What Others Say

“I've known Debbie for several years now. When she was at the Kansas
City Star, I saw her move up within the company. A stellar salesperson
extraordinaire. She definitely found her "calling" when she became the
Director of Sales Training with Knight Ridder. Her training/coaching
sessions were thorough, right on target, NEVER BORING and definitely
addressed concerns for ANY Salesperson (or Manager) facing the ever
evolving challenges of the Advertising world..I have over 20+ years
experience as a Call Center Manager. After a coaching session I always
brought back loads of information and new sales techniques to my reps.
Debbie puts her heart and soul into everything she does. Just spend 2
minutes with her and you'll see for yourself. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND, (yes,
I'm yelling) Debbie. You will come away feeling renewed.

"At Star Tribune in Minneapolis/St. Paul, we've been working in partnership with People First for several months. Our collaboration yielded an onboarding program for new hires (Launch) that's been a tremendous asset in gaining sales productivity and buy-in from our new reps.

The core program and facilitators materials, developed by People First, were easy to customize and implement.  Both Deb Calvert and her associate, Mary Altuvilla, were on-site often to support our training and management teams.

Mary did a terrific job refining and re-working the training so that our current account executives learned the same systems and processes we were teaching new hires. In addition, she did a solid job of coaching us to effectively facilitate the People First training. She shows great leadership skills in addressing a wide range of selling styles, experience levels and skill sets during training--she excels at getting everyone on board.

People First is currently rolling out a more advanced Orbit training which is successfully taking our sales organization on the next leg of the journey toward stronger selling practices."

“The Onboard Launch Sales Training webinars that you conducted across the four Hearst Newspapers markets were excellent! The Three Perspectives, the Fundamentals and the Needs Based Selling webinars were all very powerful, informative and relevant information that our new hires needed to be successful in their new jobs. The webinars offered effective learning and communication across the four newspapers. We are very excited to have experienced the rich content that you provided through these webinars.  Thanks again for a great learning opportunity.”

“Launch is a direct result of the many hours you have spent here in Omaha interviewing the account executives and sales managers, plus the many more hours preparing me for the new Training Manager position. The training techniques, the 10-day training program, and curriculum you’ve developed… pay dividends in the form of a better-trained staff, on the streets of Omaha, selling newspaper advertising.”