Pipeline Under Pressure: How to Keep Growth Moving (Bolton)

On stage and in the boardroom, Alison is a high-energy catalyst for change. Drawing on her international career and global market perspective, she challenges the status quo of traditional sales training. She focuses on:

• Reducing Bias: Implementing structured, data-driven recruitment and sales processes.
• Entrepreneurial Sales: Teaching teams to think like business owners to drive higher margins.
• The “Nail It & Scale It” Philosophy: Helping businesses build the foundations today for the global contracts of tomorrow.

Today, Alison leverages her wealth of experience to mentor the next generation of sales leaders and advise CEOs on how to drive sustainable growth. Whether she is leading a private coaching session or addressing an audience of industry leaders, her mission remains the same: to turn sales into a predictable, high-performing engine for every business she touches.

I’m Managing Director of Active Flooring Solutions, delivering flooring to the construction sector across the UK. Over 15 years I’ve helped grow the business from a Stockport start-up to a multi-million-pound operation. That journey has given me a candid view of the pipeline pressures construction firms face day to day, and the practical steps that help build a more resilient order book.

With over 20 years’ experience starting, scaling and running businesses, with clients including UNICEF, EDF Energy, O2, Oxfam, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Accenture and leading as many as 250 people, Tom has faced every challenge the world of business can throw.

Working with his clients as a mentor and coach, he now focuses on creating high performing teams through:

• Systematising: ensuring consistency of action and process; demystifying sales so it is teachable, manageable and delivers sustainable results.

• Analysis: ensuring the levers that actually deliver results are being pulled and the ‘noise’ is ignored.

• Recruitment: maximising businesses’ opportunity to find great people and putting the systems in place to deliver that.

• Selection: making sure businesses understand what a great person is, in terms of ‘character’ and ‘role specific talent’ and putting in place the systems for making those decisions.

• Training and coaching: defining the skills necessary to deliver success, in order to optimise your staff’s ability to perform.

Eighteen years ago, Tom’s own mentor completely changed his businesses and his life, as a result of which he is eternally grateful and a true believer in mentorship. Now the reason he gets out of bed in the morning is to help other CEOs and leaders achieve their business goals.