President, Motion, Genuine Parts
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.
“I always say one of the ironies is that sellers sell too little when sellers sell too much and that means they're too focused on selling and not focused enough on helping their buyers buy.”
“The big prize really is that when we do it successfully, it becomes better to be our customer, harder to be our competitor, better to be our shareholder, and better to be our salesperson because it's a win for them as well. They should have an increase in income and productivity.”
We are joined by James Howe in a conversation about the strategic playbook Motion used to transform its organization.
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