SELLING is more than a knack. It's a craft that can be learned - and trained sales teams yield more profits than untrained ones.

That's the lesson learned by Steve Catchpole, director of Harrogate-based CoachMe Ltd, which is competing for the New Business Of The Year title in the 2004 Evening Press Business Of The Year.

And he learned it during his 20 years in the tough world of selling corporate telecommunications solutions to blue chip companies for BT and Cable and Wireless.

His business offers one-to-one sales coaching of companies' sales staff, either out in the field, on the shop floor or in the office, with sharpened techniques, better campaign planning and strategic account management.

Steve sees it as a practical alternative or adjunct to classroom-based studies of sales theory.

He said: "The coaching also offers much-needed support to sales managers who are struggling to find enough time to give their staff one-to-one sales training due to increasingly large sales teams and other managerial commitments."

His aim: To achieve ten earning days per month within the first year of trading, and he wants to manage four or five long term contracts within the next two or three years.

Updated: 12:08 Thursday, August 12, 2004