The success of any commercial organisation depends heavily on the ability of its customer-facing staff. Those in sales and customer service are crucially important in achieving business targets, but how many L&D professionals are actively involved in developing these capabilities?

Many L&D departments shy away from supporting and developing sales teams, and lack the skills and confidence to ‘sell ideas in’ to sales leaders. Yet sales training is an area where L&D can have real impact, partnering with sales leaders and external vendors, facilitating alignment and coordination across all of the functions and people who support sales, and measuring impact in an objective and powerful way.

To help guide L&D professionals to greater insight and confidence in understanding sales enablement TJ is delighted to welcome Richard Barkey, founder and CEO of Imparta as a regular contributor and commentator both online and in print.

Starting in September Barkey will be contributing regularly to provide insight, inspiration and instruction in the field of sales enablement and how L&D staff can play an active role in it.

TJ’s editor-in-chief Debbie Carter says: “We are delighted to welcome Richard Barkey as our resident expert on sales. Having worked with Richard in the past I know he will bring a broad range of capability to our community - from change, technology and most importantly to sales enablement.”

Richard Barkey added: “I’m thrilled to be working with TJ, a publication that has been an inspiration since I founded Imparta in 1997. I and the rest of the team at Imparta look forward to working with TJ to help L&D professionals become even stronger champions in the sales arena.”

Find out more about Imparta here.