Meet our team

Meet our bright & dedicated team

Our team is a group of passionate, energised sales and marketing people focused on adding value to our clients. The team is led by, Charmaine Keegan.

Charmaine Keegan – Founder, Director & Lead Trainer

International Executive Sales Trainer, Keynote Speaker, Mindset & NLP Expert, Business Development and Performance Coach.

Charmaine Keegan is a Trainer, Keynote Speaker, Director and Founder of Smarter Selling (live training), Smarter Selling Academy (online training) and Trucare Training (training portal for pharmacists) – with a sales career spanning over 30 years.

She has trained over 8000 Sales Leaders and professionals, empowering them with the confidence to embrace Leading and Selling with integrity and authority, to position themselves as the Trusted Advisor, the Leader in their field, and the subject matter expert (and in doing so the consequence means revenue growth).

Charmaine is fascinated by human psychology. She is a Certified Trainer in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Hypnotherapy, Timeline therapy, Myer Briggs, Sales Competency, Situational Leadership and Extended DISC.

She has authored over 20 eBooks and is a sought-after panellist, content contributor and keynote speaker across Australia and abroad. i.e., Speaking to (and training the) Professional Speakers Association, the sales master chosen by Salesforce to be the spokesperson for 2022 and 2023.

Ann-Marie Pergamalis – Sales Development Consultant

Ann-Marie has a strong customer service, hospitality and event sales background. She has managed teams in fast-paced environments. Currently training, and teaching professionals in current industry standards and practices. She brings strong interpersonal skills and is adaptable and flexible.

With a genuine yearning for self-development and the ability to pivot (in her personal and professional life), she is genuinely interested in how people ‘think, act and communicate’. She brings a wealth of experience to Smarter Selling and our clients helping them map out a development pathway.

Michael Carr – Trainer

Mike comes initially from a Corporate background with Multinationals, Kiwi companies, and Start-Ups. He’s cut his teeth developing two companies of his own but really found a niche once he found coaching and training in business. Mike launched a string of successful consumer products still thriving today.

But he’s more proud of his work in sales development, senior management, and marketing. He works as a mentor and coach to several businesses, small and large both independently and as a business mentor with the NZ Chamber of Commerce. Mike runs workshops on persuasive presentations, negotiating, advanced selling, and targeted business pitching.

He is one of New Zealand’s few master Coaches with Extended DISC, enjoys Rotary, is a terrible golf player, and still rocks to hits of the 80s. Mike works all over Australasia but lives with Janny in Tauranga, Bay of Plenty.

With a genuine yearning for self-development and the ability to pivot (in her personal and professional life), she is genuinely interested in how people ‘think, act and communicate’. She brings a wealth of experience to Smarter Selling and our clients helping them map out a development pathway.

Jon Yeo – Trainer

Jon works with Leaders and Changemakers to understand the markers for incremental influence. People don’t change overnight, but our ability to strategically nudge it forward is always available to us.

Jon began his work in the mid-90’s as a young engineer trying to convince his CEO of the significance of Y2k if it was ignored. While leading TEDxMelbourne, he saw the YouTube data for, “what causes someone to pause, rewind or abandon a TED Talk?”

Through his data and exploration of influence, he designed models based on 1st principles, laws of physics and biology and on the assumption that “Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But No Simpler” (attributed to Einstein)

He is more interested in the psychology of influence over the mechanics of storytelling. Known for his ability to articulate the complex simply, Jon works with CEO’s and senior leadership teams to build trust, empathy and engagement. Past clients include Salesforce, SAP, National Australia Bank, Australia Post and Mercer.

Jon has been the Licensee for TEDxMelbourne since 2009 and is a past National President for Professional Speakers Australia.

Chris Muir – Trainer

Chris has been in sales, marketing, communications and training for over 30 years and has pitched and won literally billions of dollars’ worth of business all over the world. He has advised clients of all sizes, including Singapore Airlines, 3M, Sage, SC Johnson, Multiplex, NAB, Fuji Xerox, Canon Medical, Nokia, UPS, Mattel, Toshiba and Apple. He goes deep into businesses to audit, design and implement bespoke, customer centric B2B and B2C sales and leadership programs that represented transformational change not only of the sales and leadership teams, but the value propositions of the business. These programs were designed to optimise all stages of the sales cycle, the value of every lead and to build high performance sales & leadership teams.

His ‘freak factor’ is asking the right questions at the right time and coming to grips with individual business strategies, understanding what ‘hot buttons’ different audiences have, then creating unique, needs-based value propositions and persuasive arguments that get results…and let’s not forget, passing those skills on to other people.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Business (Marketing) from UTS and an MBA from Booth Business School at the University of Chicago. He is also a Certified Professional Behavioural Analyst (CPBA), a Certified Professional Motivators Analyst (CPMA) and a Certified Professional EQ (Emotional Intelligence) Analyst (CPEQA).

Aubrey Warren – Trainer

Aubrey’s experience in supporting individuals, teams and organisations to develop their leadership and communication skills encompasses corporate training, postgraduate teaching, executive coaching, and the development of tailored leadership and communication skills programs. He is committed to providing professional development that “educates, equips and encourages”.

Aubrey is a Situational Leadership® master trainer and Influence 3 is the Australia and New Zealand Global Affiliate for The Center for Leadership Studies. For more than 15 years he has helped individuals and teams develop practical and sustainable communication and leadership skills, working in both the private and public sectors across Australia, as well as internationally. His communication workshops cover written communication, presentation skills and team collaboration. The Conversations at Work program can be tailored to specific areas of focus, and explores principles of interpersonal, team and organisational communication, leadership and emotional intelligence.

Aubrey teaches communication and leadership units in the MBA, EMBA and DMBA programs at QUT’s Graduate School of Business, in addition to being a regular contributor to other QUTEX postgraduate, executive education and executive coaching programs.

With a background in media production, he has produced a leadership and communication newsletter since 2007 and his book Conversations at Work: Promoting a culture of conversation in a changing workplace (co-authored with Dr Tim Baker) was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015.

A widely experienced corporate educator, Aubrey holds a Master of Business degree, and his accreditations include Situational Leadership® (global master trainer), DiSC, Emotional Intelligence EQ-i 2.0, MBTI, the Team Management Profile, and The Leadership Circle.

Becky Carr – Trainer

Becky has a huge fascination and love for knowledge in all things related to the human brain and how it impacts behaviour.

It led her to become a Master Trainer in world-renowned psychometric tools delivering debriefs, personal coaching, sales coaching, team training, and leadership development. Her clients are throughout Australasia where she has delivered hundreds of workshops and certification training.

Several areas her love of psychology has taken her are sales behaviours and leadership development. If you’ve ever been to her workshops you’d know she’s fun but also a real-world facilitator that brings the theory into reality. Becky has done the hard yards in sales herself and started her journey as a sales trainer many moons ago, before discovering the world of psychometrics.

Her passion is for introducing people to the world of science-backed behavioural profiling. She loves that various frameworks make it easier for organisations and individuals to understand complex human aspects like communication, conflict, fears, and strengths both in and out of the work environment. There are plenty of ‘A-ha’ moments to be had out there!

Becky has worked as a coach and facilitator in this field for over 18 years now. She produces industry-driven webinars, designs and trains certification programs online and in person. She’s worked with multi nationals, startups, SMEs and does plenty of one-to-ones on all levels in all industries. She’s a great listener, full of energy, and interactive.

Karen Kirton

Karen Kirton is the founder and Managing Director of Amplify HR which is a consulting company that specialises in creating great places to work – especially for businesses of less than 100 employees.

With over 20 years’ experience in Human Resources Management roles including managing small and large teams, Karen works with business owners and leaders to find & keep great employees, increase productivity & get unstuck from the day-to-day.

Karen holds a Graduate Diploma in Psychology, Bachelor of Business(Human Resources & Marketing), Certificate IV in Training & Assessment and is a Certified Professional member of the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI). She is also the author of the Amazon best-selling book, Great People, Great Business: Your HR handbook for creating a business that’s ready to scale and grow

You can learn more about Karen and connect with her on LinkedIn or listen to her fortnightly podcast Find Grow Keep for 10-20 minute episodes on how to create a great place to work.

Katrina Stephenson – Trainer

Kat is curious by nature with a desire to solve problems and put ideas into action. Her career journey is sales, marketing, and leadership roles in the building & construction, IT and business continuity, recruitment, coaching, learning & development arenas.

She brings all of that together with my passion for helping people understand what makes them tick, and change the way they think and behave so that they can operate differently and achieve real success while living more healthy, balanced and enjoyable lives.

Kat is a Master Certified Practitioner in DISC + qualifications DISC, Motivators, Emotional Intelligence, Critical Thinking, and Performance Gap Indicators. She is a Director of Cross Check Australasia, founded in 2006 as a recruitment firm and evolving to meet the needs of clients by unlocking human potential.

Gemma Garratt – Marketing Consultant

Gemma is a B2B digital and content marketing specialist dedicated to making businesses shine. She translates business challenges into the creation of effective, fully integrated, multi-channel, agile marketing strategies. Gemma is passionate about helping small to medium business reach their sales and marketing goals through brand strategy and simple, highly effective content marketing & marketing automation programs – with clear KPIs – to maximise the sales team’s performance, creating opportunities for them to build and retain their client base and increase revenues. Her experience spans over 27 years in Sydney and New York – with brands in the top 100 ASX including BlueScope Steel, Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, Singtel Optus Group. She has her own consulting business and works with us on a regular basis. LinkedIn

Maria Harding – Creative Director

Maria has been assisting with all the graphic design for Smarter Selling since 2011. She has over 20 years experience as a graphic design and art director and – fun fact; Charmaine and Maria both worked together at the beginning of their careers in London over 20 years ago! Maria is also a talented fine artist and works from her home studio in the Blue Mountains.