Human-First Sales Transformation: Three Pain Points from the LPI’s Learning Live conference floor
At Learning Live, KWC Global highlighted three sales capability challenges: embedding a sales culture beyond business development, enabling cross-selling through collaboration, and proving ROI of sales training. Their Rainmaker programme delivers measurable results, boosting engagement, revenue, and confidence, emphasising a human-first approach in an AI-driven world.
Every year, Learning Live gives learning leaders a platform to share challenges, successes, and aspirations. This year, one topic dominated conversations at KWC Global’s stand: how to develop sales capability across an organisation in a way that sticks, scales, and drives measurable results.
From dozens of discussions with senior L&D and commercial leaders, three recurring pain points emerged:
1. Embedding a Sales Culture Across the Business
Leaders recognise that sales can’t live solely in the business development team. The modern marketplace demands that every touchpoint – from marketing to delivery – contributes to commercial growth. Yet embedding that mindset across the business remains one of the hardest cultural shifts to deliver.
At KWC Global, we’ve seen how a human-first approach works. Our Rainmaker programme focuses not on scripts or AI-generated interactions, but on developing authentic confidence, commercial curiosity, and client-centred conversations.
In the last 12 months, participating businesses in this programme have reported a significant uplift in staff engagement, describing a new sense of purpose around commercial growth. This cultural shift doesn’t just motivate – it drives tangible revenue outcomes.
2. Creating Collaborative-Selling Opportunities
The second theme was the difficulty of unlocking cross-selling opportunities. Many organisations have brilliant teams, but too often they operate with a silo mentality. Without being confident and proactive in making commercial connections outside their immediate specialism, internal opportunities are left untapped.
Rainmaker tackles this by giving people the tools – and, crucially, the permission – to spot and act on opportunities. In practice, that results in more meaningful internal collaboration and a marked increase in cross-service referrals within just weeks.
KWC Global clients completing Rainmaker report increased sales activity within one month. Sales Return on Investment (SROI) is on average 43 times the programme investment at around 6 months into their Rainmaker journey. That’s not theory – that’s proven impact.
3. Showing the ROI of Sales Development
For many learning leaders, even when they know business performance is improving, tangibly demonstrating ROI to the Board is still a challenge. Budgets are tight, and every investment competes for attention.
At KWC, we’ve built measurement into Rainmaker from the ground up. We combine quantitative outcomes – new fees generated, sales velocity improvements – with qualitative shifts in skills and behaviour.
In fact, 95% of delegates report an improvement in their personal business development performance after one month, rising to 97% after three months. KWC Global’s facilitators are consistently rated 6/6, across interactivity, learning, and real-world applicability.
When you can connect learning outcomes directly to revenue outcomes, the conversation about value becomes much simpler.
As part of our commitment to raising the standard of business development training globally, KWC Global was proud to achieve accreditation from the Learning and Performance Institute this year.
“KWC Global has demonstrated exceptional credibility in the field of business development and selling training,” said Ed Monk, CEO of the LPI. “Its commitment to measurable impact and a truly human-first approach sets a benchmark for what great sales capability programmes should deliver.”
“We have been members of the LPI since 2023, and we’re proud that our client-centred approach and strong focus on Return on Investment for our clients has been recognised,” says Sharon McLellan, Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Officer of KWC Global. “From experience, it’s important to emphasise both the qualitative and quantitative elements of transformation: performance improvement through skills enhancement, together with increased revenue through fees. That compounds over time as skills become embedded, creating a sustainable sales culture throughout the business.”
One theme resonated throughout Learning Live – and it’s one that sits at the heart of everything we do at KWC Global. In a world obsessed with automation and artificial intelligence, people still buy from people.
Developing a confident, commercial, connected workforce isn’t about replacing human capability with technology; it’s about amplifying the power of human interaction, curiosity, and creativity – the things AI can’t replicate.
That’s where Rainmaker makes the difference. It turns good professionals into confident, trusted advisors – and that is the foundation of any sustainable sales culture.
It was great to meet so many passionate learning leaders at Learning Live and to hear first-hand about the challenges and opportunities shaping our industry.
Anyone interested in exploring this further is warmly invited to join our next free virtual event, “Key EI Skills for Star Performing Rainmakers,” taking place on Friday 10th October at 9:15am. We look forward to connecting with even more of the LPI network, sharing ideas, insights, and practical ways to build human-first, commercially confident teams.
Russell Wardrop is the Chief Executive Officer at KWC Global.
More information
KWC Global helps organisations embed a high performance culture, win more pitches and transform business development capabilities.
Lynn Ann Thomson, lathomson@kwcglobal.com
KWC Global, www.kwcglobal.com
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