Philip Hesketh
Pricing power is eroding while procurement teams ask harder questions and clients are quicker to defect. Sales and account leaders know the answers cannot only be sharper discounts or more meetings. The unresolved tension is how to hold value, run conversations that decide deals, and keep customers loyal when every competitor sounds the same.
Philip Hesketh helps commercial teams hold prices, win clients, and keep them, using the psychology of persuasion he applied to build a £48m advertising business.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Philip Hesketh
- A behavioural framework, the Seven Drivers of Motivation, published by Wiley and built specifically for sales, pricing, and client conversations, not generic influence theory.
- Direct operator credibility: he ran a 150-person advertising agency with clients including the BBC, Nestle, Disney, and HSBC, so the case studies come from his own P&L.
- A specific, repeatable answer to the pricing question. His “How to hold high prices and fees” session is built around what makes buyers concede on value rather than discount.
- Two Amazon number-one books on persuasion, giving the speaker a public reference point the audience can revisit, share with their teams, and use as a working text.
Biography highlights
- Founder and managing partner of Advertising Principles, Leeds, grown over 17 years to £48m in billings with 150 staff and clients including the BBC, Nestle, Disney, and HSBC.
- Author of two Amazon UK number-one bestsellers on persuasion, “How to Persuade and Influence People” and “Persuade”, both published by Capstone/Wiley, and a third book, “The Golden Rules for a Happy Life”.
- Psychology graduate of Newcastle University and former Procter & Gamble salesperson, named P&G Salesman of the Year.
- Vistage UK “Outstanding Performer” and “Most Requested Speaker”; TEC Australia “Overseas Speaker of the Year” 2009.
- Visiting Fellow of Newcastle University.
- Has delivered keynote and training programmes for sales, professional services, and leadership audiences across more than 20 countries.
Biography
Most pricing pressure does not come from competitors. It comes from how sales and account teams handle the conversation when a client pushes back. The behavioural science of why people say yes, why they concede on value, and why they stay loyal sits at the heart of that conversation, and it is the territory Philip Hesketh has worked in for two decades.
Hesketh is a Newcastle University psychology graduate who started in sales at Procter & Gamble, where he was named Salesman of the Year. In 1986 he founded Advertising Principles in Leeds and built it over 17 years into a £48m agency with 150 staff and clients such as the BBC, Nestle, Disney, and HSBC. The frameworks he now teaches were developed inside that business, not bolted on afterwards.
His two Wiley books, “How to Persuade and Influence People” and “Persuade”, set out the Seven Drivers of Motivation: a working model of what moves buyers, decision-makers, and colleagues to act. Both reached number one on Amazon UK in their categories. The model is built for commercial use, with direct application to pricing, negotiation, and client relationship work.
Vistage UK named him “Outstanding Performer” and “Most Requested Speaker”; TEC Australia named him “Overseas Speaker of the Year”. Beyond the awards, the practical proof is repetition: chief executive groups book him back, which only happens when the content moves the conversations leaders are actually having about value, fees, and customers.
Key speaking topics
- Psychology of persuasion and influence
- Pricing and value negotiation
- Client acquisition and retention
- Sales performance and conversion
- Behavioural drivers of buyer decisions
- Customer experience and loyalty
Ideal for
- CCOs, sales directors, and revenue leaders facing margin compression
- Professional services partners and client-facing leaders in agencies, law, accountancy, and consulting
- Account management and key client teams in B2B environments
- Leadership audiences at Vistage, YPO, EO, and similar peer-group settings
Audience outcomes
- A working vocabulary for the seven psychological drivers behind buyer decisions
- Specific techniques for holding price and defending fees in negotiation
- A sharper read on why clients defect, and what conversations keep them
- Practical questions and conversational moves teams can put to work the next day
- A clearer separation between price objections that are real and price objections that are tested
Talks
A working session on the psychology of pricing pressure and how commercial teams concede value before they need to.
Key takeaways:
- The conversational moves that hold price under procurement pressure
- Why discount-led negotiation trains clients to ask for more
- How to anchor and defend fees with language buyers accept
A keynote built around Hesketh’s Seven Drivers of Motivation framework and the questions that change a buyer’s frame.
Key takeaways:
- The seven psychological drivers that underpin buyer decisions
- “Killer questions” that reset a stalled conversation
- Where rational argument ends and behavioural cues take over
On the behaviours that drive repeat business, referrals, and higher order value.
Key takeaways:
- Why retention rests on small consistent signals, not grand gestures
- How service detail compounds into loyalty and price tolerance
- Specific practices used by client-led businesses to lift order value
On what separates competent commercial teams from the ones that compound results year after year.
Key takeaways:
- The disciplines that turn a year of growth into a decade of growth
- Where good-to-great efforts most often stall
- The behavioural patterns inside high-performing client teams
On the new-business disciplines Hesketh used to grow Advertising Principles to £48m.
Key takeaways:
- A repeatable approach to prospecting and qualification
- The first-meeting moves that decide whether a deal progresses
- How to build a pipeline that does not depend on the founder