Meet The Team

Mary Kay Hauer

Mary Kay Solution Selling

Principal Consultant

President and Founder
of MKH Associates, Inc

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Since establishing the firm in 1992, Mary Kay has shared her talent, passion and skills with leadership, sales, marketing, operations and support teams to transform their processes and sales approach by recognizing and developing talent and resources to their full potential.

She has worked with hundreds of organizations in many verticals and geographies, including many of the top successful companies in the world.

Her expertise and approach has earned her recognition and praise from clients, peers and salespeople as one on the top business consultants and trainers in the Solution Selling® methodology and practices.

Prior to establishing MKH & Associates, Mary Kay spent her career in the development and growth of sales and marketing efforts for global companies including the Marriott Corporation and Hyatt Hotels. Employing her management operations training and strengths, she established process and procedures for opening new markets, acquiring existing markets and restructuring under-performing markets by establishing strong key customer bases with Fortune 100 companies.

Mary Kay implemented a multitude of training and corporate self-improvement seminars in sales, product marketing, safety, operational procedures, company and government regulations, motivation and time and resource management for her leadership teams, sales and operations teams and line employees
She also worked in a sale leadership position working with a professional services team to replace paper-based processes with technology.

Academic credentials include a Major in Business Administration with a Minor in Advertising and a Major in Mass Communications with a Minor in Public Relations from the University of Minnesota – Mankato.

C. William Reed

Sales Process

Senior Consultant

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C. William has spent over 18 years as a consultant primarily focused on Solution Selling®. He has experience in curriculum, courseware, product and methods development and extensive workshop facilitation experience. He has designed custom processes and instructional materials for clients in many different traditional and non-traditional verticals. He has also developed and delivered product offerings including planning disciplines, sales management and advanced sales topics. In addition, he has built instructor certification programs, customized client offerings for international clients, enveloped multiple methodologies into single customer derived processes that delivered success through defined and managed opportunity reviews and situation coaching.

Prior to becoming a senior consultant, C. William spent over 30 years in sales, sales management and executive management. In his experience, he managed a sales unit that exceeded quota and attained expense measurements. He led a sales team to manage the relationship ship with a large US Regional bank. The team exceeded annual quota five consecutive years realizing revenue gains from $15 million to $30 million per annum. In addition, C. William also drove the market development effort from market research and survey offering design and business case through hiring of contractors and programmers to build a prototype for market validation. This effort was geared towards the financial industry. He was recognized as a manager who was able to identify and develop personal plans to promote high potential members of his team to further their career within his organization to become key players in the success of his company.

In addition to being a certified instructor in the Solution Selling® methodology, C. William attend the Executive Banking School and Market Planning and Development Methodologies at Wharton School. He has a B. S. in Mathematics and Education and Textile Management and a Masters in Textile Engineering/Experimental Statistics from North Carolina State University.

Jeanette Marie Bassi

Sales Training

Senior Consultant

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Jeanette-Marie (JM), is a consultant for fortune 500 companies. She graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from California State University Northridge and a Masters Degree in Gerontology/Psychology from the University of Northern Colorado. She has college teaching credentials in Psychology and Computers and Relative Technologies. She is college certified in Strategies in Organizational Development from Phoenix University and Professional Human Resources Management from Chapman University.

JM is also certified in Strategic Planning and Management from the International Centre for Strategic Management. She is considered an expert in the fields of Organizational Development, Executive Coaching, Strategic Planning and Management, Leadership Development, Talent Management, Succession Planning, Performance Improvement, Instructional Systems Design, Training and Delivery, Business Needs Assessment and Analysis, and Presentation and Facilitation Skills. She has taught and mentored others to be skilled in these areas including Corporate Presidents and CEO’s.  Prior to consulting, JM was Director of Performance and Organizational Development at Home Depot Supply, Vice President Corporate Nationwide Training at Security Pacific Financial Services, and Vice President Statewide Training and Delivery at Bank of America.

Pat Creighton

Sales Skills

Senior Consultant

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Pat is the founder and president of Transition Architects, Inc. Having the solid foundation of over twenty-five years of sales, marketing, and business management experience, Pat has contributed to such groups as Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco Systems, UnitedHealth Group, Emerson Controls, Autodesk, Exxon Mobil, Diebold and Dupont. Areas of expertise include curriculum and courseware design and extensive workshop facilitation experience. She has provided leadership associated with consultative and Solution Selling® executive selling skills, strategic account and opportunity management, and effective channel management. She has taught and coached hundreds of sales professionals which in turn has allowed these sales professionals to build stronger and more business based relationships at the customer executive level.

Additionally, Pat has versatility in her delivery methods as she has been working in the virtual interactive training space for over five years and has received the highest accreditation in designing and delivering of virtual interactive training.

Prior to founding Transition Architects in 2000, Pat served Hewlett-Packard for over 14 years in a variety of sales, marketing, and business management positions. As a consistent top performer, she was a key contributor in a number of areas:

  • Developed and led the sales readiness program for HP’s North America Enterprise Sales Organization. She was instrumental in implementing key business processes; such as account management, opportunity management and channel partner planning; as fundamentals of running the North American sales business. This resulted in an increase in customer satisfaction within all strategic accounts and with key channel partners.
  • Developed and led the “Build the Best” sales management assessment program across North America which provided a framework for assessing manager’s current performance capabilities and talent with an ongoing on-on-one coaching program
  • Provided Go-To-Market Solutions planning resulting in increased sales in specific solutions areas and increased partnering with key
    channel solution providers

Creighton started her career as a financial and budget analyst for First Bank System in St. Paul MN. She served FBS over eight years in a variety of financial and IT positions. Her last position was to manage their 24/7 help desk serving over 10,000 customers in a five state area.

Helen Talmadge

Senior Consultant

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Helen Talmadge has a passion for empowering sales organizations to create compelling sales presentations which set them apart from the competition. “As the world quickly changes, so do the needs of the people to whom we present our information.”  An important skill for any seller, is the ability to give compelling sales presentations to the right person, with the right message, at the right time during the sales process. Teaching the behavioral psychology and latest adult cognitive learning research allows participants to understand the “why” behind the necessary changes they need to make in their day to day conversations and presentations.

As a consultant for the past ten years,  I have the privilege of working with sales organizations to implement training that will allow their account managers to experience greater results such as:

  • shorter sales cycles
  • differentiating themselves in a highly competitive environment
  • getting to the decision maker faster
  • being able to qualify and disqualify more quickly
  • simply winning more deals.

As a facilitator I empower clients in technology, life sciences, healthcare, financial, retail and manufacturing industries, just to name a few, to increase their sales revenues through the implementation of a proven sales process.  My experience with clients includes; conducting organizational assessments, building job specific tools, customization of sales process, customization of training programs and facilitation of a variety of sales, marketing and management training programs. In 2009 I combined the best practices of Solution Selling® with my own presentation skills IP to form an exciting two-day program called SolutionSpeak™; teaching sellers to develop and deliver solution-driven presentations.

The latest research shows that we make it psychologically hard for buyers to say “Yes” to us by the way we present to them. I look forward to working with your organization and sharing the latest research on what buyers in today’s marketplace desperately need from you, to make a decision to say “YES”.

Helen officially joined as a partner with MKH Associates in 2017 as a result of her extensive work with all members of the MKH team since 2007.