6:00 UTC

Find out more about how to get a leg up on their competition!
Richard Barclay Higham, an acclaimed speaker, trainer and coach who focuses on sales, customer-centric growth and business development, answered our community’s most pressing questions.
- How to avoid the peaks and troughs of winning new clients.
- Keeping in light contact with prospects and clients.
- Being the first person your client calls.
- Getting the balance right between retaining and growing clients and winning new clients.
- How to sell without being “salesy.”
- Winning business in a low-growth, volatile world.
- The place of social media in professional life.
Submit Your Questions
If you've listened to the recording or read the transcript and have any follow-up questions for our panel, please feel free to submit them on our forum discussion.
Speakers

Richard Barclay Higham,
Principal,
C3 Advisory Ltd.,
United Kingdom
Richard is an engaging speaker, trainer and coach who combines a warm, enthusiastic style with powerful insight into customer interaction.
His focus is on:
- Solving sales problems and seizing sales opportunities – particularly in the financial and professional services sector.
- Helping private equity add value to their invested businesses by stimulating sustainable, scalable sales growth.
- Addressing changing buying patterns through social selling and customer centricity.
He has won and led highly effective development programmes with some of Europe’s largest financial institutions as well as with innovative boutiques. His deep experience of long term projects includes the design and delivery of comprehensive relationship management, sales and leadership programmes across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the US.
Over the past twenty years he has helped in the development over 10,000 individuals from more than 100 financial institutions, ranging from banks to accountants, actuaries, insurers, fund managers and private equity.
He writes and speaks regularly on business development and relationship management issues.
Beyond the financial sector Richard focuses particularly on strategic account management. He has consulted and trained for leading companies in different sectors; is a guest speaker for business schools, trade associations and professional bodies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Richard holds an MA in English Literature from Cambridge, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of The Institute of Sales and Marketing Management and a Member of the Association for Coaching.
What people have said about Richard:
“Richard is an engaging speaker who delivered on-brief and at the appropriate level for our audiences on the subject of Key Account Management. He has the gift of making what typically would be classified as an intense session clear and enjoyable. It was a pleasure and I look forward to working with him again, soon”
- Lousie Leonard, Dublin Institute of Technology/ Enterprise Ireland
“I have worked with Richard over the past 5 years on projects in the space of strategic foresight for major international companies in financial services, and I have found him to be extremely competent, passionate and driven by curiosity, capable of bringing his capabilities to bear on a diversified set of briefs and contexts, very articulate and yet extremely pragmatic. Richard is a rare individual and a very high level international professional.”
- Luca Gatti, ContextF/Copenhagen Business School

Marios Siathas,
General Manager,
European Institute of Management & Finance,
Nicosia, Cyprus
Marios is the General Manager of the European Institute of Management and Finance, and an experienced instructor. Marios has an extensive experience in the area of executive education, learning and development and consulting. For the past 14 years he worked as the Director of Executive Education at the Cyprus International Institute of Management (CIIM). His prior experience includes the position of Manager of Corporate Training Programmes at the University of Guelph in Canada in Business Development for the Houlihans group in the US.
During his long lasting career in Executive Education, he has gained extensive experience in working with organizations and individuals and in building specialised and unique learning and development solutions for them. He has managed several development projects for large and small companies in Cyprus, Egypt, Austria, Bahrain, Greece, Canada, China, Dubai, and South Africa. He holds a BSc in Marketing and Management from Western Kentucky University in the USA, an MBA from the University of Guelph in Canada and currently completing his PhD in Adult Education and Training with the Colorado State University. He is a member of the board of the Institute of Directors (UK) Cyprus Branch and he is a member of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment, the Cyprus Human Resource Managers Association, Cyprus International Business Association and several other professional bodies.