Chris Webber
My passion is people. I know the fear of dealing with difficult and intimidating customers and I want everyone to be able to succeed with these people and feel confident and empowered
Chris Webber
Who I am
I grew up in a small industrial town in the north of England, St Helens. It was a powerhouse of industry, the home of Pilkington's Glass the pioneers of sheet glass making and of Beechams, famous for cold and flu treatments. Tens of thousands of people in the town were employed directly or by associated businesses and the town flourished.
However in the 1970's and 80's, as I was born, these industries left and the town began to fade. Aspirations were to secure a job with a monthly salary rather than a weekly wage and unemployment was high. Many of my friends focussed only on escaping the town to find success elsewhere and I shared this dream.
I loved sport, St Helens is the home of one of the worlds best Rugby League teams and my dream was professional sports. Nestled in-between Liverpool and Manchester, St Helens was a hub of sporting excellence in football, rugby league, rugby union, cricket and more. I loved them all and my dream was the Olympics or to play at Old Trafford in a Grand Final.
At 18 my dreams came true and I signed a professional rugby league contract with Wigan and I couldn't have been happier. However 3 years later my dreams were dashed when I was dropped from the team and my contract was cancelled.
I was distraught and had no idea what to do.
I found myself in a pub one afternoon when I had a realisation that if I can sell, then there would always be work and I joined a pharmaceutical company as a sales representative.
I realised that this was something that I excelled at and I rose quickly. I became a leader and grew in confidence working across brands, across teams and across Europe.
I had a gift for connecting with people and influencing them. I built strong partnerships with customers and negotiated excellent agreements. I learned to deal with even the most challenging people, building respect and making business progress when others could not.
This skill meant that I was given increasing levels of responsibility; to manage larger customers, to deal with greater challenges, to deal with joint venture partners and to work across boundaries.
In 2014 my career took another turn when I was invited to teach my skills to clients all around the world. I was challenged to share my knowledge and experience, to deliver impactful training events and more importantly to work directly with them to help them overcome significant business challenges.
Today, as founder of Foxleigh I continue with that mission. My passion is helping people to succeed when they believe they cannot.
Our mission is to create confident commercial communicators who can succeed with difficult customers. We teach negotiation excellence, share the skills of delivering excellent meeting experiences, and support leaders to build excellence into their team culture.
I saw first-hand the fear and uncertainty of dealing with difficult people and I know that success comes from taking on these challenges and learning to do hard things.
We show you how to be prepared, we help you to unlock the secrets of the customer's world and how to use this insight together with behavioural and communication skills to deliver the results that you need to catapult your career forward.
Anyone can get results when times are easy, it takes something special to achieve it when there are difficult customers and our passion is to help you achieve the special.
84% of clients would recommend Foxleigh to a friend or colleague
95% of clients rate the experience with Foxleigh as excellent
93% of clients were able to resolve immediate commercial challenges
Our Customers
Foxleigh prides itself on solving real business challenges for clients seeking to enhance their performance.
We do not provide 'tick box' or standardised training. Instead, we use our tested formulas and programmes to adapt to specific business issues and provide personalised experiences.
Our clients are typically sales teams, commercial organisations, marketing teams and human resources groups who are frustrated by the lack of progress they are making to deliver results or implement change.
We build on your current expertise and confidence, providing enhanced development plans to people who are seeking ways to gain an edge.
Our clients are courageous and willing to explore new ideas. They are commercially aware and they are facing specific business performance challenges.
Our programmes are experiential using workshops, exercises and case studies to provide learning opportunities. Where relevant we involve actors to provide more realistic customer experiences and everything is reviewed thoroughly to identify opportunities to learn.
Our teaching is based on specific Foxleigh business models that include tools for planning and preparation. We have structures to help manage difficult conversations, methodology to explore trust levels, definitions of value, identify customer types and specific customer needs and strategies to understand emotions and build influential message plans.
It is a complete toolkit for individuals and teams seeking to develop capabilities today and processes for tomorrow to build sustained and effective learning cultures.
If you are struggling to be heard and understood by your customers. If you are finding internal alignment difficult and cannot build consensus across your organisation or if you simply want to make a big impact and stand out when you host a meeting for customers or colleagues, then we would love to talk to you about how we can provide you with the foundation of excellence for today and the future.
