James Howe

President, Motion, Genuine Parts Company

Search every verified James Howe interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a July 2025 interview on the SPARXiQ Ignite Series, James Howe, President of Motion at Genuine Parts, discussed the company's sales transformation strategy. Howe described the salesforce as Motion's largest investment and biggest opportunity for improving growth and profitability. He criticized traditional "lunch and learn" sales training models, arguing that they are ineffective due to the "forgetting curve," which he said causes people to forget about 90% of what they learn within 30 days without retentive exercise. Howe advocated for "drip learning" as a more precise approach. Howe also stated that "sellers sell too little when sellers sell too much," meaning they are too focused on selling and not enough on helping buyers purchase. He said the goal of the transformation is to make it "better to be our customer, harder to be our competitor, better to be our shareholder, and better to be our salesperson," with salespeople seeing increases in income and productivity.