Each of our Training Consultants has significant corporate, selling and sales training experience. All are highly credible with diverse and senior audiences and share dynamic personalities with which participants and clients alike relate.
Many of our trainers are former clients of The Baron Group and have participated in one or more of our programs in other career situations prior to joining The Baron Group.
Eric R. Baron, Founder & CEO
Eric R. Baron, a sales process consultant and special events speaker, has spent more than 30 years in sales, sales management and sales training. His diverse background further includes significant experience in sales, sales training, creative problem solving and motivational team building. He regularly conducts programs ranging from small group training sessions to large group presentations. He is widely featured as a motivating keynote speaker, and routinely provides salespeople with insights that create a distinct edge over the competition by demonstrating how every sales call can be transformed into a problem solving opportunity.
Eric’s first book, Selling Is a Team Sport, explains how sales teams can become much more effective by applying proven problem solving skills to both internal strategy sessions and sales interactions. He believes passionately that everybody within an organization can and should contribute to the sales process. Eric’s theories on selling have been widely quoted in magazines and books, and he has appeared on both national radio and television.
Eric is an adjunct professor at The Columbia University Business School where he teaches “Entrepreneurial Selling” to MBA students. He participates in many of ColumbiaBusinessSchool’s programs for corporate executives.
An enthusiastic and inspired presenter, Eric has delivered hundreds of presentations to varied and diverse interest groups and companies. Included among them are ASTD (local and national), Training Magazine’s Annual HR Conference and Expo, Human Resources Planning Society, The American Marketing Association, The Bank Marketing Association, and the Institute of Management Consultants.
Originally with Union Carbide Corporation after receiving his Bachelor of Engineering degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, Eric held positions in Sales, Sales Management, Marketing, and Sales Training. In 1976, Eric joined Synectics® Inc., a Cambridge, MA. based consulting firm that specializes in creative problem solving and innovative teamwork. During his tenure with Synectics, Eric designed and taught problem solving and team building courses and was Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
Eric’s experience at these two organizations led him to co-found Consultative Resources Corporation (“CRC”) in 1981, a consulting firm that researches the sales process and teaches a variety of sales and sales management courses. He played a key role in dramatically growing the company while building an impressive client list.
Eric served as President of CRC until founding his own firm, The Baron Group, in 1992. The Baron Group, a research-based consulting firm, ventured into more targeted areas that focus on the sales process including team selling, advanced selling skills and sales management principles. He continued to emphasize how problem solving and selling are closely related, and how applying increasingly important throughout the competitive marketplace. The approach that he developed merges these two areas into a dynamic and innovative sales process, allowing salespeople to actively apply problem solving skills to selling and sales situations.
Clients are genuinely excited when they speak about Eric’s extraordinary energy, ability to command participants’ attention and enthusiasm for his subject. Moreover, clients are equally complimentary about his ability to identify both with his audience and the corporate situation, his talent for generating active audience interaction, and his total command of the subject matter at hand.Eric lives in Weston, Connecticut with his wife, Lois. He has two grown daughters, Andrea and Deborah, who live in Dobbs Ferry, NY, and Boulder, Colorado, respectively, and is a grandfather to Logan Max and Sage Olivia. Besides his family, his passions include baseball, fly fishing, presidential politics, cabinet making and running.
Ralph Bellrose, Senior Consultant
Ralph Bellrose received a Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey and an MBA from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.Mr. Bellrose spent 32 years with Union Carbide Corporation and held positions in Sales, Personnel Training and Development, Sales Management, Marketing, and Product Management.
He retired from Union Carbide as Director of Sales and Customer Services for their North American chemicals business. He also had responsibility for Customer Service Work Processes on a worldwide basis.
As Manager of Continuing Education Programs at Union Carbide’s Personnel Development Laboratory, Mr. Bellrose gained expertise in training program design and implementation, group dynamics, problem solving, communication skills, presentation skills and meeting management.
He has extensive experience in work process analysis, organizational design, and performance appraisal. While at Union Carbide, he introduced self-directed work teams to Customer Service operations. This organization became an industry benchmark for customer services. He also created and managed a corporate Customer Satisfaction Department which enabled Union Carbide to monitor and meet its customer focus objectives and modify its work processes to satisfy customer expectations.
Greg Conderacci, Senior Consultant For more than three decades, Greg Conderacci has been using the magic of communication to help people lead happier, more productive and more rewarding lives. His private consulting firm, Good Ground Consulting LLC, is dedicated to helping organizations and teams discover and defend their Good Ground – the fertile market niche where their productivity peaks. He teaches marketing at the Johns Hopkins University Business School and serves on its Business Advisory Board.
In the 1970s, as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Conderacci covered business in Detroit (mostly the auto companies) and also wrote economics out of Washington, D.C. (mostly Jimmy Carter). In the 1980s, he created and marketed several innovative programs for the poor of Maryland, including the state’s largest soup kitchen (it’s where the Pope eats when he comes to Baltimore).
In the 1990s, Mr. Conderacci was Director of Marketing for Price Waterhouse’s information technology consulting practice in the Philadelphia -Washington region, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Prudential’s managed care operations in the Baltimore-Washington area, and Chief Marketing Officer for Alex. Brown (America’s Oldest Investment Bank). Most recently, he was Director of Marketing for Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, responsible for marketing strategy, marketing materials creation and design, and sales force coaching and training.
As a volunteer, he has helped a wide range of organizations with strategy and marketing, including the Johns Hopkins School of Business, the Mayor of Baltimore, The Maryland State Commissioner of Financial Regulation, The United Way of Central Maryland, Catholic Charities of Baltimore, Chizuk Amuno Congregation, The Maryland Food Committee, The U.S. Air Force Chaplain Service, The Greater Baltimore Committee, The Maryland Association of Community Services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities, Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service, Business Volunteers Unlimited, and The Friends School of Baltimore.
He is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University, where he was editor-in-chief of The Daily Princetonian; he also holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University. A registered representative and registered principal, he has completed the Securities Industry Institute at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
For his age, he is a fairly decent long distance bicycle rider.
Laura Daley-Caravella, Senior Consultant Laura Daley-Caravella has 15 years of experience in the design and delivery of skill development training programs and seven years practical management experience in the financial services industry. Her expertise in experiential learning includes team building, meeting management skills, problem solving, negotiation skills, selling skills, strategic planning, sales management, influencing skills, presentation skills, management and coaching skills, and trainer training skills.
Laura’s clients include American Express Bank, Chase, CocaCola, Dell, Prudential, Provident, NYSE and MetLife. She specializes in how to give developmental feedback to classroom participants, so they can utilize and act on the feedback in their work environment.
Laura spent seven years with Consultative Resources Corporation, a sales training consultancy where she sold, designed, and delivered sales management training programs. She directly managed some of CRC’s most valued clients, such as Bank One, and Chemical Bank.
Prior to that she spent seven years with Citibank in sales, sales management and operations management positions. There she was responsible for selling, managing, hiring, coaching, and tracking performance. She also designed incentive programs for improving sales, service and productivity levels of her sales and operational staff.
Additionally, Laura spent two years with Communispond Inc., working with executives on their stand up presentation skills.
Laura’s graduate and undergraduate work are in the fields of education, psychology, marketing and business administration.
Tom French, Managing Director of Sales and Marketing
Tom French is a Managing Director of Sales and Marketing at The Baron Group. He works with customers to identify and address critical sales effectiveness challenges, consults with customers to assure the maximum impact is achieved from training initiatives, and facilitates Baron Group programs.
Mr. French has over 25 years experience in the sales and delivery of skill development training programs. He is an accomplished facilitator with expertise in consultative selling, negotiations, strategic selling, 360 degree feedback, influencing skills, presentation skills, and sales coaching. Companies he has worked with include: Prudential, Bank of New York Mellon, Dr Pepper, Harrington Hoists, JanPak, Genie Industries, Draftfcb, Chubb, and many others.
Prior to joining The Baron Group, Mr. French worked at Development Dimensions International where he developed new business, managed client relationships, and worked with clients to achieve sustainable business results. His clients there included Boehringer Ingelheim, Deloitte, Pitney Bowes, and The Hartford.
Previously, Mr. French was the principal of Achievement Resources, where he designed, developed, sold and delivered consultative selling, influence, customer service and career development workshops. Additionally, he was with The Forum Corporation, a leading training company where he developed new accounts, delivered sales training programs, and led train-the-trainer workshops.
Mr. French holds a BA in English from St. Lawrence University and an MFA in Photography from the State University of New York. He is a board member of the Southern Connecticut Chapter of ASTD, and active member of SHRM.
David E. Hauer, Senior Consultant David Hauer has devoted the past 25 years to selling and marketing products and ideas for major international packaged goods companies.
After receiving his MBA, Mr. Hauer spent his first 10 years in marketing for Bristol-Myers, Inc. and Richardson-Vick, Inc. reaching the level of Director of New Products for the latter corporation. The last 15 years were spent as Senior V.P. Management Supervisor for Jordan, McGrath, Case & Taylor, a major packaged goods advertising agency, managing a multitude of businesses from toys (Hasbro, Milton Bradley) to finance (Midlantic Bank) to pharmaceutical/toiletries (Block Drug, Upjohn, SmithKline Beecham, Ciba-Geigy, Squibb, Mennen).
Throughout his career, Mr. Hauer has been responsible for selling his own strategies, products and ideas to the companies he has worked with and for, as well as training others within these organizations on how to sell their own products and ideas. He has had extensive experience using and teaching ideation and problem solving techniques involving the development of new products, concepts and strategies which has lead to the successful marketing of several new product entries. As a result of this real world experience, he has developed a special insight into what problem solving and selling theories are most practical and how best to apply them to achieve the expected results.
Mr. Hauer brings considerable problem solving and selling skills to the sales training and consulting functions in which TBG specializes.
Fred Lamparter, Senior Consultant Fred Lamparter’s connection with Eric Baron and The Baron Group dates back to 1985, when Fred first used them in his capacity as Director of Worldwide Training at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, a global communications company providing advertising, direct marketing, interactive, promotion, and public relations programs to businesses and consumers. Fred had started with Ogilvy as an assistant media buyer in 1969, then moved to the account management side of the business in 1971 as an assistant account executive. He advanced through supervisory levels while handling such clients as S. C. Johnson; Campbell Soup Company; Ralston Purina, Kimberly-Clark, Mercedes Benz and others. A long-time mentor at Ogilvy recruited Fred into the agency’s then-fledgling training department in 1984; he greatly expanded its activities domestically and internationally and was named a Senior Partner and Director of Worldwide Training in 1987. He continued in that role through the year 2000.
When it was necessary to seek outside training expertise in broader, non-advertising areas such as collaborative selling, coaching, team building and problem-solving, Eric Baron became Fred’s primary consultant and training provider, with Fred usually operating as partner and co-trainer during program delivery.
This relationship culminated in Fred joining The Baron Group as a Managing Director in 2001; he moved to South Carolina and became a Senior Consultant/principal trainer in 2004.
Prior to entering the business world, Fred was an officer and pilot in the United States Air Force. His six year tour of duty included 295 combat flying missions as a Forward Air Controller in Southeast Asia, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and several other decorations.
He is a graduate of PrincetonUniversity (English major) where he held a National Scholarship, the university’s largest internal academic grant.
Laurence Ledgerwood, Senior Consultant
Laurence (Larry) Ledgerwood is a results-oriented trainer and consultant with over 30 years of experience including line management as well as designing, developing, and delivering value-based training programs. He has been especially successful in delivering facilitative, process-oriented training that depends on his ability to model the skills being taught. The skill competencies of these training programs include:
Consultative Selling, Team Selling Sales Coaching, Strategic Account Planning, Meeting Management, Creative Problem Solving, Customer Relations, and Implementing Change in Sales Organizations.Mr. Ledgerwood is a frequent presenter at national training association meetings including the International Society of Performance Improvement (designated as an Encore Presenter based on attendee feedback) and the NASAGA (North American Simulation and Gaming Association).
He was also selected as a faculty member for the FederalJudicialCenter's Leadership Development Program.While redesigning the customer service organization for Consumer Sales and Service at AT&T, Mr. Ledgerwood was responsible for training over 500 Customer Sales and Service Representatives in basic Consultative Selling Skills developed by Eric Baron.
To support a change in behavior for Sales Reps, he implemented a Coaching for Sales Success program with the first and second line Sales Managers. This resulted in this organization becoming the number one SalesCenter for both Revenue and Customer Satisfaction for two consecutive years.
Mr. Ledgerwood was designated as a Master Trainer by AT&T based on his innovation and quality of delivery for Sales and Customer Service Training. As a Training Manager, he served on the AT&T Training Council. During this time, his group beta tested and piloted all new Customer Sales and Service training for all of Consumer Operations within AT&T.
Mr. Ledgerwood joined Mr. Baron at CRC in 1990 to continue his work on developing and delivering training to a wide variety of sales people and sales managers. As a key member of CRC’s staff, he was instrumental in implementing successful programs for a wide variety of organizations.
BJ Ledgerwood, Senior Consultant
BJ Ledgerwood applies her more than 15 years of experience as a trainer, manager and leader of sales and customer service organizations to the challenge of moving her client's people up the performance curve. BJ's background as a trainer and human performance consultant includes, Consultative Selling, Team Selling, Sales Coaching, Customer Relations, Negotiations, Meeting Management and Project Planning and Management. Her client experience and knowledge spans a variety of industries and sales situations.
Her expertise encompasses corporate training, group process, facilitation, design, development and delivery of skills based programs, project management, sales, marketing and product management.
In her role as a senior corporate trainer BJ provided sales training and sales manager coaching support for an organization of more than 4000 customer sales representatives, account executives and their managers for Pacific Bell a division of SBC.
As a professional facilitator BJ worked under the Federal Communications Commission to moderate a national telecommunications forum responsible for the negotiation, development, standardization and implementation of national uniform business practices for all telecommunication carriers operating in North America.
BJ's professional education includes UC Berkeley's Marketing program, the Wharton School of Business Strategic Market Planning program and StanfordUniversity's Leadership program.
David Michelson, Senior Consultant
For the past 25 years, David Michelson has created and conducted seminars on topics including consultative selling and service, personal leadership, and management development. Mr. Michelson has provided programs for organizations such as Marriott Corporation, Polaroid, Coopers & Lybrand, and many other Fortune 500 corporations. He has adapted seminars to international cultures within North America and South America, the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim.
Prior to initiating DTM Associates (1991), Mr. Michelson worked for four years with Consultative Resources Corporation (CRC), a consulting firm specializing in customized sales and management training programs. At CRC, he developed and maintained client relationships, designed and delivered programs, conducted train-the trainer workshops, and facilitated strategic planning meetings.
Preceding CRC, he spent five years with Great Western Bank performing various training and organization development functions to assist in cultivating a sales and service culture within the bank. In addition, he created and supervised an internal training consulting group to address specific departmental training needs. Mr. Michelson holds a M.S. in Human Resource Development from AmericanUniversity and a B.S. in Business from DickinsonCollege.
Tom McGuire, Senior Consultant
Tom McGuire has over 30 years experience with companies such as Richardson-Vicks, Ciba-Geigy and Novartis, designing, integrating and leading sales organizations. He is highly proficient in aligning company’s activities with visions, values and strategies. He has integrated numerous company and brand acquisitions, evaluated and deployed personnel, built new capabilities in such areas as category management, consumer insights and customer scorecards and exceeded targets.
Mr. McGuire led the creation of top customer business teams designed to recognize the sales potential of thought leading retailers by supplying resources across all disciplines that impact the relationship between the two companies.
As Sr. VP, Business Development and Planning, he created long term strategy across multiple business units addressing synergies, shared resources and strategies to achieve growth targets. His competency-based approach fostered the individual and organizational effectiveness required to meet long term business objectives.
Perrin Pearse, Senior Consultant
Perrin (Reggie) Pearse began his business career at age 18 when he took over the running of his family’s sales and distribution business. Steeped from such an early age in the dynamics and challenges of leading a successful sales organization, he brings over twenty years in leadership and sales to dynamic facilitation that incorporates the current research on relational intelligence.
Reggie brings a blend of rigor, humor and passion to his delivery of consultative sales training. He is passionate about helping sales professionals bring out the best in themselves, so they are more productive, motivated, and creative in their role.
Whether working with sales professionals in the classroom or coaching them in the field, Reggie focus’ on helping his clients develop the skills, and behaviors to combine their inherent talent for selling with a deliberate approach to incorporating the consultative selling process into their every day sales activities.
In his sales career he has ranked as the leading sales person nationally and internationally at organizations including Fidelity Investments and Cable and Wireless. Reggie has facilitated for organizations including Bank of New York, BostonArchitecturalCollege, Caliper Life Sciences, Fidelity Investments and Pepsi International. He has a BA in Management.
Kent D. Reilly, Senior Consultant
Kent Reilly received his Bachelors degree from TrinityCollege in Hartford, CT. After service in the Merchant Marines, Kent joined Consultative Resources Corporation, a sales process and creative problem-solving consultancy in Darien, CT where he worked for nine years.
In 1990, Kent left CRC to head Education & Training for MCI Telecommunications. In this position, Kent managed sales development strategies and professional development for the Commercial Telesales Group. Kent took a similar position with the German precision optics firm, Carl Zeiss, Inc. in 1992. As a Senior Marketing Manager with the Surgical Products Division, he created a comprehensive curriculum for Field Sales, Technical Service, Customer Service, Marketing, and Management. Before leaving in 1994, Kent had expanded his services to include all six of the North American divisions of Zeiss.
His consulting work has had him traveling extensively throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle-East and Far-East, facilitating training sessions and strategic planning meetings, working with such clients as: American Express, AT&T, Citibank, Chase, General Electric, Kuwait Finance House, Olympus, Pepsi and Standard Chartered Bank.
A frequent public speaker, Kent presents on the topics of Managing through Change, Time & Territory Management, Strategic Sales Process, and Coaching & Performance Management, and he is a member of the core Curriculum faculty of the New England School of Banking at WilliamsCollege, Williamstown, MA., teaching consultative sales and marketing.
James Schwarz, Senior Consultant
James (Jim) Schwarz is a sales consultant and executive coach. Jim works with business leaders, organizations and business groups enabling them to achieve their strategic goals. His years on the front lines at leading, competitive organizations including PepsiCo and Carnation Company (now Nestlé) provide an awareness of the real issues faced by organizations and individuals. His approach to coaching and consulting combines this pragmatic business experience with his intuitive nature to provide actionable insights. Jim often helps organizations going through structural and cultural change including merger and acquisition, re-structuring, senior leadership transitions, strategy shifts, personnel up-skilling and implementing a new company vision.
As an executive coach, Jim has worked with senior leaders from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Con Edison, Diageo, Marsh and Novartis. His approach to coaching combines his pragmatic business experience with his intuitive nature to provide actionable insights. Jim is a member of the Southern Connecticut Association for Psychological Type.
Jim is the President of Compass Management Group, Inc. Compass provides consulting services and training programs that enable organizations to attain their strategic goals. Responsibilities include marketing the firm's capabilities to businesses, assessing clients’ needs, creating and delivering effective solutions to clients’ needs, problem solving, facilitating meetings and public speaking.
- Clark Wilson Task Cycle Surveys, Paul Connolly, 2005 - The Art of Empowerment, Gail Straub & David Gershon, 1997 - Open Space Meeting Technology, Harrison Owen, 1995 - Fundamentals of Dialogue, Susan Miller, 1995 - Community Building Workshops (Scott Peck model), 1989--1993 - Managing Organization Change, ODR, Inc., 1992
Jim’s Representative Assignments include:
Vision and culture for a newly formed organization. Client was the U.S. division of a global consumer healthcare organization formed by the merger of two divisions. Senior management recognized that to be effective the new organization must quickly create an engaging vision, identity and culture, while respecting the legacies of the former divisions. Jim worked with senior management to build the initial foundation. He facilitated a cross-functional team to cultivate the vision and develop the initial communication plan. He also worked with them on a continuing basis to support and complete the successful transition.
Customer interface redesign. Client was the leading provider of supplemental education for kindergarten through 12th grade children. The president hired Jim to assist them in achieving sales excellence at the over 1000 learning centers nationwide. The work involved assessment of current practices, benchmarking customer best practices, designing a new process and implementing the change at the learning centers. Conversions of parent inquiries to enrollment increased over 30% at beta test learning centers.
Knowledge management implementation. Client was the leading eye care company. Jim designed and delivered training to sales executives to enhance customer needs determination, communication, problem solving and presentation skills. Executives’ uses of knowledge management data base through application of new skills lead to client being recognized by customers as the top supplier.
Executive coaching. Client was a rapid growth advertising firm. Jim worked with an executive vice president who had been with the company from its founding and was now having to make the transition to a much larger and more complex business and lead the management team. Jim helped the executive gain awareness of his out-dated beliefs about the business. He provided consulting to resolve conflict and greatly improve the effectiveness of the management team. The company’s growth and dominant share of market lead to the friendly purchase by a much larger communication firm.
Strategic development plan. Client was U.S. division of a global consumer products company. Jim worked with senior management to design an organization development plan linked to the company’s strategic imperatives. He assessed the current state of personnel capabilities, facilitated strategy sessions and researched the best resources for the organization’s needs. The plan has been institutionalized into the company and is credited with a turnaround in productivity and morale.