Rob Whittaker
Rob is the Managing Director of Real World Associates Ltd, a specialist sales development consultancy which he founded 23 years ago. He works extensively with blue chip and SME clients across a wide range of sectors including finance, professional services, manufacturing, media, telecomms, IT, security and healthcare; in addition to consulting, this has occasionally involved interim sales director roles with clients to lead the sales operations directly. He is a qualified Master Practitioner and Trainer in NLP.
Rob has also been an accredited speaker for Vistage, the world’s leading organisation for CEOs, for over 22 years, speaking on Sales Leadership, Pricing and NLP. He also chairs two CEO groups for Vistage and one Emerging Leaders group, facilitating peer group support and providing one-to-one executive coaching on the business issues and opportunities those leaders face.
Real World Associates
In the last 23 years, RWA has provided sales management consultancy services for over 120 clients, ranging from global PLCs and government-owned entities to owner-managed SMEs. Some key clients/major projects are listed below.
Prior to establishing RWA, Rob led several successful sales operations (both as a sales director and as a business owner). This, together with his continuing coaching of SME business leaders as a Vistage Chair, brings ‘real world’ business acumen to all his consultancy work, and focuses his inputs on improving business results. As a proven sales performer and leader, he can ‘lead from the front’, often going out selling jointly with a client’s salespeople, or taking an interim sales director role to drive performance improvements hands-on.
Approach
Peak performance in business development does not just involve higher level skills; it also requires the right state of mind, underpinned by the right beliefs and values. Every human being already has most of the internal resources they need to accomplish what they want in life, but sometimes they have difficulty in accessing those resources. As a Master Practitioner and Trainer in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), Rob applies the latest psychological techniques to embed learning at both the conscious and unconscious levels. A process of self-development is implemented to allow sales leaders, managers and front-line salespeople to improve their abilities, creating a stepped behavioural change. Since everyone in the sales operation, whatever role they perform, has considerable input into the new approaches they wish to adopt, their core values are not compromised, and they come away with a greater confidence to develop themselves further.
Key Clients/Major Projects
Finance
LTSB Banking Group
Bank of Scotland
Aldermore Bank
Bibby Group
Co-op Bank
Santander
BCMS Corporate
Falcon Group
IT/Digital/Media
Amazon
Titania
Growth Street
Group Commerce
Intercity Group
Onsight
Rapier
Global Water Intelligence
Trade Interchange
Process Bliss
Healthcare
NHS
Pruhealth/ Vitality
Capita
Bedrock Healthcare
Aurora Health Physics
Professional Services
Vistage
Tenon
James Cowper Kreston
Gunner Cooke
ASB Law
BM Advisory
H & H Classics
Recruitment
Investors in People
People Plus
People Solutions
C & D Group
Stanford Resourcing
Merco
Innovation
Innovation
Oxford University Innovation
Henley Business School
Oxentia
Manufacture
Navtech Radar
Raleigh Coatings
Kyocera/SGS
Southco Inc.
TES
Thomas Dudley
Alloway Timber
CTS
Paragon
Sleaford Quality Foods
Ringtons
Urban Planters
Chris Lewis Group
Property
The Property Academy
Prospect Estate Agents