Sales Performance Associates LLC

Jim Cundiff is the Founder and Managing Partner of Sales Performance Associates. He brings more than 20 years of sales leadership, management and marketing experience to the firm. Cundiff has been a consistent sales and sales management leader and offers a wide range of personal experience in complex media technology sales.

At Associated Press Broadcast Technology, Jim directed global sales and marketing efforts that made the company’s technology the leading automated production and support system for broadcasters worldwide. As Vice President, Sales and Marketing - Americas with BASYS (now part of Avid Technologies), Cundiff’s team consistently won highly-competitive opportunities making the company’s news/sports production and automation system the de facto standard for newsrooms worldwide.

Prior to beginning his sales and management career, Cundiff was an award-winning broadcast journalist and public relations account executive.

Since forming Sales Performance Associates in 2004, Cundiff has worked with a wide variety of media technology clients to define, develop and deliver sales and tactical marketing improvement programs and special projects.

In addition to media technology experience, Jim has also enjoyed senior management and consulting success with such leading companies as Siebel, SEER Technologies, Scopus Technology, Baxter Planning Systems and Burson-Marsteller Public Relations.

Media Technology Sales and Marketing Management

Over half of Jim's sales and marketing management experience was earned in media technology companies like Cox Communications, Jefferson-Pilot Data Systems, BASYS Automation Systems, Associated Press Broadcast Technology and others.

At AP Broadcast Technology, he and his team…

• Increased annual billing nearly 1,100% (from $347,000 to $4.16 million) and total contract value 372% (from $3.58 million to $16.34 million) in 12 months

• Directed sales and marketing efforts resulting in a tenfold increase in client count Implemented a new sales process and forecasting methodology resulting in a 92% increase in forecast accuracy and near-zero loss rate of process-qualified sales opportunities

• Developed international distributor plan and recruited agents and distributors in Portugal, Norway, Russia, Greece, Australia, Singapore, China, United Arab Emirates and other locations

• Built full-solution partner relationships with Netia, Omnibus, Pinnacle, Quantel, Radioman, SONY, IBM Media and Entertainment and others

Jim was directly responsible for the structure, final negotiations and closure of $1.80 million in 1999 billed revenues (over $15 million in total contract value) - 60% of all business booked that year including contracts with…

At BASYS Automation Systems, Cundiff directed sales and marketing efforts covering North and South America, Pacifica and Asia. During a period of dynamic industry and technology change, he steered the BASYS team to unquestioned leadership in the highly competitive news production and automation market.

He and his team secured major commitments from some of the world’s leading broadcast networks and operations including Fox Television Stations, Fox Television Network, NBC Owned and Operated Television Group, Group W/Westinghouse Radio , ABC (Radio Networks and owned and operated stations), Cox Communications, Gannett Broadcast and others.

Jim was directly responsible for major account management including relationships with Group W/Westinghouse Broadcasting (now CBS Television Stations), NBC News, CBS News, ABC News (radio and TV network), and Fox Broadcasting.

In 1985 he conceived, produced and delivered the first objective productivity impact study of television newsroom automation focusing on an implementation at Group W/Westinghouse Broadcasting.

In special projects and programs delivered by Sales Performance Associates...

• Cundiff implemented, refined and managed a six-month demand creation project that secured more than 70 one-on-one meetings with senior level decision makers in targeted prospect companies - delivering more than 50 qualified net new business opportunities.

• He developed and administered international sales and marketing plan for start-up Middle Eastern broadcast technology and programming conference including advising senior client management on day-to-day sales tactics and strategies, market positioning, and pricing; development and delivery of industry-specific sales training for Beirut-based sales team (as consulting Director of Sales and Marketing); design, deployment and implementation of international marketing program (email, telesales, direct sales and advertising) targeting media equipment manufacturers.

• Cundiff secured partners, exhibitors and sponsors including Avid Technologies, Omneon Video Networks, Vizrt, WSI Corporation, Apple Computers, Autodesk, and other major companies for a start-up media trade exposition in Beirut, Lebanon.

Public Relations and Corporate Communications

While an Account Executive with Burson-Marsteller Public Relations, Jim worked on some of the agency’s largest and most strategic accounts including M&M/MARS and General Electric Consumer Products.

He was an account team member directly involved in two events recently recognized by Fast Company magazine as the best and worst moments in public relations history - the agency’s handling of McNeil Laboratories’ response to the Tylenol product tampering crisis in 1982 – and – M&M/MARS’ decision not to participate in a movie that same year by a (then) little-known director featuring an alien eating candy - Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-terrestrial.

He lead a team that deployed the first known public relations information technology solution - a database management system used by M&M/MARS during Halloween 1983 to track and respond to suspected product tampering reports in real-time.

Jim won several awards for his broadcast journalism work at radio and television stations in Virginia and North Carolina.  He studied Political Science at Virginia Tech and got hooked on broadcasting at the college radio station.

Jim and his family live in Roswell - a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.

Sales and Marketing Conditioning

Sales Performance Associates helps growing media technology companies achieve sustainable, repeatable and predictable revenue growth by improving sales and marketing processes, methods and execution. Our unique sales conditioning approach helps clients identify more and better sales opportunities; improve the size, qualification and velocity of their pipeline; enhance sales forecast accuracy; win more competitive opportunities; grow business within existing accounts and upgrade overall sales and marketing execution and efficiency.

We address the full range of tactical marketing and sales operations - from demand creation through to close. Sales conditioning starts with a Strategic Assessment workshop with your senior management team to define the who, what, where, why and how of your sales challenges. Then we deliver a comprehensive report of indicated improvements, a best practices sales process map and a customized plan to deliver the highest return in the shortest time. We work with your "live" deals in coaching and training workshops to make new methods and tactics immediately relevant. And to assure adoption, our program includes on-demand opportunity coaching and recurring training to reinforce the new methods.

Action Item: Schedule a Sales Conditioning Check-up

Your sales and marketing team doesn't need training...they need sales conditioning. Click here to schedule a no-obligation 20 to 30 minute telephone conversation to discuss your situation.

Let's see where we can help.