MEET THE TEAM

What People Say About Us Why Acuity Works

Tom Niesen, founder and CEO of Acuity Training, Inc . Acuity has schools for salespeople, sales managers, and entrepreneurs in Dallas, Austin, and Houston. Tom can frequently be found on the road conducting in-house workshops for major corporations. He is regularly asked to assist in training and development of sales trainers nationwide

Tom teaches non-traditional client development, negotiating, and business development to thousands of professionals in over 260 industries.

In fact, in a recent Magazine article “Sales Superstars” 4 of the 8 listed were clients of Acuity Training systems.

Tom has conducted seminars for such companies as Quaker Oats, Minolta, Lucent, Fuji Film and McDonalds. Tom is presently working on his Ph.D. at Dallas Baptist University . Tom has been featured in radio and print. Tom Niesen was also 1999 Dallas Man of the Year.

As President of Acuity, Karl Graf is recognized nationally as a business development expert, specializing in executive sales consulting and sales productivity training. He is an authentic, enthusiastic speaker who can inform as well as entertain and motivate Presidents, CEO's, other Senior Managers and Sales Professionals.

He helps industry leaders formulate successful management and sales and prospecting strategies daily. Top executives from DirecTV, Sprint, and Aquila have benefited from Karl's expertise and experience, especially in the areas of new account acquisition and recruiting an effective sales winner.

By focusing on buyer's and seller's attitudes and behaviors, not just techniques, Karl's clients are able to achieve "superior selling" results. He utilizes the only Management Development Curriculum that is ISO9000 certified and Entrepreneur Magazine ranked #1. His "How to Build a Superior Sales Force" Seminar was ranked #1 by INC. Magazine four years in a row.

Brett Baker We welcome Brett Baker to the Acuity team as a Managing Partner. Prior to joining Acuity, Brett spent 20 years as V.P. of Operations, Sales Management, and Sales With companies such as Jiffy Lube, K.W. Brock Directories, and Wood Re New Franchise System. Brett trained, coached, and motivated hundreds of individuals to a higher level of success. The last three years as V.P. of Franchise Development with Wood Re New, Brett realized his passion for a “Selling System” and a well defined “Sales Culture.” As a client of Acuity during this time, Brett enjoyed studying the “180 Degree Approach to Traditional Sales”

The late golf great, Bobby Jones, is quoted saying “Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a half-inch course . . . . the space between your ears.” Brett now focuses his talent on Acuity client development through behavior management.

Brett has been actively working with many of Dallas’ top companies. Areas of Particular interest to many of his clients are: prospecting into new opportunities, Systematizing the selling process, customer retention strategies, and sales management consulting.

Melissa Blackwell is a self-professed “rarity” that very few companies come to know. She is a Human Resources professional that is passionate about building great sales teams for companies of every size and industry. After 16 years in various roles from inside sales to the head of HR for a mid-sized corporation, she decided to follow the path to develop that passion which took her to Acuity, already a leader in sales development and recruiting selection tools. Prior to joining Acuity; Melissa has developed and refined processes for sales recruiting and selection that are unequaled in any service company. Melissa has the talent to combine her recruiter expertise and meld it with exacting “right choice” clients, tailoring specific client training to secure self-sufficiency and success! Melissa honed her managerial coaching skills to draw high caliber candidates, all of whom have gone on to reach and exceed their original expectations.

Prior to starting with Acuity, Melissa spent 16 years working various positions with a dental distribution company; working in customer service, sales, sales management, and human resource management positions. Earlier accomplishments included a quite impressive array of training and development plans to include developing and implementing a Human Resource department to include hiring processes, employee on-boarding programs, the creation and implementation of Customer Service, Inside and Field Sales Training Program, organization development interventions to improve relationships and organizational effectiveness; and serving as the direct affiliate to the President/CEO of the company.

Melissa specializes in the HR consulting and hiring side of Acuity to include assisting companies with the selection, creation and hiring of sales representatives and managers, developing and implementing hiring processes and various human resource functions. You will be satisfied with her unique style, approach and end result.

Education:
Melissa has a Bachelors degree from MidAmerica Nazarene University in Business and Human Relations. Melissa regularly attends professional development events and conferences and supports continual education in Human Resource CE credits. She is part of the Objective Management Group STAR certification program (part of the sales assessment process for hiring sales representatives and managers).