Sales & Customer Acquisition

Why organisations work with Fredrik Eklund He has built and scaled one of the highest-grossing residential real estate teams in the United States, with $4.6B in sales in 2022 and $3.77B in 2023, so his advice on client acquisition and closing is grounded in operator-scale results rather than theory. The Sell, his New York Times bestselling book with Penguin’s Avery imprint, gives audiences a named, testable ten-step framework for personal selling and pitching, which turns the keynote into a tool the team can use on Monday. A decade on Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York gave him unusual fluency in performing under pressure and building a personal brand in public, a capability most commercial leaders are now being asked to develop themselves. He speaks from a dual-market perspective, having built businesses in both Stockholm and Manhattan and having worked previously at SEB across London, Singapore, and Tokyo, which plays well with global sales audiences who want more than a US-only view. His core argument, that everyone in a client-facing organisation is already in sales whether they realise it or not, lands with audiences beyond the sales team itself, including founders, partners, and professional-services leaders. Biography highlights Co-founder, with John Gomes, of the Eklund Gomes Team at Douglas Elliman, reported as the top-producing residential real estate team in the US in recent years. Author of The Sell: The Secrets of Selling Anything to Anyone (Avery, 2015), a New York Times bestseller also released in Sweden and the UK. Original cast member of Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York from its 2012 launch through 2022, across nine seasons of MDLNY and two seasons of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles. Co-star of Bravo’s Bethenny and Fredrik spin-off with Bethenny Frankel in 2018. Recipient, with John Gomes, of Douglas Elliman’s 2021 ICON Award for cumulative career sales of over $15B. Background in finance at SEB in Stockholm, London, Singapore, and Tokyo, and studies at the Stockholm School of Economics, before relocating to New York to build his real estate career from scratch. Biography The Eklund Gomes Team at Douglas Elliman closed $4.6B in residential real estate in 2022 and $3.77B in 2023, figures that place it near the top of any serious ranking of US real estate teams. Fredrik Eklund co-founded that business with John Gomes. The scale matters because it is the evidence base for everything he says on stage about sales, client trust, and building a personal brand in a market where every competitor looks equally credible on paper. Eklund arrived in Manhattan in his mid-twenties with a finance CV from SEB in Stockholm, London, Singapore, and Tokyo, and no real estate contacts. Within a year he was nominated for Rookie of the Year by the Real Estate Board of New York. The through line from that start to today’s team is a clear operating idea: in commoditised markets, the product is the seller. The Sell, published by Penguin’s Avery imprint in 2015 and a New York Times bestseller, sets out that idea as a ten-step framework covering authenticity, pitch construction, negotiation, and closing. A decade on Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York, from its 2012 premiere through his departure in 2022, turned Eklund into one of the most recognisable sales figures in American business media. It also taught him something less obvious that keynote audiences value. Senior people in client-facing roles, founders, partners, and relationship leaders, are now expected to carry a visible public profile. Eklund has been practising that craft, on camera and at scale, longer than most. For corporate audiences, the argument lands most sharply on two questions leaders are already asking. How do we train our best people to behave like owners of the client relationship rather than executors of a process, and how do we build the kind of personal credibility that moves a deal before the pitch starts. Eklund answers both from inside a live commercial operation, not from a classroom. Key speaking topics Personal selling and the close Personal brand for commercial leaders Client acquisition in commoditised markets Sales culture and high-performance teams Entrepreneurship and business building Negotiation and pitch craft Real estate and luxury markets Ideal for Sales kick-offs and revenue leadership offsites, particularly in financial services, real estate, professional services, and luxury sectors Partner, MD, and client-facing leader events where personal brand and relationship ownership are on the agenda Founder, entrepreneur, and growth-stage audiences building a commercial operation from scratch After-dinner and awards-night formats where a high-recognition keynote with commercial substance is wanted Audience outcomes A named ten-step framework from The Sell that teams can map directly onto their own pitch, pipeline, and closing process A sharper sense of what “personal brand” means in practical, revenue-linked terms, rather than as a social media activity Specific tactics for opening, holding, and closing a high-stakes client conversation in a commoditised market A harder view of what separates a top-tier sales operation from an average one, drawn from inside a team that has closed billions in annual volume Energy and confidence that translates into action the following week, not a feel-good moment that fades

Why organisations work with Tahl Raz The frameworks Raz presents aren’t drawn from his interpretation of others’ research. Rather, he co-constructed them, working directly with the FBI hostage negotiator, the CEO performance researchers, and the business practitioners behind three of the most widely read business books of the past two decades. The CEO Next Door, which Raz co-authored based on analysis of more than 17,000 CEO and C-suite assessments, gives boards and senior leadership teams a data-validated model for identifying and developing executive talent, not one built on anecdote or convention. Never Split the Difference has sold more than five million copies and been translated into over 40 languages, which reflects genuine market validation of the negotiation system Raz helped shape. It is now embedded in corporate training programmes globally. Never Eat Alone is used as a textbook in MBA programmes worldwide, making Raz a source-level contributor to how the next generation of executives is taught to build professional relationships and organisational influence. His background as an award-winning business journalist gives him an ability to take complex behavioural research and make it immediately actionable in a room – a skill that is structurally different from the researchers and practitioners who generated the underlying work. Biography highlights Co-author of Never Split the Difference with former FBI lead hostage negotiator Chris Voss, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, 5 million+ copies sold, translated into 40+ languages Co-author of Never Eat Alone with Keith Ferrazzi, New York Times bestseller, adopted as an MBA textbook in business schools worldwide Co-author of The CEO Next Door with Elena Botelho and Kim Powell, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller; CMI Management Book of the Year 2019; based on analysis of more than 17,000 CEO and C-suite assessments; research published as an HBR cover story Award-winning journalist published in Inc., GQ, Harvard Business Review, and the Jerusalem Post Former CEO of MyGreenLight (online education), Chief Content Officer, and founder and editor-in-chief of Jewcy Media Degree in Philosophy, Vassar College Biography The prevailing models for negotiation and leadership development share a common flaw: they were built on theory, intuition, and case studies drawn from a narrow slice of experience. What changes the conversation is evidence. Evidence from 20 years of hostage negotiation under life-or-death conditions, from a decade of performance data on 17,000 executives, from the social science of how professional relationships actually generate career capital. Tahl Raz has spent his career working at the intersection of that evidence and the people who need to act on it. Raz co-authored Never Split the Difference with Chris Voss, former lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, translating a field-tested system developed in extreme-pressure environments into a framework that business leaders and sales teams now use worldwide. The book has sold more than five million copies and been translated into over 40 languages – a scale of adoption that reflects the practical utility of what the negotiation system actually delivers, not just the appeal of the source material. His work on The CEO Next Door, developed with researchers Elena Botelho and Kim Powell, draws on analysis of more than 17,000 CEO and C-suite assessments to identify the four behaviours that statistically separate executives who reach and sustain top performance from those who plateau. The research – published as a cover article in the May-June 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review – overturns widely held assumptions about pedigree, charisma, and the shape of a successful executive career. The book won CMI Management Book of the Year 2019. Before these collaborations, Raz co-authored Never Eat Alone with Keith Ferrazzi, a study of professional networking and relationship capital that remains in use as an MBA textbook in business programmes globally. His journalism has appeared in Inc., GQ, Harvard Business Review, and the Jerusalem Post. That background – knowing how to extract what is genuinely new in a body of research and make it land for a senior audience – is what distinguishes his platform: he is not interpreting these frameworks from the outside, he helped build them. Key speaking topics Negotiation strategy and behavioural influence Executive leadership behaviours and CEO performance Professional relationship capital and network strategy Storytelling and leadership communication Organisational decision-making under pressure Career development and leadership advancement The future of work and professional influence Ideal for C-suite and senior executive audiences in leadership development or strategic offsites CHROs and talent leaders building executive assessment or succession frameworks Sales leadership and commercial teams focused on high-stakes negotiation Boards and governance teams examining executive performance and leadership pipeline Audience outcomes A working understanding of the negotiation tactics developed in FBI hostage situations and how they apply in commercial and leadership contexts Clarity on the four behaviours; decisiveness, engaging for impact, relentless reliability, bold adaptation which CEO performance data identifies as the genuine predictors of executive success A reframed view of professional networking as a deliberate, structured strategic practice rather than a social variable Practical approaches for improving persuasion, communication, and influence in high-pressure conversations Sharper criteria for evaluating leadership potential – their own or others’ – against evidence rather than convention

Why organisations work with Rohit Bassi Three decades of cross-cultural coaching across 21 countries, with named engagements at Oracle, Honeywell, Canon, the World Bank, HSBC and KPMG. A communication method built around four operating disciplines, courage, clarity, conviction and compassion, that gives leaders a usable structure for difficult conversations rather than a generic communication framework. A Gulf-based perspective on executive presence that translates between Western corporate norms and Middle Eastern, South Asian and Southeast Asian leadership cultures, useful for organisations with distributed senior teams. A combined practitioner record as keynote speaker, sales communication coach and author of Living Through Self Compassion, allowing him to work credibly with both commercial leaders and people leaders in the same organisation. Biography highlights Founder of ROI Talks, the coaching and training practice he established in Dubai. Author of Living Through Self Compassion (2019) and contributing author of Success Mastery alongside Jack Canfield (2018). TEDx speaker and Senior Level Executive Contributor at Brainz Magazine. Member of the National Academy of Best-Selling Authors. Three decades of speaking, coaching and training experience across more than 21 countries. Named client engagements include Oracle, Honeywell, the World Bank, Canon, HSBC, KPMG, Harley-Davidson and Armani Hotels & Resorts. Biography Most leaders are not promoted for how they communicate. They are promoted in spite of it, and only at the senior level does the cost become obvious. Boards lose patience. Sales teams stop closing. Talent quietly leaves. ROI Talks, the practice Rohit Bassi founded in Dubai, was built to address that specific gap. His method is structured around four operating disciplines, courage, clarity, conviction and compassion, drawn from a long study of mindfulness and applied to the conversations leaders actually have. The work covers executive presence, persuasion under pressure, conflict that has become organisational, and the daily communication habits that either build or erode trust over time. He has worked across more than 21 countries with named clients including Oracle, Honeywell, the World Bank, Canon, HSBC and KPMG. His book Living Through Self Compassion sets out the personal story behind the method, a return from depression and self-sabotage to a working philosophy of communication. He is also a contributing author of Success Mastery alongside Jack Canfield and a TEDx speaker. What sets the offer apart is the geography and the register. He coaches senior leaders fluently across Western, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures, and writes regularly as an Executive Contributor for Brainz Magazine. For organisations with distributed leadership teams, that cross-cultural read on executive presence is not common in the category. Key speaking topics Leadership communication and executive presence Persuasion and influence in high-stakes conversations Mindful communication and emotional intelligence Sales communication for senior leaders Conflict, difficult conversations and trust repair Resilience and self-leadership under pressure Public speaking for executives Ideal for CEOs, business unit heads and senior leaders preparing for board, investor or all-hands communication Sales leadership and commercial teams in high-stakes B2B environments Heads of L&D, talent and executive development commissioning leadership communication programmes Senior leadership teams in multinational and Gulf-based organisations with cross-cultural workforces Audience outcomes A clearer language for the four disciplines that drive credibility, courage, clarity, conviction and compassion Specific tools for high-stakes conversations: persuasion, conflict, trust repair and assertive listening A more honest read on where their own communication erodes trust, and what to change first A working approach to composure under pressure that they can apply the next working day

Why organisations work with Peter Siljerud Engineering training combined with twenty years in trend analysis and futures work. His AI commentary runs deeper than headline level into how machine learning and neural networks behave, and what that means for deployment risk. Author of AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, 2023, foreword by Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University), with case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus. One of the few futurists with substantive applied work on public-sector AI. Co-author of Supertrends (ProSales Institute, English edition 2020), a framework of fifty structural shifts in commercial strategy. The book is built for sales and marketing leaders running real planning cycles. Long-running client work with Nordea, ICA, the Church of Sweden, LRF, SPP, and Teracom. The LRF programme reached 12,000 people across a two-year external-analysis curriculum. Biography highlights CEO and founder of Futurewise, a Stockholm-based trend research firm operating since 2008 Author of four books: 100 trender (2011), Bryt normerna (2015), Supertrenderna (2018), and AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, 2023) Two books nominated for Marketing Book of the Year by Sveriges Marknadsförbund (Swedish Marketing Federation) Named one of Sweden’s most creative people by media group IDG in 2012 Former future strategist at Kairos Future and world analyst at Intel Clients include Nordea, ICA, the Church of Sweden, LRF, SPP, and Teracom Biography Sweden’s public-sector AI investment sits at around three percent of national AI spending. The figure is small enough to embarrass policymakers and large enough to matter. Peter Siljerud’s 2023 book AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, foreword by Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University) is the practical response: case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus, written for the leadership teams making the actual deployment decisions. That instinct, work backwards from organisational reality, has shaped twenty years of his practice. He trained as a civil engineer before moving into futures work as a strategist at Kairos Future and a world analyst at Intel. Futurewise, the firm he founded in 2008, helps leadership teams turn external-analysis signals into specific budget and capability calls. The earlier books trace the same arc. 100 trender (2011) was nominated for Sweden’s Marketing Book of the Year and mapped structural shifts hitting Swedish business. Bryt normerna (2015) attacked the assumption that the working day and the employment contract are settled categories. Supertrenderna (2018), co-authored with Henrik Larsson-Broman and Markus Ejenäs of the ProSales Institute, distilled fifty shifts in commercial strategy into operating advice for sales and marketing leaders. What separates him from the broader futurist circuit is the engineering instinct. The talks press past signal identification into what the audience should do next quarter. AI is treated as a specific technology with specific behavioural patterns that leadership teams need to understand at working level. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and generative AI Strategic foresight and trend analysis Future of work Future of sales and marketing AI in the public sector Consumer behaviour and retail trends Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams in Nordic and European businesses making AI investment decisions Public-sector leadership in regions, municipalities, and central agencies working out where AI investment pays back Heads of marketing, sales, and customer experience facing structural change in how customers buy Boards and executive committees in mature industries (real estate, retail, financial services) where trend response is overdue Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of AI development that goes past press-cycle headlines A short list of trends worth genuine board attention this cycle, separated from the noise Specific case studies from Nordic public and private sector AI deployments, including Bolagsverket and Hallands sjukhus A method for translating external signals into capital and capability decisions Ideas they can put into a board paper inside a fortnight

Why organisations work with Jacco van der Kooij He built the operating language that serious SaaS revenue teams already use. Bowtie, SPICED and Revenue Architecture are not proprietary curiosities; they are the common vocabulary at companies like DocuSign, Uber Eats, Adobe and MURAL. His work treats go-to-market as a designed system, not a set of sales tactics. Leadership teams leave with a structural view of acquisition, retention and expansion as one connected revenue engine. He has operating credibility from inside enterprise technology. Senior roles at Kontiki, Qumu and Technicolor sit underneath the frameworks, so the advice is grounded in execution, not theory. He is published where serious readers look. Harvard Business Review (with Frank V. Cespedes of Harvard Business School) and a shelf of best-selling books including Revenue Architecture and Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization. He advises the capital side, not just the operating side. Growth advisory to Notion Capital, Reach Capital, Astella and Storm Ventures gives him a cross-portfolio view of what compounds and what breaks. Biography highlights Founder of Winning by Design, a go-to-market consulting and training firm working with hundreds of recurring-revenue companies worldwide. Creator of the Bowtie customer-journey model, the SPICED qualification framework and the Revenue Architecture operating model. Author of Revenue Architecture (2023) and co-author of Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization and The SaaS Sales Method series. Co-author with Frank V. Cespedes of the Harvard Business Review article “Hiring Star Salespeople Isn’t the Best Way to Grow” (February 2016). Clients and training partners include Uber Eats, DocuSign, Adobe, MURAL, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and OwnBackup. Growth advisor to Notion Capital, Reach Capital, Astella and Storm Ventures. Keynote speaker at Dreamforce, SaaStock Dublin, SaaS Growth London, MarketingProfs and RD Summit Brazil. Biography Recurring revenue rewrote the economics of B2B software, but most companies still run sales, customer success and marketing as separate departments with separate targets. Winning by Design, the firm Jacco van der Kooij founded in 2012, exists to correct that. The core of his work is a set of frameworks that have become standard vocabulary inside serious SaaS revenue teams. The Bowtie extends the funnel into onboarding, adoption and expansion, so leadership can see acquisition and retention as one connected system. SPICED gives every customer-facing function a shared qualification model. Revenue Architecture, the 2023 textbook of over 250 diagrams and blueprints, ties the two into an operating design for recurring-revenue growth. His authority is grounded in operating history before it is grounded in publishing. Senior sales and strategy roles at Kontiki, Qumu and Technicolor sit underneath the frameworks. Harvard Business Review published his co-authored work with Frank V. Cespedes of Harvard Business School on why hiring star salespeople is a weaker growth lever than organisational design, a piece that now reads as the seed of the larger thesis. Today his focus is how compounding growth systems behave under AI. He advises executive teams and venture capital firms, including Notion Capital, Reach Capital, Astella and Storm Ventures, on redesigning go-to-market operating models where probabilistic modelling and AI-enabled workflows replace linear funnel thinking. The training side of the business has equipped revenue teams at Uber Eats, DocuSign, Adobe, MURAL and Hewlett Packard Enterprise with the same operating language. Key speaking topics Revenue Architecture for recurring-revenue businesses The Bowtie customer-journey model SPICED qualification and customer conversations Go-to-market operating design for B2B SaaS AI-enabled go-to-market and probabilistic growth modelling Sales organisation design and scaling Executive growth governance Ideal for CROs, CCOs, VPs of Sales and VPs of Customer Success rebuilding the revenue engine around recurring revenue B2B SaaS founders and executive teams moving from founder-led selling into scaled, systematised go-to-market Venture capital firms and boards overseeing growth-stage portfolio companies Corporate transformation leaders inside enterprise technology businesses shifting to subscription or consumption models Audience outcomes A shared operating language across sales, marketing and customer success that replaces siloed vocabulary. A structural view of the full customer journey through the Bowtie, from acquisition into retention and expansion. A working grasp of SPICED as a qualification and conversation model any customer-facing team can deploy. A clearer read on where AI meaningfully changes go-to-market design and where it is overclaimed. Specific diagnostic questions leadership teams can use to locate the actual bottleneck in their growth system.