and need from them, both today and into the future. He and his colleagues at E.G. Insight specialize in equipping clients to gather strategic insights from senior contacts in critical customers. His client work requires him to deliver candid messages to senior leaders, creating the urgency and commitment required to overcome organizational inertia and solve real problems or pursue new business opportunities.

Over the years Eric has worked with clients such as Cargill Inc., Eaton Corporation, Fluor Corporation, Wells Fargo, Shell, and Becton Dickinson. Regardless of the client he’s working with, he claims “I take my work seriously, but not myself” as his professional motto. His sincerity, commitment, and humor make him a trusted advisor to his clients and a valued contributor to Business Efficacy.

Al Frank, PhD

alliance partner

Al started his career after earning his doctorate in psychology with a focus on applied behavior analysis and human learning. He has held many positions including training manager, manager of instructional design, senior instructional designer, director of product development, and vice president of special design. Al also co-founded Learning Masters, Inc.

Al works collaboratively with Business Efficacy, bringing his extensive experience and expertise to every project. His entire career has centered on performance improvement, and utilizing technology and media to enhance the training experience for every adult learner. The majority of his projects have focused on helping salespeople and sales managers become more effective.

Al is passionate about closing performance gaps. He works closely with clients to design creative and practical training solutions — traditional solutions like instructor-led workshops or contemporary solutions like eLearning. Al knows what adult learners expect, how to engage them in the learning process, and how to develop knowledge and skills they can apply on the job.

Dedicated to partnering, and not just delivering services, Al forms very close working relationships early on in his developmental process. Al has been continuously praised for his level of quality, always exceeding expectations and leaving the client delighted.

Greg Wicklman

Greg Wicklman, PhD

research director

Greg’s experience spans more than 20+ years in international and domestic sales organizations across a wide variety of disciplines, including many prominent retailers. He began his journey as a front-line salesperson which heavily influenced his approach as he progressed through senior leadership roles in sales, merchandising, planning, sales operations and IT.

Understanding that customer experience is critical to the success of every organization, he has delivered great sales impact through focusing on teams that drive results through service while delivering solid P&L performance. His passion is teaching/training teams and individuals to excel in business performance.

Greg’s professional background has fed his intellectual curiosity leading to pursuit of his PhD from Oklahoma State University. His research is rooted in practical applications in sales management/leadership, innovation, retail and customer experience which lead to organizational improvements.

Jennifer Cheney

Jennifer Cheney

project manager

Throughout Jennifer’s career, one value that has always remained the same is delighting clients. From her customer experience internship at Walt Disney World, meeting planning experience at a large performance improvement company, and project management experience at Business Efficacy, Jennifer has the patience, organization, communication skills, and genuine desire to help clients that makes her an invaluable team member.

At Business Efficacy, Jennifer deals directly with the clients in all aspects of the business. She is Business Efficacy’s first point of contact, brand ambassador, communication conduit between clients and the consulting team, and is responsible for managing the logistics of all client projects, as well as day-to-day operations.

Jennifer’s loyalty and commitment to the Business Efficacy team shows in her enthusiasm to delight internal and external clients every day. It’s the people that Jennifer enjoys the most, which is clear with each interaction. Her unique ability to treat each person and correspondence with respect, professionalism, and kindness is what delighting Business Efficacy clients is all about.

Brianne Bauer

communications specialist

Brianne has more than 20 years of marketing communication experience specializing in designing, developing, editing and producing all forms of communications materials. Her attention to detail and can-do attitude in everything she does makes her an invaluable member of any team. She is an experienced editor with an outstanding command of the English language enabling her to add value to all communication mediums: photos, models/graphics, videos or writing.

Brianne is responsible for high quality production of customized client centric tools, programs, processes, learning materials or on-the-job support aids, ensuring that they are clear, compelling, and engaging. She ensures the clients receive and/or get access to all materials on time and with high quality.