Podcasts about salespeople

Send a textBill and Bryan are giving you a preview of the March 6th ASP Insider session — and it's one you don't want to miss.The topic is From Content to Conquest, but this isn't a social media training. It's about what you know, what you believe, and how you package your expertise so prospects say, "I want to know more."Before diving into the March session, Bill and Bryan walk through the perspective shifts that have to happen first — because you can know exactly what to do and still not do it. The missing ingredient is almost always how you see things.Plus, Bryan shares how the Mental Health for Salespeople series resonated far beyond the sales world — and what that buzz means for upcoming episodes.The Insider program is open for enrollment. To check out our small learning group, go to http://advancedsellingpodcast.com/insiderIf you haven't already, join 14,000+ other sales professionals in our LinkedIn group at advancedsellingpodcast.com/linkedinIs it time to make a BOLD move in your business? If so, download our brand new book, "12 Bold Moves - Insider Secrets to Reinventing Yourself and Your Business." http://12boldmoves.comTurn your content into clients with the proven roadmap — join Insider today at advancedsellingpodcast.com/insider

In this episode of Sales & Cigars, Walter Crosby sits down with Matthew Higham from Deksia for a thoughtful conversation about sales as service, culture fit, and what actually creates long-term business growth. The discussion moves well beyond tactics and into how salespeople think, listen, and show up. Matthew shares how his creative background led him into sales, why he genuinely enjoys prospecting, and how "unreasonable hospitality" applies just as much to agencies and sales teams as it does to five-star restaurants. From trusting your gut in career decisions to knowing when not to sell, this episode is a grounded reminder that great sales isn't about pressure—it's about clarity, care, and consistency.   Episode Highlights Why Unreasonable Hospitality belongs on every salesperson's bookshelf Sales as a form of service—not persuasion How listening creates leverage in both sales and client relationships Why most great ideas come from volume, not perfection The difference between selling tactics and building strategy Why lead generation fails without sales readiness When saying "this isn't a fit" is the best move How culture fit shows up before the offer letter is signed Key Takeaways Sales works best when it's rooted in service Listening closely often matters more than saying the right thing Not every prospect should become a client Strategy must come before tactics Repetition builds reputation—marketing isn't flashy, it's consistent Trust your gut when evaluating culture and fit Salespeople don't need to do everything—but they do need the right support Who Should Listen This episode is for: Salespeople who care deeply about the people they sell to Agency leaders balancing strategy, service, and growth Business owners frustrated by "more leads" not solving the problem Anyone questioning whether sales can feel authentic and human Professionals evaluating culture fit in their next role About the Guest Matthew Higham is a sales leader at Deksia, a full-journey marketing agency known for its strategy-first approach. With a background in the creative world, Matthew brings a people-first perspective to sales—one focused on listening, alignment, and long-term outcomes over short-term wins. About Deksia Deksia is a full-journey marketing agency that helps organizations grow by aligning strategy, brand, and execution. Rather than leading with individual tactics, Deksia starts with business goals and builds integrated marketing systems designed for sustainable growth. Links & Resources Matthew Higham – Email: matthew@deksia.com Deksia Website Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara Subscribe & Follow Sales & Cigars is hosted by Walter Crosby of Helix Sales Development. The only smoke we blow is from cigars. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and join the conversation.

Salespeople are overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time in which to do it.  Something must change.  The best way to take control of your time is to change the way you think and the amount of time you spend thinking. In this post, we share three specific ways to do that. ***************************************************************************         Dave Kahle is a B2B sales expert and a Christian Business thought leader.  He has authored 13 books, presented in 47 states and 11 countries and worked with over 500 sales organizations.  In these ten-minute podcasts, his unique blend of out-of-the-box thinking and practical insights will challenge and enable you to sell better, lead better and live better.        Subscribe to these ten-minute helpings of out-of-the-box inspiration, education and motivation. WWW,DaveKahle.com Check out the X-I Community

Salespeople are overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time in which to do it.  Something must change.  The best way to take control of your time is to change the way you think and the amount of time you spend thinking. In this post, we share three specific ways to do that. ***************************************************************************         Dave Kahle is a B2B sales expert and a Christian Business thought leader.  He has authored 13 books, presented in 47 states and 11 countries and worked with over 500 sales organizations.  In these ten-minute podcasts, his unique blend of out-of-the-box thinking and practical insights will challenge and enable you to sell better, lead better and live better.        Subscribe to these ten-minute helpings of out-of-the-box inspiration, education and motivation. WWW,DaveKahle.com Check out the X-I Community

Salespeople are overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time in which to do it.  Something must change.  The best way to take control of your time is to change the way you think and the amount of time you spend thinking. In this post, we share three specific ways to do that. ***************************************************************************         Dave Kahle is a B2B sales expert and a Christian Business thought leader.  He has authored 13 books, presented in 47 states and 11 countries and worked with over 500 sales organizations.  In these ten-minute podcasts, his unique blend of out-of-the-box thinking and practical insights will challenge and enable you to sell better, lead better and live better.        Subscribe to these ten-minute helpings of out-of-the-box inspiration, education and motivation. WWW,DaveKahle.com Check out the X-I Community

Salespeople are overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time in which to do it.  Something must change.  The best way to take control of your time is to change the way you think and the amount of time you spend thinking. In this post, we share three specific ways to do that. ***************************************************************************         Dave Kahle is a B2B sales expert and a Christian Business thought leader.  He has authored 13 books, presented in 47 states and 11 countries and worked with over 500 sales organizations.  In these ten-minute podcasts, his unique blend of out-of-the-box thinking and practical insights will challenge and enable you to sell better, lead better and live better.        Subscribe to these ten-minute helpings of out-of-the-box inspiration, education and motivation. WWW,DaveKahle.com Check out the X-I Community

Send a textIf you've ever looked at your revenue and wondered how much slipped through the cracks after that first call, this episode is for you.In this Maven Monday conversation, Brandon tackles one of the most expensive blind spots in small business: inconsistent follow-up. Because most salespeople don't struggle with skill, they struggle with identity, confidence, and clarity.Why does follow-up feel awkward?Why do good people hesitate to reach back out?And why do so many businesses leave serious money on the table after doing all the hard work to generate the lead?This episode challenges the way you think about sales, leadership, and responsibility. It's not about being pushy. It's not about scripts. It's about building a culture where following up isn't uncomfortable; it's natural.If you lead a sales team, manage revenue, or simply want to stop wasting opportunities you've already paid for, this one will make you rethink what's really happening after the first touchpoint.#Sales #FollowUp #SalesLeadership #SmallBusiness #BusinessGrowth #LeadGeneration #SalesTraining #RevenueGrowthOur Website: https://frankandmaven.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frankandmavenmarketing/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frankandmavenTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@frankandmavenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/frank-and-maven/Host: Brandon WelchExecutive Producer: Carter BreauxAudio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera GuyJoin the Maven Marketing Mastermind to get actionable advice from the team at mavenmethodtraining.comDo you have a marketing problem you'd like us to help solve? Send it to MavenMonday@FrankandMaven.com! Get a copy of our Best-Selling Book, The Maven Marketer Here: https://a.co/d/1clpm8a

Why are annual sales targets "irrelevant" once they are set? Annual sales targets often feel like the main event, but this script argues they are already decided: "The targets for the year are already set or will be set shortly". Because the number is locked in, therefore obsessing over it does not change your daily behaviour, your sales conversations, or your results. What matters is what you will do to improve yourself this year so hitting those targets becomes "more certain and easier to do". The practical warning is about momentum without reflection. We "roll one year into the next" and keep operating without "interventions to recalibrate what we are doing and why we are doing it". Because habits drive behaviour, therefore bad habits become "the enemy of progress". The next step is to identify the habits that reduce results and ditch them on purpose. Mini-summary: Targets do not create results. Habits and interventions create results. How does a "victim mentality" form in sales, and why does it hold people back? The script frames a common pathway into sales: "Sales is the refuge of failures from other jobs." People lose a job, companies always need salespeople, and they "find themselves in a sales job". Because they "get no training", therefore "the job is horrible", and confidence takes a hit. That is where mindset collapses into identity. The text describes "chains of low esteem and low self confidence", and says it becomes hard to break free. This matters because sales is a communication profession. If you approach buyers with low self-belief, therefore you will avoid control, accept poor meeting structures, and fall back on pitching instead of diagnosing needs. The intervention is simple and direct: "Decide you will become a professional." Mini-summary: No training creates pain, pain creates low confidence, and low confidence keeps you unskilled. Decide to be professional to interrupt the cycle. What does "study sales and communication" actually mean in practice? The script is specific: if you cannot read, "listen to audio or watch videos". Because there is "so much free content marketing pieces available out there today", therefore access is not the barrier. The barrier is the decision to take learning seriously and make it routine. It then pushes beyond free learning to paid training: "Get yourself on a sales training course and even if you have to borrow money to go on that course, do it". The reason is outcome-based: "the investment will repay you a hundred fold and more". The text even offers a named option: "Naturally I recommend a Dale Carnegie sales course for you, but at least get training." Because training upgrades skill and confidence, therefore the "difference is night and day" and so is the "money flow" that comes back as a result. Mini-summary: Use any learning format you can sustain, then commit to structured training because skills change outcomes fast. What is "kokorogame" and why does "true intention" change sales results? "Kokorogame" is translated as "true intention" and is treated as pre-performance preparation. The script uses Japanese cultural examples: in martial arts "we meditate", in flower arranging "the master strips the flower stems", and in shodo "the calligraphy expert rubs the ink stone". Because these rituals set the mind for the task, therefore they improve the quality of what follows. Sales is framed the same way. Before you sell, the fundamental question is: "Why are we selling? Is it to make ourselves money or make the client money?" Because your intention shapes your behaviour, therefore the answer triggers "a chain reaction of further decisions and actions". That chain defines whether you are "professionals or transients in the world of selling". If your intention is client-centred, therefore your questions, pacing, and recommendations become more useful and more credible. Mini-summary: "Kokorogame" is mental set-up. Intention drives decisions, and decisions drive behaviour in sales conversations. Why is buyer-controlled selling "ridiculous" in Japan, and what should replace it? The script makes a strong claim: "In Japan, in 99% of cases, the buyer controls the sales conversation and this is just ridiculous." The reason is role clarity. "The salesperson's job is to help the buyer make the best decision to advance their business." Because buyers are busy and have blind spots, therefore leaving them to "self-service" produces weak decisions and weak outcomes. The corrective is also direct: "Decide to control the sale conversation." That does not mean dominating the buyer. It means structuring the conversation so the buyer reaches a better decision faster. If the salesperson does not lead, the script says it "only happens when the salesperson is inadequate and untrained". Training and professionalism therefore show up as meeting control: the ability to guide, clarify, and then present the right solution. Mini-summary: Buyer control leads to self-service and poor decisions. Sales leadership means guiding the decision process, not delivering a random pitch. How do you stop being a "pitchperson" and start selling with questions? The mechanism is permission and diagnosis. The script says we need to "ask questions of the buyer to find out (A) do we have what they need and (B) if we do have it, then present the solution" so the client thinks, "fantastic – this is just what we need". Because questions reveal needs, therefore you can match your solution to the buyer's real situation, not their surface request. The obstacle is cultural and behavioural: "we will be dragged into the mud and the blood of giving our pitch by the buyer unless we get their permission to ask them questions." It labels the pattern: "Japanese salespeople are pitchpeople not salespeople." The logic is blunt: "How on earth do you know what the client needs unless you ask them questions first? Well you don't". Because "the buyer is God and God demands the pitch", therefore the salesperson must "intervene and redirect the conversation." Once you have permission to ask questions, "life gets good and you will get sales." Mini-summary: Permission to question is the turning point. Questions replace guesswork, and control replaces pitching. Why does pitching fail as a primary sales strategy? Pitching is described as luck: "a very tenuous way of striking it lucky and happen to chance upon what the buyer wants." Because pitching is not diagnosis, therefore it depends on coincidence rather than clarity. You might hit a buyer's need by accident, but that is not a repeatable method for consistent sales performance. The script concludes that if you only focus on three things, you become "much more professional and skilful": attitude, skill, then product knowledge on top. The three themes are: decide to become professional, train sales and communication, and control the sales conversation through permission-based questioning. Because these are foundational behaviours, therefore product knowledge becomes more powerful instead of being wasted in a generic pitch. Mini-summary: Pitching is guessing. Professionalism, training, and question-led control make selling repeatable. Author Bio The author writes about selling and communication in Japan, including "kokorogame" (true intention) and how salespeople can shift from pitching to professional, question-led selling. The author also wrote about these ideas in the book Japan Sales Mastery and recommends structured sales training, including a Dale Carnegie sales course, to lift skill, confidence, and outcomes.

If you've only sold sexy products with cool demos and unique features, you're probably missing the fundamentals that separate good salespeople from great ones. Marcus Chan, CEO of Venli Consulting and recent guest on the Sales Gravy podcast, learned to sell in the trenches of commoditized selling: uniforms, facility services, telecom. Industries where you're locked in multi-year contract cycles, competing against five other vendors who offer the exact same thing, and selling at two to three times the market price. "In order to get really, really good at selling in the commoditized market, where price seems to be the only factor... you have to learn how to get really good at the sales process," Chan explains. "You have to be able to take someone who has what I call a latent pain—pain they don't realize—get them to active and create urgency to move." No flash. No sizzle. Just selling. And that's exactly why it works. The First-to-Market Delusion Chan was talking with a client recently. They've closed $5 million in revenue in 12 months. Apple, Fortune 500 companies, massive wins. They're first to market in a brand new category. Zero competitors. Their sales team is flying high. "That's fantastic," he told them. "Now what's your plan for when competitors show up in three years?" Silence. Here's what happens: you get drunk on the product. You don't have to build real sales skills because the product does the heavy lifting. Then the market matures. Competitors launch. Your "unique" features become nothing new. Most teams operate under the belief that they're different. They talk about their proprietary technology, their best-in-class service, and their innovative approach. Meanwhile, buyers are looking at five vendors saying the exact same things. This isn't just true for uniforms and telecom. It's true for SaaS, consulting, financial services. Any market that's been around longer than 18 months gets commoditized fast. The question isn't whether you're in a commoditized market. The question is whether you know how to sell when you are. What Commoditized Selling Actually Teaches You When Chan was selling uniforms at three times the competitor's price to buyers locked into five-year contracts with other vendors, he had nothing to lean on except process. He couldn't say, "Look at this cool new feature." The uniforms were uniforms. Same fabric. Same colors. Same everything. He had to learn three skills most salespeople never develop: Moving buyers from latent pain to active pain. Most buyers don't think they have a problem. They're comfortable. They're "fine" with their current vendor. Your job is to help them realize what they're losing by staying put, and make it real enough that they care. Creating urgency when the status quo is locked in. When a buyer is in year three of a five-year contract, there's zero natural urgency. You have to create it. You have to make the pain of waiting worse than the pain of switching. Navigating complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles without a product demo to fall back on. You need the operations manager, the finance team, and the C-suite to all agree that switching vendors is worth the headache. And you need to do it without any bells and whistles to distract them from the hard questions. The Hidden Advantage Nobody Talks About Mastering commoditized selling makes everything else easier. Learn to sell uniforms at a premium price, and differentiated products become simple. The hard skills transfer—objection handling, stakeholder navigation, urgency creation. But the real value is that your process becomes your product. In commoditized markets, you compete on how you sell. Your discovery process. Your ability to diagnose the real problem. Your consultative approach. The way you make the buyer feel heard and understood. That's what buyers remember and what separates you from the five other vendors in their inbox. Stop Hiding Behind Your Product Chan sees it all the time with sales teams from "sexy" industries. They lead with features because they can. They lean on their demo because it works. They let the product do the selling. Until it doesn't. Because eventually, every market commoditizes. Your competitor launches the same feature. Buyers stop caring about your "innovative solution" and start asking about price. The salespeople who win in commoditized markets win because of process, not product. They've mastered diagnosis, urgency, and navigating complexity when there's nothing shiny to distract the buyer. A Commoditized Market Is the Best Sales Training Ground If you're selling in a commoditized market right now, congratulations. You're getting an education most salespeople never get—how to compete when you're "just another vendor," how to create value when the product doesn't, how to win on process instead of features. Sell commodities at premium prices to buyers locked into competitor contracts, and you can sell anything. Master the fundamentals where there are no shortcuts, and those fundamentals become automatic. Move to a market with actual differentiation, and you don't just have a good product—you have a good product and the skills to sell it. Winning in Commoditized Selling The best training ground for sales isn't the hottest SaaS company or the coolest startup. It's the "boring," commoditized industries where the product doesn't do the work for you. Where you have to diagnose the problem, create urgency, and navigate complexity without flash to hide behind. The skills you build when nothing else can save you? Those are the skills that make you unstoppable everywhere else. -- If you want to sharpen the fundamentals that win in any market, start with prospecting. Download the free Seven Steps Prospecting Sequence Guide and build a process that creates urgency and fills your pipeline on purpose.

Is sales training really worth the investment… or is it just another expense?In this powerful episode of the Loveall Sales Podcast, Brent Loveall goes all in on one of the biggest issues holding dealerships and sales professionals back — lack of training and limiting beliefs.Why do most salespeople plateau at 12–20 cars a month?Why do dealerships keep discounting instead of developing their team?Why do so many people say they want more… but never level up?It all comes down to two things:1️⃣ They don't believe the investment will pay off.2️⃣ Their ego tells them they already know enough.Brent breaks down:The “ceiling problem” that keeps dealerships smallWhy skill set determines income — not market sizeThe real math behind gross profit you're giving awayWhy discounting costs you FAR more than training ever willThe difference between flatlining… and consistently leveling upHow one student went from 12–14 cars to nearly 40 per monthWhy your numbers should always be trending upwardThe harsh truth about excuses vs. resultsIf you're in automotive sales, dealership management, BDC, or leadership — this episode will challenge your mindset and force you to evaluate whether you're investing in growth… or just surviving month to month.Because here's the reality:There are levels to sales.And your income will never outgrow your skill set.If you want to protect more gross, generate your own opportunities, master the phone, and dictate your paycheck — this episode is for you.

In this episode of The Sales Today Podcast, Fred Copestake is joined by Sebastian Hidalgo, co-founder of DURINDAL and creator of the SWAT method - a sales framework influenced by hostage negotiation principles.   Fred admits he's often sceptical when crisis negotiation gets blended with commercial sales, so this becomes a lively, grounded conversation: what genuinely transfers, what doesn't, and how to use "hostage" techniques ethically to improve trust, discovery, and positioning.   What you'll hear in this episode Sebastian's unusual origin story: becoming a certified hostage negotiator at 18 The persistence it took to get accepted into training as a civilian and young applicant How later PSYOPs (psychological operations) training triggered an "aha" moment: he'd been applying negotiation principles in business without realising it Why Sebastian believes there's a gap between negotiation books (e.g. Never Split the Difference) and practical sales structure Fred's perspective: crisis negotiation ≠ commercial negotiation - and why that matters   The SWAT Method in a nutshell Sebastian explains SWAT as a four-stage sales method designed to: Earn trust faster Create positioning in real time - not just against competitors, but against the buyer's past failed attempts with similar solutions The four stages are: Influence Diagnosis Failure Mapping Value Alignment (what most people would call "the close", though Sebastian avoids that framing) Influence + Diagnosis + Failure Mapping sit mainly in what traditional sales calls "discovery", but with more emphasis on trust, relevance, and reducing friction.   Where the "hostage" skills show up (without the Hollywood nonsense) Sebastian's view: you don't need dramatic tactics - you need fundamentals executed well. Key transferable skills include: Listening (with intent - often reinforced by taking notes) Active listening + mirroring (what intelligence work calls elicitation: helping people talk themselves deeper into the real issue) Staying calm under pressure Reading the person in front of you (tone, pacing, reactions) rather than hiding behind slides He also highlights the need for flexible creativity - adapting your knowledge to the buyer's reality in the moment.   Key takeaway The value isn't "hostage negotiation theatre." It's using proven human skills - listening, trust-building, uncovering blockers early, and positioning through relevance  to make sales feel less "gross" and more like service.   Connect with Sebastian ·         LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-dp-hidalgo Email: sebastian@durindal.com Website: https://www.durindal.com     Follow Fred: https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake   Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-IP6Z7zU9Rg   Watch Fred's FREE YouTube Course: Sales Mastery for Engineers: https://bit.ly/Sales-Mastery-For-Engineers   Useful resources Take the Collaborative Selling Scorecard – free Check how well your sales approach fits today's buying environment https://collaborativeselling.scoreapp.com/  

Listening is the most underrated sales skill because it's the one that actually tells you what the buyer is thinking, not what you wish they were thinking.  Most salespeople believe they listen well, but in real conversations—especially under pressure—we drift into habits that feel like listening while we're actually rehearsing our next line. In Japan, in the US, in Europe—whether you're selling to an SME, a startup, or a multinational—buyers can feel when you're not fully present. Are you really listening to the buyer—or just waiting to talk? Most salespeople aren't listening; they're mentally queuing up their next point, and the buyer can hear the delay. This shows up in every market: a SaaS rep in San Francisco, a relationship banker in London, or an account manager in Tokyo can look attentive while their mind is sprinting ahead. The trigger is usually one "important" phrase—budget, competitor, timing—then your attention snaps away from the buyer and into your internal monologue. You're still hearing, but you're not taking in. That gap matters because buyers don't only communicate in words. In executive-level meetings at firms like Toyota or Rakuten, meaning often sits inside tone, pace, hesitations, and what goes unsaid. Post-pandemic, with more hybrid calls on Zoom or Teams, these cues are easier to miss—unless you deliberately train for them. Do now: Treat every buyer conversation like a live intelligence feed: if you're writing your reply in your head, you've stopped listening. What are the five levels of listening in sales? There are five levels—Ignore, Pretend, Selective, Attentive, and Empathetic—and most sales calls hover around levels 2 or 3.  Ignore doesn't mean staring at your phone; it can mean being hijacked by your own thoughts the moment the buyer says something provocative. Pretend looks like nodding, eye contact, "mm-hmm"—but your brain is busy building the pitch. Selective listening is the killer in modern B2B: you filter for "yes/no" buying signals, but you miss the conditions attached to them (timeline, stakeholders, risk concerns). Attentive listening is full-focus: no interruptions, no filtering, paraphrasing to confirm. Empathetic listening goes further—eyes and ears—reading what's behind the words and "meeting the buyer in the conversation going on in their mind." That's as relevant in procurement-heavy Japan as it is in fast-moving US sales teams. Do now: Identify which level you default to under pressure—and train upward, not sideways. What does "ignoring the client" look like if you're still in the room? You can "ignore" a buyer while looking directly at them—by following your own thoughts instead of their words. This is common when the client says something that sparks urgency: "We're also talking to your competitor," "Budget is tight," "We need this by Q2." The moment you latch onto that, the rest of what they say fades into the mist because you're fixated on the counterpoint you must deliver. In enterprise sales, this is where deals quietly die: you respond to the wrong problem, at the wrong depth, to the wrong stakeholder. In Japan, where meaning can be indirect and consensus-based, this is riskier—what's not said can be the real message. In Australia, where communication is often more direct, you can still miss the nuance in tone—especially in remote calls where you're juggling slides, notes, and chat. Do now: When you feel triggered, pause and mentally label it: "That's my ego talking—back to the buyer." Why do salespeople "pretend" to listen—and how can you spot it? Pretend listening happens when your body language says "I'm with you" but your mind is already pitching, defending, or debating.  You nod. You lean in. You look professional. But internally you're preparing the product dump, building the objection-handling case, or rehearsing the "killer story." It's the classic "lights are on, but you're not home" dynamic—common across industries like consulting, insurance, tech, and professional services. The modern version is worse: you're also glancing at CRM notes, Slack messages, or the next meeting timer. Buyers notice because your responses don't quite match what they said. You answer a question they didn't ask, or you jump too early. In negotiation-heavy environments (Japan, Germany, regulated sectors), this reads as disrespect. In faster markets (US startups), it reads as shallow. Do now: After the buyer speaks, summarise in one sentence before you respond with anything else. Is "selective listening" efficient—or does it sabotage sales outcomes? Selective listening is efficient for hearing buying signals, but it often sabotages effectiveness by skipping the context that makes the "yes" or "no" meaningful.  Salespeople are trained to hunt for signals: interest, hesitation, resistance. But if you only listen for yes/no, you miss the conditions attached—like internal politics, compliance concerns, implementation capacity, or fear of change. You also jump the gun: you hear the "no" early and start crafting your rebuttal while the buyer is still explaining why. The Japan example is instructive: because the verb often arrives at the end of the sentence, you're forced to hear the whole thought before reacting. In English, you can start manufacturing your reply mid-sentence, which feels fast but can be sloppy. Across APAC, where indirectness can be a politeness strategy, selective listening becomes a deal-killer because the meaning sits in the qualifiers. Do now: Don't respond to the first "yes/no." Wait for the full sentence—then ask one clarifying question. What's the difference between attentive listening and empathetic listening—and which closes deals? Attentive listening makes you accurate; empathetic listening makes you influential because it reveals what the buyer is really protecting.  Attentive listening is full presence: you don't interrupt, you don't filter, you paraphrase to confirm understanding. This alone differentiates you in any market—Japan, the US, Europe—because most professionals are distracted. Empathetic listening is the next level: you listen with your eyes and ears, tracking tone, body language, and what isn't being said. You sense anxiety behind a budget objection, or politics behind a "we'll think about it." You aim to "meet the buyer in the conversation going on in their mind," which is exactly what executive-level selling requires. In leadership cultures where saving face matters (Japan, parts of Asia), empathy helps you surface concerns safely. In direct cultures (Australia, US), empathy helps you avoid brute-force pitching and instead guide the decision. Do now: Paraphrase the facts, then reflect the feeling: "It sounds like timing isn't the only concern here." Conclusion If you want to sell more, stop trying to be more persuasive and start trying to be more present. The five levels of listening are a diagnostic tool: most salespeople drift between Pretend and Selective because their brain is busy performing. Attentive listening earns trust. Empathetic listening uncovers truth. And the fastest way to improve your buyer conversations is to practise listening where it's hardest—at home, with people who don't have to pay you to stay polite. Author credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results.  He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).  Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan. 

Salespeople who swear on their calls close 8% more deals. Marketing teams using pink and purple instead of "Series A Blues" get more attention. Companies that avoid pissing anyone off end up exciting no one. In this episode, we sit down with Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist and former CMO at Gong, to unpack the psychology behind courageous marketing, the real impact of AI on sales teams, and why being different beats being better every single time. Udi reveals how Gong built one of the most recognizable brands in B2B by rejecting best practices, embracing controversy, and creating a culture where teams feel safe to fail. From the drooling bulldog mascot that made enterprise customers angry, to the viral research on swearing in sales calls, to the plain-text email that generated 700 event registrations in hours—this is a masterclass in standing out in a sea of sameness. We also dive deep into AI: what it can actually do right now, what it can't, and why the creators of ChatGPT don't use ChatGPT to run their revenue teams. Spoiler: AI isn't coming for your job. But salespeople who know how to use AI are coming for the jobs of those who don't. What You'll Learn: Why swearing on sales calls increases win rates by 8% The danger of "best practices" and why boring is the biggest risk in B2B marketing How to build a brand that polarizes—without crossing the line The two buckets of AI: what it can automate vs. what it can guide you on Why OpenAI and Anthropic use Gong to run their revenue teams (and what that tells you about generic LLMs) The plain-text email experiment that got 700 event sign-ups in hours How to create psychological safety on your team so they take risks and do their best work Why indifference is worse than hate when it comes to your messaging From privacy policy emails that went viral, to bulldogs on login screens, to the Starburst logo that refused to fit neatly into a square, this episode will change how you think about marketing, sales, and standing out in 2026. If your brand feels invisible, your messaging feels safe, or your team feels stuck playing by the rules everyone else is playing by, this conversation will give you permission to break free. Sponsored by Prospeo, the easiest way to find verified emails and contact data for outbound and lead generation. 98% more effective at finding mobile numbers and email addresses. Try it free at prospeo.io/wham About the Guest: Udi Ledergor is Chief Evangelist and former CMO at Gong, and author of the bestselling book Courageous Marketing: How to Take the Boring Out of B2B. He's known for building bold, unconventional marketing teams and helping sales leaders understand how AI is transforming their world. Find Udi on LinkedIn and grab his book wherever books are sold. Chapters: 00:00 Salespeople Who Swear Close 8% More Deals: The Research That Went Viral 02:15 Who Is Udi Ledergor: From Gong CMO to Chief Evangelist 04:30 Courageous Marketing: Why Different Beats Better Every Time 08:12 The Series A Blues Problem: How Gong Chose Pink and Purple 11:45 The Drooling Bulldog: When Enterprise Customers Hated the Brand 15:20 How to Be Polarizing Without Crossing the Line 19:03 The Plain-Text Email That Got 700 Event Registrations in Hours 23:47 AI vs Automation: What's Actually New and What's Just Rebranded 28:34 The Two Buckets of AI: Automation and Guidance 32:19 Why OpenAI Uses Gong to Run Their Revenue Team 36:55 Are We Losing Critical Thinking by Outsourcing to AI? 41:28 Building Courageous Teams: Psychological Safety and Process Accountability 47:12 The Privacy Policy Email That Went Viral on Twitter 50:45 One Question to Ask Yourself: How Can You Break Away From Boring Practices? #CourageousMarketing #UdiLedergor #Gong #SalesPsychology #AIinSales #B2BMarketing #WeHaveAMeeting

Are your first meetings quietly killing your deals?Salespeople treat initial conversations as information-gathering sessions or company overviews. But the problem is that prospects don't value meetings that only serve the salesperson.In this episode, Lee Salz reveals why asking busy prospects to “learn about your company” is a losing strategy — especially when they're juggling hundreds of competing priorities. .If you want shorter sales cycles, stronger engagement, and more consistent second meetings, this conversation is a must-listen.

The Five-Phase Sales Solution Cadence: Facts, Benefits, Applications, Evidence, Trial Close When you've done proper discovery—asked loads of questions about where the buyer is now and where they want to be—you earn the right to propose a solution. But here's the kicker: sometimes the right move is to walk away. If you force a partial or wrong-fit solution, you might "grab the dough" short-term, but you'll torch trust and reputation—the two assets that don't come back easily.  Below is a search-friendly, buyer-proof cadence you can run in any market—**Japan vs **United States, SME vs enterprise, B2B services vs SaaS—especially post-pandemic when procurement teams want clarity, proof, and outcomes, not fluffy feature parades. How do you know if your solution genuinely fits the buyer (and when should you walk away)? You know it fits when you can map your solution to their stated outcomes—and prove it—without twisting the facts. If the buyer needs an outcome you can't deliver, the ethical (and commercially smart) play is: "We can't help you with that." In 2024–2026, buyers are savvier and more risk-aware. They'll check reviews, ask peers, and sanity-test claims through AI search tools and internal stakeholder scrutiny. In high-trust cultures (including Japan) and high-compliance industries (finance, health, critical infrastructure), a wrong-fit sale becomes a reputational boomerang. The deal closes once; the story travels forever. Do now: Write a one-page "fit test": buyer outcomes → your capability → evidence. If any outcome can't be supported, qualify out fast.  What does "facts" mean in a modern B2B sales conversation? Facts are the provable mechanics—features, specs, process steps, constraints—and the proof that they work. Facts aren't the goal; they're the credibility scaffolding. Salespeople often drown here: endless micro-detail, endless Q&A, endless spreadsheets. Yes, analytical buyers (engineering-led firms, CFO-led committees) will pull you into the weeds—but remember: they aren't buying the process. They're buying the outcome from the process. Bring facts that de-risk the decision: implementation timelines, security posture (SOC 2/ISO), uptime/SLA history, integration limits, and measurable performance benchmarks. Then move on before you get stuck. Do now: Prepare a "facts pack" with 5–7 proof points (not 57 features). Use it to earn trust, then pivot to outcomes.  How do you turn features into benefits buyers will actually pay for? Benefits are the "so what"—the measurable results the buyer gets because the feature exists. If you can't link a feature to an outcome, it's just trivia. A weight, colour, dimension, workflow, dashboard, or AI model is not valuable by itself. It becomes valuable when it improves a KPI: reduced cycle time, fewer defects, higher conversion, lower churn, faster onboarding, better safety, tighter compliance. This is where classic sales thinking still holds up—think **SPIN Selling and the buyer's implied needs: pain, impact, and value. In a tight 2025 budget environment, "nice-to-have" benefits die quickly; "must-have" outcomes survive. Do now: For every top feature, write one sentence: "This enables ___, which improves ___ by ___ within ___ days." If you can't fill the blanks, drop the feature from your pitch.  What is the "application of benefits" and how do you make it real inside their business? Application is where benefits turn into daily operational reality—what changes in workflow, decisions, and results.This is the "rubber meets the road" layer. Don't just say "we improve productivity." Show where it lands: which meetings get shorter, which approvals disappear, which roles stop firefighting, which customers get served faster, which errors are prevented, and what leaders see weekly on dashboards. Compare contexts: a startup may care about speed and cash runway; a multinational may care about governance, change management, and multi-region rollouts. A consumer business might chase conversion and NPS; a B2B industrial firm might chase downtime reduction and safety incidents. Do now: Build a simple "Before → After" map for their week: processes eliminated, expanded, improved—and who owns each change.  What counts as credible evidence (and what "proof" actually convinces buyers)? Credible evidence is specific, comparable, and close to the buyer's reality—same industry, similar scale, similar constraints. "Trust me" is not evidence. Bring proof that survives scrutiny: reference customers, quantified case studies, independent reviews, pilot results, and implementation artefacts (plans, timelines, adoption metrics). The closer the comparison company is to the buyer, the more persuasive it becomes. This is also where storytelling matters: not hype—narrative. Who was involved? What went wrong? What changed? What were the numbers before and after? Analysts like **Gartner or **Forrester can help with category credibility, but a near-peer success story usually seals confidence. Do now: Collect 3 "mirror case studies" (similar buyer profiles) and write them as short stories: problem → actions → results → lessons.  How do you do a trial close without sounding pushy or sleazy? A trial close is a simple comprehension-and-comfort check that invites objections early—before you ask for the order. Done right, it's calm, not clingy. After you've walked through facts → benefits → application → evidence, ask: "How does that sound so far?" Then shut up. Silence is a tool. If they raise objections, good—interest is alive, and you can add pinpoint proof. If they say nothing (or go vague), start worrying: they may have already mentally deleted you as an option. This is the moment to clarify, re-anchor to outcomes, and confirm next steps in the sales cycle. Do now: Use one trial close per phase. Treat objections as data, not drama, and log them into your CRM as themes to address.  Conclusion: the cadence that keeps you credible and gets you paid This five-phase cadence works because it respects how adults buy: they need proof, relevance, and a clear path from "today" to "better." Keep the sequence tight—facts, then benefits, then application, then evidence, then a trial close—and you'll avoid the two killers of modern selling: feature-dumps and wishful thinking.  Author credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results.  He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).  Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan. 

Discover how Nick Martin, Social Media Marketing Manager at Tipalti, scales social influence and employee advocacy at a mid-sized fintech organization.Want to know how your employee advocacy strategy really stacks up? Grab your FREE Employee Advocacy Health Check and see how you compare against your competitors.In this episode, we explore the unique middle ground of employee advocacy, where you have more resources than a startup but less than a mega-enterprise. Nick shares his journey of building repeatable systems at Tipalti, explaining how to drive high-impact engagement without a massive team.You'll learn why catching new hires on day one is the secret to building lasting employee advocacy habits, how to swap spammy gamification for quality-focused incentives, and the best way to stop corporate-speak by encouraging employees to write like they're texting a friend. Nick also reveals a powerful “President's Club” success story: a single shared post revived a “lost whale” account and closed a massive deal. Whether you're a solo marketer or leading a global rollout, Nick's insights on securing executive buy-in and proving sales ROI are essential.Resources:Book a call to discover how employee advocacy can benefit your team.Ready to elevate your employee advocacy? Get a free copy of Bradley Keenan's essential book, ‘Employee Advocacy: 101 Cheat Codes' for deeper insights and actionable strategies.Download the World's Biggest Employee Advocacy Study for free and discover data-backed insights to supercharge your program:Subscribe to The Employee Advocacy & Influence Podcast for more expert insights into social strategy and employee influence!

One of us is podcasting from beside a backyard rink. The other? A hotel at Heathrow. Together, we're solving the world's sales implementation problems—bad Wi-Fi and all.In our latest episode, we unpack what it really takes to implement a sales process. Not “announce it and pray”... but actually make it stick.Some takeaways we loved:✅ Salespeople use processes that help them win—not ones they're told to use✅ You don't roll out a sales process—you install a new standard✅ Leadership isn't just inspection; it's asking the curious questions that unlock growthWe also debate:➡️ Should tools be rolled out with the process or phased in?➡️ Can you really change habits without changing hearts?Tune in if you've ever faced blank stares during a sales kickoff. Or if you're leading one soon. Or if you just like awkward podcast silences and Heathrow ambience.#SalesLeadership #SalesEnablement #TeaAndTimbits #SalesProcess #ImplementationNotImposition #B2Bsales #Podcast

In this episode of Sales & Cigars, Walter Crosby sits down with Nick Massaro of Membrane for a candid, no-BS conversation about what actually holds good salespeople back. From early sales foundations and structured training to the mindset traps that quietly derail deals, this episode digs into the space between opening and closing—the part most reps avoid and where deals are truly won or lost. Nick shares his journey into sales, the evolution of his mindset, and the hard-earned realization that being "the most liked rep" is often a sign something went wrong. Together, they unpack the dangers of approval-seeking, why discomfort is part of great selling, and how modern buyers require a different kind of leadership from sales professionals. This is a grounded, honest conversation for salespeople who want to stop getting compliments instead of contracts. Episode Highlights Why "You were the best rep" is often a kiss of death The difference between opening deals and advancing them How early structure shaped Nick's sales foundation The mindset shift required to lead buyers without controlling them Why avoiding money conversations quietly kills deals Selling outcomes vs. selling features—especially in complex software Letting go of approval to ask better questions What great sales and good parenting surprisingly have in common Key Takeaways Being liked doesn't equal being effective The middle of the deal—not the open or close—is where salespeople grow Approval-seeking prevents tough (necessary) conversations Buyers are in control—but salespeople must still lead Discovery isn't about sounding smart; it's about creating clarity Authenticity beats polish every time Process creates freedom, not rigidity Who Should Listen This episode is for: Salespeople who hear "we loved you" more than "we're buying" Reps who love prospecting but struggle with deal momentum Sales leaders coaching mindset, not just activity Anyone selling complex or non-commodity solutions Business owners trying to understand what their sales team is really up against About the Guest Nick Massaro is a sales professional at Membrane with a background spanning insurance, SaaS, and sales-as-a-service environments. Known for his authenticity and curiosity, Nick brings a thoughtful perspective on modern selling—one rooted in structure, accountability, and continuous improvement. Connect with Nick Nick Massaro on LinkedIn Membrane Connect with Walter Crosby and Sales & Cigars: Website: Helix Sales Development LinkedIn: Walter Crosby Instagram: @wcrosby248 Facebook: Helix Sales Development   Share Your Thoughts: We'd love to hear your feedback and experiences! Drop us a line and join the conversation on social media using #SalesAndCigars.   Never Miss an Episode! Join the Sales & Cigars community by subscribing to our podcast and YouTube channel: Subscribe to the Podcast: Apple Podcasts: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Spotify: Follow on Spotify ...and wherever you listen to podcasts!   Subscribe to Us on YouTube: Stay updated with our latest video content by subscribing to our YouTube channel. Hit the bell icon for notifications on new uploads! YouTube: Sales & Cigars Channel   Stay in the loop: By subscribing, you'll get instant access to new episodes, insightful conversations, and bonus content designed to elevate your sales skills and more. Keep savoring those cigars and stay sharp in sales! Until next time, keep listening to Sales & Cigars—the podcast where the only smoke we blow is from cigars.  

Civ Robotics is automating construction layout—the process of translating blueprints into physical markers on job sites—using autonomous ground robots instead of traditional surveying crews. Founded by civil engineer Tom Yeshurun after he spent $2 million on a four-person surveying team for a single project, Civ has scaled from initial concept to deploying robots across the United States, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East, with 12 robots currently operating in Saudi Arabia alone. In this episode, Tom breaks down his tactical approach to product-market fit, why he pivoted from aerial drones to ground vehicles based on customer feedback, and how he's building sales teams by recruiting construction professionals rather than traditional sales reps. Topics Discussed: How Tom identified the construction layout automation opportunity while managing $120-500 million infrastructure projects The two-year pivot from aerial drones to ground robots after target customers cited safety concerns Market differences between Israel and the US: subcontracted surveying firms versus in-house EPC operations Converting tier-one contractors like Bechtel and Primoris through persistence and geographic proof points The product development framework: one request = document, two requests = build, three requests = should be done Transitioning from paid digital ads to SEO/AIO optimization with measurable improvements in inbound quality Using AI workflows to audit website metadata and align content with buyer personas instead of investor messaging Sales hiring strategy: grooming construction engineers into customer success and sales roles versus hiring pure sales talent International expansion through remote deployment and a LinkedIn-driven sale that generated 12 robots in Saudi Arabia Product roadmap from layout automation to machine guidance and full construction equipment autonomy GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Interview customers in your actual target geography, not just accessible markets: Tom built his initial prototype after interviewing Israeli and European companies, but the US market operates fundamentally differently—EPCs like Bechtel and Primoris handle surveying in-house due to volume, while Israeli EPCs subcontract to surveying firms. This changed the buyer persona, sales motion, and value proposition entirely. When he finally interviewed US companies, the feedback was immediate and actionable. Don't optimize for interview convenience—validate where you plan to sell. Let technical decisions be customer-driven, not engineering-driven: Tom's team spent two years developing an aerial drone solution because it was technically more complex and exciting for engineers. Three early adopters said they liked the concept but feared the drone—if it was ground-based, they'd reconsider. Tom scrapped two years of development and rebuilt for ground vehicles. His takeaway: bring both options to target customers before committing development resources. Engineering preferences create technical risk; customer preferences create market risk. Use the "one-two-three rule" for product prioritization: Tom's framework eliminates guesswork in product roadmaps: one customer requests a feature, document it; two customers request it, begin development; three customers request it, it should already be shipped. This prevents building "cool features" that product managers or engineers want but customers don't need, and ensures development resources map directly to revenue opportunities. Deploy proof before the pitch to collapse enterprise sales cycles: When a major contractor asked if Civ's robot could handle Texas mud, Tom responded that they already had a robot deployed "literally a mile away" on an adjacent project. That proximity proof turned a Wednesday discovery call into a Monday deployment, followed by a one-month trial and conversion to a customer now running 15 robots. For hardware or complex B2B sales, having operational deployments near prospects eliminates the biggest objection: "will this actually work in our environment?" Position yourself as a peer, not a vendor: Tom doesn't introduce himself as CEO or founder in sales conversations—he leads with his background as a civil engineer and field engineer who managed the same types of projects his buyers manage. This reframes the conversation from vendor-buyer to peer-to-peer, making it easier to discuss pain points candidly. In technical industries, domain credibility matters more than sales technique. If you lack it personally, your customer-facing team must have it. Audit your website metadata as a conversion optimization lever: Tom discovered his road robot product page was showing solar farm videos in link previews because metadata wasn't optimized per product line. His team systematically reviewed every page's metadata, primary content, and video assets to ensure alignment with the specific buyer viewing that page. This granular optimization improved inbound quality measurably. Most B2B companies ignore metadata entirely—it's a high-leverage, low-effort fix. Hire from industry for sales, hire generalists for marketing: Tom's board challenged him to "duplicate himself" as the company's best seller. His answer: recruit former construction project managers and field engineers who already communicate effectively and understand buyer pain points, then train them on sales process. For marketing, the talent pool with construction automation experience is too small, so he hired a generalist. This isn't about industry knowledge being unimportant—it's about recognizing where domain expertise is essential (customer-facing) versus learnable (content creation). Create reciprocal value loops with influential customers: One customer produces professional-quality content about Civ's robots because showcasing innovation differentiates him with his own clients. Tom reciprocates by cutting the subscription price by 50%, explicitly framing it as "you're a great influencer and helping us spread the word." This relationship generated Civ's Saudi Arabia opportunity—12 robots sold—when the customer's LinkedIn post drew a comment from a prospect. Identify which customers benefit from being seen as early adopters, then structure commercial terms that reward amplification. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM Meta Description: Tom Yeshurun, Co-Founder & CEO at Civ Robotics, shares his framework for product-market fit, hiring construction pros into sales roles, and scaling robotics deployments internationally on BUILDERS.

Here's what's coming through loud and clear right now: Old conversations are waking up Deals from 1–3 years ago? They're moving again. Salespeople are picking up the phone, calling old lists, and hearing: "I'm so glad you called. I was just thinking about you." Action plan: Dust off your inactive list. End of December or first week of January is prime time to make calls and meet people. Holiday check-in or strategy conversation for the new year. Attention spans are shrinking Follow-up needs to tighten. Quarterly or every-few-months cadence isn't cutting it anymore. I'm suggesting: Every 2 weeks Always bring value Pick up the phone (email + text alone isn't enough) The phone still works. Use it. Small, consistent actions are converting More meetings More face-to-face More conferences More networking Momentum is coming from showing up, not sitting back. Tools I'm using right now: -Brain.fm – daily focus + meditation 2 Favorite Books: -The AI-Driven Leader – smarter thinking and prompting with AI -The Power of Now – staying present in a distracted world Closing Thoughts: Everyone is distracted. More than ever. As you wrap up 2025 and step into 2026: -Have an annual plan -Reverse engineer it by quarter, month, week -But most importantly…HAVE A DAILY BUSINESS PLAN! At the end of each day: -Clean it up -Prep tomorrow -Define your one-day business plan -Identify your top 3 leading activities (in order) that actually move your buisness forward. Consistent action wins the game!

Are you sitting on a full pipeline of quoted deals… but very few of them are actually closing?Most sales teams assume that once a quote is sent, the deal will naturally move forward—but that assumption is quietly killing close rates and revenue.In this episode, we break down why closing is not automatic, why so many salespeople avoid asking for the business, and how that hesitation leads to stalled deals with no yes, no, or clear next step.By listening to this episode, you'll learn:How to remove the fear of “asking for the business” and confidently drive deals to a decisionThe five proven levers you can pull immediately to increase close rates without changing your productA simple “If I will you” framework that helps customers commit without pressure or pushinessIf you want fewer stuck deals, faster decisions, and more revenue from the pipeline you already have, press play and start closing with intention today.New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.Grow Your Sales By 25% - Book in for a FREE 30-minute Sales Process Audit and walk out with 3 rapid actions that will GROW your SalesTo see how we've helped business grow their sales:Read Client ResultsWatch TestimonialsOr email Ben if you would like to get in touch: hello@strongersalesteams.comThis podcast helps the entrepreneur, founder, CEO, and business owner in the trade, construction and industry segments, regain focus, build confidence, and achieve measurable results through powerful sales training, effective sales strategy, and expert sales coaching—guiding every sales leader, sales manager, and sales team in mastering the sales process, optimizing the sales pipeline, and driving business growth while fostering leadership, balance, and freedom amidst overwhelm, stress, and potential burnout, creating lasting peace of mind and smarter decision making for every California business and Australia business ready to scale up with excellence in sales management.

Schedule a Meeting with Joshua TODAY!Why do great contractors with years of experience keep losing jobs to mediocre competitors who charge less and deliver worse work? If you're an outdoor living professional who knows your craftsmanship is top-tier but still hears “we went with someone else,” this episode hits home. Joshua breaks down why quality alone isn't winning deals anymore—and how clarity, certainty, and communication are the real differentiators in today's sales conversations.You will:Learn why selling outcomes and emotions consistently beats selling features, specs, and experienceDiscover the 10 core sales principles that can take your close rate from 25–30% to over 75%Understand how setting clear expectations and simplifying your process builds trust, certainty, and premium pricing power Press play to learn how to stop losing deals you should be winning and start closing the right clients with confidence, clarity, and control.Ready to get your copy of The CORE 10? Check it out HERE!Connect with Joshua at:The WebsiteThe Facebook GroupSales Master ClassesHow to work with Joshua - https://yes.express/apply/Tune into this podcast where a seasoned craftsman shares expert communication skills, strategies for overcoming stress and overwhelm, and insights on building a profitable business in landscaping and hardscaping, with tips on how to sell, close more deals, and achieve financial freedom to retire early as a successful business owner in the design/build and outdoor living industry.

Peter Drucker once said “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else”  How is your management of time?  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Fac ebook | Website | Linkedin   The Time-Based Productivity Course    Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl's YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack  The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 403 Hello, and welcome to episode 403 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.  Are you in danger of boxing yourself in with too many processes and too much structure?  Now, it's important to stress that having some structure to your day is important. But too much can lead to boxing yourself in and losing flexibility.  Let me give you an example I often come across. Protecting time for doing your focused work. Having this protected on your calendar so the time cannot be stolen by others is important.  If you protected 2 hours and finished in 90 minutes, that doesn't mean you have to continue for another 30 minutes. Take a break. You're done.  But this works the other way, too. If you have two hours protected for a project task but cannot finish it in that time. It's okay. You turned up. You did the work, but you miscalculated how long it would take.  This happens to all of us. Some days we're on fire and can plough through a lot of work. Other days, a lot less so.  The problem is that when you begin your day, you really don't know what kind of day you're going to have. There are too many variables. How you slept, whether you're catching a cold or simply something else is on your mind.  Your life is not measured by what you do in one day; everyone has bad days.  So, with that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week's question.  This week's question comes from Alex. Alex asks, hi Carl, this year I'm trying to be better at time blocking, but I am really struggling to stay consistent with my blocks. What advice do you have to help stay true to your calendar?  Hi Alex, thank you for your question. Something I have always taught is that of all your productivity tools, one of them needs to be sacred. One of your tools must be the “truth” about what you are going to do that day.  Task managers are generally not good at this because we throw a lot of things into them. That's a good thing. Yet, the issue is that most people never curate what they throw in. This creates overwhelming lists of low-value, ill-thought-out items that will never get done. They just cripple your task manager's effectiveness.  The best tool for acting as your sacred base is your calendar. It's never going to lie to you. It shows you the 24 hours you have each day and where you need to be, with whom, and when.  You cannot overload yourself without it being plainly obvious that you are trying to do too much. And let's be perfectly clear, an agreed appointment with someone will always take priority over an email or proposal you need to write. If not, you cancel the appointment.  I hope, at a basic, civilised human being level, you get that.  I've called off face-to-face meetings in the past if the person I am meeting cannot put their phones down and actually talk to me. It is rude, disrespectful, and no person with an ounce of integrity would ever do that.  One of the striking things I've noticed about the highly successful people I work with is that they never have a phone. Tablet or laptop near them when they are in meetings. A notebook and a pen are all they have.  That's focus, professionalism, and demonstrates to the person you are meeting that you are focused on them in that moment.  When you make your calendar your primary productivity tool, you gain clarity about how much time you have available for the things you want to do.  It's visual, it's staring at you, and there's no escape from reality.  If you work 9 hours a day and today you have 7 hours of meetings, you only have 2 hours to do solo work. That's it.  If you need three hours to get your critical, must-do work done, then you have two choices. You either cancel a meeting or you accept that you will need to work an extra hour.  It's strange how so many people waste so much time trying find other solutions. That's time they could have spent on getting started on the work.  The solution is to time-block slots for doing the work that matters. The best salespeople block time every day to prospect and follow up with their customers. That's why they are the top salespeople. The best CEOs block time every day for working on their top priority task. That's why they are the best at what they do. Best-selling authors block time for writing every day. That's why they sell a lot of books.  Now, as I eluded to at the beginning, there will be some days when things don't go according to plan. You might be sick, had an argument with a loved one or just be distracted for whatever reason.  Or there could be a good old-fashioned emergency that needs your attention.  It happens. That's life.  However, it's not really about what you do or not to do in one day. The purpose of time blocks is to get you to show up and do the work. It's not about volume.  Spending twenty minutes on your actionable email is better than spending zero minutes. It's surprising how much you can get done when the pressure of time is on you. You don't dilly-dally around. (Wow! That's a phrase I haven't used for a long time!)  Ultimately, the measure is how well you did against your plan for the week, not necessarily an individual day.  Let me give you an example.  I have two blog posts, two newsletters, this podcast and a YouTube video to produce each week. They are my measurables. Six pieces of content. I know I need about 12 hours a week to produce that content. I also have 15 hours of coaching appointments. So, in total, I need 27 hours protected before I begin my week to complete my professional work.  It's doable, and based on my completion rates, I complete this work around 87% of the time over 12 months. I'll take that. (I measure it at the end of every year)  I work with one highly successful CEO who writes a LinkedIn Newsletter every week. Her company has over 50,000 employees in six different countries. She protects two hours every week to write that newsletter. One hour for the first draft and one hour later in the week to edit it.  Last year, she didn't miss one newsletter. She had a 100% completion rate. And that was her goal.  How did she do it? She protected her writing time every week. She would protect Monday mornings when in the office, and when travelling, she would take advantage of jet lag and write when she was wide awake in the early morning or late at night.  She time-blocked the time. She knew the only way to achieve a 100% completion rate was to make sure each week she had protected the time to do the work.  However, time blocking only works if you are planning your week. Not planning your week leaves you open to other people hijacking your calendar, and as I am sure you are aware, other people are often very persuasive… or demanding.  When you sit down to plan the week, you first look at what meetings and appointments you have scheduled. How much time does that leave you?  That will tell you what you could realistically get done that week.  If you're away at a conference for three days, you really only have two days to work with. However, one of those days will probably be needed for catching up, so realistically, you've got one solid work day.  But let's look at a typical week when you are at your usual place of work.  How much time do you need to do the work you are employed to do each week? A journalist may be expected to write an article a week. How long does it typically take to write the article, excluding the research and interviews? That would be their starting point.  Doctors I work with often need 2 hours or more after seeing patients to handle paperwork. If they want to get home at 7:00 pm each evening, then that will affect the time they need to stop seeing patients and do paperwork.  Salespeople are focused on seeing clients most of the day, but they also often have paperwork and follow-ups to do. Where can they fit the time they need for paperwork and follow-ups? Knowing what you are expected to do as part of your job and ensuring you have sufficient time to do it each week is what I call protecting time for your core work, and it goes back to the birth of humankind. Our ancestors on the Savannahs knew their core work. To hunt for food. If they'd had a big kill one day, they may have been able to take a day off, but when they started their day, they knew their job was to go out and find food. It was a non-negotiable part of their day.  That's what time blocking does for you. It gives you clarity on what you need to do that day. All you need to do is show up.  One tip I can give you about time-blocking is to keep your time blocks general. For instance, the CEO I mentioned a moment ago calls her newsletter writing time simply “writing time”. That gives her some flexibility.  If she needs to write a report for the board and is up against a tight deadline, then that is what she will write in that time. She will then find another space for the newsletter writing. I do something similar. I have writing time and audio/visual time protected on my calendar. I can then choose what I write or record on the day as part of my daily planning routine.  If you're in sales or a client-facing role, the time you spend working for your clients can be called “client” or “customer” time. I would also highly recommend that you set aside time every day to deal with messages, emails, and admin. These tasks will creep up on you if you're not dealing with them every day. Even if you can only find thirty minutes, take it.  Whenever I am on a business trip, whether domestic or international, I make sure to set aside time during the day to address my actionable messages. The most challenging ones are domestic, as I generally drive to the appointment or event. The easier ones are international as there is a lot of time hanging around in airport lounges.  Another tip I would give is not to go crazy here. Time blocking is not about blocking every minute of the day. It's about protecting time only for the important work you need to do.  When I look at my calendar, there are only three hours a day protected for solo work. On days when I have a lot of meetings, I usually reduce that time to one hour.  So there you go, Alex. I hope that has helped.  You are going to have good and bad days. That's perfectly normal. But, you have complete control of your calendar, so you can move things around, change your blocks if necessary. But, and this is the important but, once you've locked them in for the day, you stick with them. Remember, it's not about how much you do in the time, it's about turning up and doing the work.  And if you want to transform your time management and adopt a sustainable time-based productivity system, my newest course, the Time-Based Productivity course, will do that for you.  It will teach you how to time-block effectively and organise your work so you are doing the right things at the right time. PLUS… by joining the course, you get free access to my recently updated Time Sector System course and my Time Blocking Course.  If I were to recommend one course for 2026, that's the one I would recommend.  Thank you for your question, Alex and thank you to you too for listening. It just remains for me to wish you all a very, very productive week.   

Sales Is You vs You: Why Most Techs & Salespeople Lose Before the Call Starts | Scott Sylvan BellMost sales conversations are lost long before the technician or salesperson ever walks into the home. In this episode, Sam Wakefield sits down with Scott Sylvan Bell to break down the internal habits, mindset gaps, and self-leadership failures that quietly sabotage sales performance before the call even begins.This isn't about scripts, closes, or objection handling. It's about the inner game — discipline, preparation, emotional control, and personal standards — and why sales is ultimately a battle with yourself, not the homeowner.What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhy most techs and salespeople lose the sale before the appointment startsHow lack of self-leadership shows up in sales resultsThe internal habits that quietly sabotage confidence and consistencyWhy mindset, discipline, and preparation matter more than scriptsHow to stop fighting homeowners and start mastering yourselfThe difference between external excuses and internal responsibilityResources & Links

The 5 Habits of Highly Effective Salespeople breaks down the repeatable behaviors that separate consistent producers from everyone else. In this episode, I walk through a simple, practical framework built for solopreneurs who want more ... Read More The post Ep.55: The 5 Habits of Highly Effective Salespeople appeared first on The Solopreneur Movement.

We want your feedback and questions. Text us here.Hard work alone doesn't close deals, and that's a tough truth for a lot of sales professionals to hear. If you're making the calls, sending the proposals, showing up prepared, and still losing deals to competitors you know you're better than, the problem isn't your effort. It isn't your product. And most of the time, it isn't price. It's process. In this episode, we break down why hardworking salespeople stay stuck, why buyers stall and hide behind objections like “I need to think about it,” and what top performers do differently to create urgency, clarity, and confidence at every stage of the sale.

Sales is one of the greatest income engines available, yet too many high earners still struggle to build real wealth. In this episode, we unpack why so many sales professionals make great money but fail to keep it.We break down the five core traps that hold salespeople back: irregular income, short-term thinking, lifestyle inflation, poor risk management, and lack of structure. We dig into the behavioral side of sales, the dopamine-driven wins, and why excitement often replaces consistency when it comes to money.We also get practical. We talk about paying ourselves like a W-2 employee, capping lifestyle spending, planning for taxes, and converting commissions into ownership. Most importantly, we challenge the idea that wealth is just income. Wealth is stability, optionality, and legacy.If you're a top producer who wants more than just another big year, this conversation is for you.We talk about:[00:00] Why Do So Many High-Earning Salespeople Retire Broke?[04:38] What Are the Five Core Wealth Traps Salespeople Fall Into?[08:15] Are Sales Behaviors Wired Against Long-Term Wealth?[10:18]  How Do You Normalize Irregular Income Like a W-2 Paycheck?[14:09] Why Are You Not as Good as Your Best Year (or as Bad as Your Worst)?[17:20]  How Do You Build Financial Structure Without Killing Motivation?[22:22] What Happens When Winners Ignore Risk While They're Winning?[30:12] How Do You Check Yourself When Success Is at Its Peak?[38:23] What Tactical Systems Turn Commissions Into Long-Term Wealth?Resources:Learn more at The Color of MoneyLearn more about DISC behavioral profilesLearn about risk-free government bondsBecome a real estate agent HEREConnect with Our HostsEmerick Peace:Instagram: @theemerickpeaceFacebook: facebook.com/emerickpeaceDaniel Dixon:Instagram: @dixonsolditFacebook: facebook.com/realdanieldixonLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dixonsolditYouTube: @dixongroupcompaniesJulia Lashay:Instagram: @iamjulialashayFacebook: facebook.com/growwithjuliaLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/julialashay/YouTube: @JuliaLashayBo MenkitiInstagram: @bomenkitiFacebook: facebook.com/obiora.menkitiLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bomenkiti/Produced by NOVAThis podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views, thoughts, and opinions of the guest represent those of the guest and not  Keller Williams Realty, LLC and its affiliates, and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, tax, or other advice. This podcast is provided without any warranty, or guarantee of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or results from using the information.

In this episode, I'm joined by Steve Harding, Senior Vice President of Sales EMEA at SalesLoft and global sales leader, for a deep dive into how AI is reshaping the revenue workflow. We cut through the hype to uncover the real value AI brings to sales teams, from serving as the "air traffic control" for overwhelmed account executives to accelerating pipeline creation through smarter signal prioritization. Steve shares powerful examples from his own organization, unveils practical AI use cases for prospecting and deal progression, and emphasizes the importance of keeping the human touch front and center. Tune in for candid stories and fresh perspectives on how sales teams can successfully adopt AI, avoid common mistakes, and leverage technology to enhance, not replace, the vital role of human judgment and relationship-building in sales. Outline of This Episode 00:00 AI-driven sales productivity insights. 08:08 Human-centric sales in the AI era. 10:42 Content overload challenges modern buyers. 15:48 AI-powered sales insights. 19:13 AI integration in sales workflow. 20:27 AI-driven customer outreach automation. AI in the Revenue Workflow: Separating Value from Hype Today, sales teams are inundated with tools and data, making the challenge not just about having information, but about managing it. AI has the potential to become the air traffic controller, helping teams delegate, automate, and prioritize effectively. AI's most meaningful contribution is compressing "time to insight." Instead of manually sifting data or waiting for CRM updates, AI delivers actionable guidance at critical moments in a seller's workflow. Steve outlines how, at SalesLoft, AI is integrated directly into their platform, which helps account executives instantly recognize the next best action and act at the right time. This isn't just theoretical. For example, teams can now pick up signals, both internal, like website activity or content downloads, and external, like missed payments, that indicate where attention is needed. AI then helps sort and prioritize these signals, recommending actions and automating follow-up tasks so teams spend time where it counts. The result: improved productivity and responsiveness, and ultimately, healthier pipelines. AI that Boosts Prospecting, Qualification, and Deal Progression What does this look like in practice? Steve shares a recent exercise at SalesLoft when they analyzed every major win and loss across markets and segments, mining rich interaction data captured in their system. When they fed this into the AI, they discerned clear themes that differentiated wins from losses. The findings informed improvements to their sales process, especially around discovery intent, giving teams concrete cues that new hires and veterans alike could watch for. This real-world application of AI proved results, boosting win rates and adding confidence, context, and clarity to team conversations while preserving the all-important human connection. The Human Element - Where Judgment Still Matters Most Despite the buzz, AI is not a panacea for sales relationships. At the end of the day, sales is a human-centric activity, Steve explains. AI serves best as a "wingman or copilot." It can automate certain workflows, but when the conversation gets nuanced, or the stakes are high, whether it's handling objections or building deep trust, a human's judgment, empathy, and experience remain irreplaceable. Buyers are showing up more informed, or misinformed, than ever before. But the proliferation of high-quality marketing content has led to confusion and caution. Salespeople must now help buyers navigate this information landscape and overcome the "fear of messing up", a challenge that can't be solved by algorithms alone. What missteps do organizations make with AI rollouts?  Steve stresses two dangers: Expecting AI to perform beyond the skill level of a company's most junior rep. Failing to keep humans "in the loop", validating and verifying a system's outputs. Instead, AI should recommend and automate, not dictate, with human oversight at every critical juncture. It's the old wisdom: "Trust but verify." As sales leaders consider integrating AI into pipeline generation or deal execution, Steve recommends starting with the pain points, not the tech itself. Ask where reps are wasting time, then target AI to solve those problems. Then, using AI within your systems, not on the edge (like ad hoc Copilot or OpenAI research). This keeps valuable intel connected to your CRM. While you're doing this, it's important to keep a human in the loop to protect your relationships and reputation. Where AI and Human Skill Combine for Better Outcomes One standout example is nurturing relationships when key contacts change roles or organizations. AI tools can track these moves and trigger a personalized, multi-step outreach campaign, congratulations on LinkedIn, followed by an email and a phone call. This blend of automation and personal touch lets teams act at scale, re-engage valuable advocates, and build pipeline opportunities that would be nearly impossible to manage manually. AI is transforming sales workflows, but not by replacing humans. Use AI as an intelligent copilot to prioritize, automate, and scale, but never lose sight of the human skills of empathy, and judgment.  Connect with Steve Harding Steve Harding on LinkedIn  Salesloft  Connect With Paul Watts  LinkedIn Twitter  Subscribe to SALES REINVENTED Audio Production and Show Notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com

Building a high-performing, resilient B2B sales team requires adapting to rapid changes in roles and technology. In this episode of Predictable B2B Success, Vinay Koshy interviews Walter Crosby, an accomplished sales leader with experience ranging from closing complex deals to mentoring sales managers and founders. Crosby discusses why many top salespeople hesitate to become managers, highlights the risks of pipeline bloat, and explains how to leverage a company's “untapped wisdom” for a unique sales advantage. Walter Crosby also shares key strategies for accelerating onboarding, crafting messaging that resonates with buyers, and fostering a culture of high performance. He offers insights on applying neuroscience in sales conversations, the practical role of AI, and the importance of aligning leadership's vision with frontline execution. This episode provides actionable strategies and practical advice for founders, sales leaders, and sales professionals. Some topics we explore in this episode include: Transition to Sales Management: Walter Crosby explains the challenges salespeople face when promoted to management and why he started Helix Sales Development.Coaching as a Key Strength: The importance of spending time coaching sales teams rather than just managing reports and metrics.Effective Onboarding and Messaging: How clear ICPs and aligned sales/marketing messages help new salespeople succeed faster.Performance vs. Family Culture: Building a sales culture of accountability and high performance, moving away from the "family" mindset.Sifter Message and Playbook Creation: Developing a unified sales playbook and messaging to stand out from competitors.Pipeline Management: Preventing pipeline bloat by using scorecards, thorough qualification, and regular pipeline reviews.Traits of Top Sales Performers: Curiosity, skepticism, and the ability to handle challenging conversations distinguish high performers.Motivation and Better Hiring: Hiring sales talent based on motivation type and structured assessments to reduce bias.AI and Technology in Sales: Examining the role of AI in sales processes, its limitations, and the continued importance of human connection.Leadership, Values, and Strategy Execution: Closing the gap between leadership's vision and sales execution by integrating company values into daily practices.And much, much more...

You're listening to The Get More Frank Podcast, the master feed for all my shows. Today's episode is LIVE with LOPES with Ali Reda.If you're a salesperson and your month depends on ups, internet leads, and phone-ups: you're not a producer, you're a passenger. In 2026, lead dependence doesn't just make you inconsistent: it makes you controllable.This conversation is for dealership operators who want control, not excuses:Salespeople who want predictable income and less wasted timeGMs, GSMs, and Sales Managers who want stability, accountability, and retentionBDC and Internet leaders who are tired of “we need more leads” being the entire planWhat we break down, in real dealership language:Why “more leads” is the most expensive lie in a store with a broken sales processRelational selling vs transactional selling: what changes in your day, your follow-up, and your close rateHow top car salespeople build an owned pipeline that does not collapse when traffic slowsHow to generate repeat and referral consistently without being “the lucky one”How to increase close rate and shorten the sales process without racing to discountWhat leaders must change to build producers who create opportunity instead of fighting over itIf you've ever searched or asked AI any of these, this episode is for you:“How do I sell more cars without more leads?”“How do I stop being lead dependent in car sales?”“How do I build my own pipeline as a car salesperson?”“What is relational selling in a dealership and how do I do it?”“How do I get more repeat and referral customers?”“How do I increase close rate without discounting?”“How do I shorten the car buying process?”“Why is my sales team inconsistent month to month?”“How do I stop my floor from fighting over ups?”“What should a GM or GSM change in the sales process for 2026?”Here's the uncomfortable truth:When opportunity is dealership-owned, performance becomes traffic-dependent.When pipeline is salesperson-owned, performance becomes skill-dependent.Brought to you by CarNow.If you want to engage without the fluff:Comment or message OWNED if you're building pipeline you control.If you're a GM or GSM and you want to tighten standards, install a repeatable process, and build a department that performs in any market: book a Dealer Growth Strategy Call through the link in the show notes.Follow The Get More Frank Podcast so you don't miss the next drop.

I'm not sure if you noticed this, but there is a massive gap between what salespeople and leaders know and what they actually do. I've written 18 books and trained hundreds of thousands of salespeople. I can't tell you how many times someone comes up to me and says, "Jeb, I read Fanatical Prospecting. Great book. But that stuff doesn't work for me." Or they'll say, "I tried that objection handling technique you taught, but it didn't work, so I went back to what I was doing before." Here's what they don't understand: The problem isn't the technique. The problem is that they gave up too soon. The brutal truth is that most people fail to implement what they learn.  The Skate Park Lesson A couple of weeks ago, I was traveling for business, working with one of my clients' sales teams. One afternoon, I decided I needed some exercise, so I went for a walk. Along the way, I came across a skate park where kids were riding their skateboards and doing tricks. There was a bench nearby, so I sat down to watch for a while. Close to me was a group of young guys, probably 13 or 14 years old. They were huddled around a phone watching a YouTube video of someone doing a particular trick on their skateboard. They watched it, talked about it, and then one of them threw his skateboard down and attempted the trick. He immediately fell off and failed. The next kid tried, and he failed. Then the next one and the next one. All of them failed to do the trick.  So what did they do? They went back and watched the YouTube video again. Then they threw down their boards and crashed and burned, but this time, slightly less dramatically than the first time. They repeated this process over and over. Watch the video. Try the trick. Fail. Watch again. Try again. Fail a little less badly. Until finally, one of them nailed it. When he landed the trick, they all erupted. Clapping, fist pumping, and cheering. And once one kid got it, the rest of them started getting it too. They practiced until they had the trick nailed down, then went back to YouTube to find another trick to learn. At that point, I got up and headed back to my hotel. But as I was walking, I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd just witnessed. Too Often, We Give Up too Soon How often do we do the exact opposite in business and sales? We read a book, watch a video, listen to a podcast. We hear about a technique or concept that sounds really good. And we think, "Yeah, I'm going to try that." So we give it one shot. Maybe two if we're feeling ambitious. And when it doesn't work perfectly the first time, we say, "Well, this doesn't work for me," and we give up and never try it again. Or worse, we read the book, feel really good about the concept, then put the book down and never even attempt it at all because we've already convinced ourselves it wouldn't work for us before we even tried. But here's the thing: Those kids at the skate park didn't look at that trick and say, "This looks hard, it probably won't work for me." They looked at it and said, "We're going to figure this out." They understood something that most adults have forgotten: Just because you read about something or see someone else do it, doesn't mean you're going to master it on the first try. The Homemade Yogurt Failure Paradigm  As I was walking back from the skate park, this lesson reminded me of something that had happened to me over the holidays. I'd seen something in my news feed about making homemade yogurt. It looked interesting, so I bought some milk, studied the recipe, and made an attempt. And I failed. My concoction didn't turn into yogurt at all. My immediate reaction was, "Well, this isn't going to work; it must be a bad recipe." I gave up after one failed attempt. But after watching those kids at the skatepark, I realized the giving-up-too-soon trap I'd fallen into. So when I got home from my trip, I went back, reread the recipe, walked back through my steps to figure out what went wrong, and tried again. This time it worked, and I actually made yogurt. The recipe wasn't the problem. My execution was the problem. And I only figured that out by trying again. The Human Overconfidence Fallacy  Here's the lesson: We are all susceptible to this human fallacy of believing that we can read something, watch something, or hear something once and then immediately do it perfectly. When it doesn't work the first time (or even the second time), we conclude that the technique is flawed, or it won't work for us, or our situation is unique and different. But the truth is, we gave up too soon, before we gave the technique a fair shot. That's just being human. We're wired for overconfidence, instant gratification, and immediate results. When we don't get them, we move on. Why This Matters in Sales  Let me bring this back to sales, because this pattern will absolutely kill your results. You read a book on prospecting, learn a new cold calling technique, watch a sales training video on objection handling, or attend a conference or training and learn new ideas. Then you try it. Maybe it feels awkward, or the prospect reacts differently than you expected. Maybe you stumble over the words, or you get shut down and rejected. So you conclude it doesn't work, and you go back to what you were doing before, which, by the way, wasn't working either. That's why you were looking for something new in the first place. Here's what you're missing: Sales is and always has been a numbers game. Statistics and the law of averages matter. Even the best techniques don't work 100% of the time. You have to use them enough times to see the patterns and to understand what's working and what needs adjustment. The Iteration Process Those kids at the skate park weren't just repeating the same failed attempt over and over. They were iterating. They'd try the trick, fail, and then make a small adjustment. They'd watch the video again, notice something they missed the first time, and then talk to each other about what went wrong and what to try differently. That's the process: Try, fail, learn, adjust, try again. But most people skip the "learn and adjust" part. They just try, fail, and quit. Let me give you a sales example. Say you're trying a new prospecting email template. You send it to ten prospects and get no responses. The try-fail-quit people conclude the template doesn't work. But a try-fail-learn-adjust-try again high performer would ask:  Did I send it to the right prospects?  Was my subject line compelling?  Was the timing right?  Did my call to action make sense?  Should I test a different version? They'd iterate and test different variables until they figured out what worked. That's what separates top performers from everyone else. They don't give up after one attempt. Instead, they iterate until they succeed. The Success Leaves Clues Principle Here's something else those kids understood: If someone else is doing something successfully, that means it's possible. When they watched that YouTube video, they didn't say, "Well, that guy is just naturally talented." They said, "If he can do it, we can figure out how to do it too." This is the "success leaves clues" principle. If someone else is making something work, that's proof it can work. Your job is to master their patterns and believe that you can make it work too. When you read a book like Fanatical Prospecting, and you see examples of people who built massive pipelines using these techniques, that's not fiction. Those are real people who learned how to execute these strategies. When you watch a training video and see someone handle an objection smoothly, that's not magic. It is someone who practiced that response dozens or hundreds of times until it became natural. The clues and evidence are there. The only question is: Are you willing to put in the practice and endure the failures until you get there yourself? The Practice Paradox Here's the paradox that trips people up: The techniques that work best often feel the most awkward at first. That's because they're different from what you've been doing, and anything different feels uncomfortable. For example, when I teach salespeople to slow down and use silence in negotiations, they hate it. It feels unnatural. They want to fill the silence with words. But the ones who push through that discomfort and practice using silence close bigger deals at better margins. When I teach salespeople to ask for referrals using a specific framework, they feel like they're being pushy or scripted. But the ones who practice the framework until it becomes conversational generate more referrals than they ever thought possible. The discomfort is temporary. The results are permanent. But you have to get through the discomfort in order to get to the results. 5 Keys to Mastering New Sales Skills So, how do you actually implement what you learn? Here's what I recommend: First, commit to practicing any new technique at least twenty times before you decide if it works. Not once. Not twice. Twenty times minimum. That's how long it takes to get past the awkwardness and start seeing results. Second, track your results. Don't rely on your feelings about whether something is working. Write down what happened each time you tried the technique. Look for patterns and notice what's improving. Third, iterate. If something isn't working after multiple attempts, don't just abandon it. Adjust it. What needs to change? What variable can you test differently? Fourth, find someone who's making it work and learn from them. If you're struggling with a technique that others are using successfully, reach out to them. Ask questions. Watch how they do it. Fifth, be patient with yourself. You're not going to master anything instantly.

I'm not sure if you noticed this, but there is a massive gap between what salespeople and leaders know and what they actually do. I’ve written 18 books and trained hundreds of thousands of salespeople. I can’t tell you how many times someone comes up to me and says, “Jeb, I read Fanatical Prospecting. Great book. But that stuff doesn’t work for me.” Or they’ll say, “I tried that objection handling technique you taught, but it didn’t work, so I went back to what I was doing before.” Here’s what they don't understand: The problem isn’t the technique. The problem is that they gave up too soon. The brutal truth is that most people fail to implement what they learn.  The Skate Park Lesson A couple of weeks ago, I was traveling for business, working with one of my clients' sales teams. One afternoon, I decided I needed some exercise, so I went for a walk. Along the way, I came across a skate park where kids were riding their skateboards and doing tricks. There was a bench nearby, so I sat down to watch for a while. Close to me was a group of young guys, probably 13 or 14 years old. They were huddled around a phone watching a YouTube video of someone doing a particular trick on their skateboard. They watched it, talked about it, and then one of them threw his skateboard down and attempted the trick. He immediately fell off and failed. The next kid tried, and he failed. Then the next one and the next one. All of them failed to do the trick.  So what did they do? They went back and watched the YouTube video again. Then they threw down their boards and crashed and burned, but this time, slightly less dramatically than the first time. They repeated this process over and over. Watch the video. Try the trick. Fail. Watch again. Try again. Fail a little less badly. Until finally, one of them nailed it. When he landed the trick, they all erupted. Clapping, fist pumping, and cheering. And once one kid got it, the rest of them started getting it too. They practiced until they had the trick nailed down, then went back to YouTube to find another trick to learn. At that point, I got up and headed back to my hotel. But as I was walking, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d just witnessed. Too Often, We Give Up too Soon How often do we do the exact opposite in business and sales? We read a book, watch a video, listen to a podcast. We hear about a technique or concept that sounds really good. And we think, “Yeah, I’m going to try that.” So we give it one shot. Maybe two if we’re feeling ambitious. And when it doesn’t work perfectly the first time, we say, “Well, this doesn’t work for me,” and we give up and never try it again. Or worse, we read the book, feel really good about the concept, then put the book down and never even attempt it at all because we've already convinced ourselves it wouldn’t work for us before we even tried. But here’s the thing: Those kids at the skate park didn’t look at that trick and say, “This looks hard, it probably won’t work for me.” They looked at it and said, “We’re going to figure this out.” They understood something that most adults have forgotten: Just because you read about something or see someone else do it, doesn’t mean you’re going to master it on the first try. The Homemade Yogurt Failure Paradigm  As I was walking back from the skate park, this lesson reminded me of something that had happened to me over the holidays. I’d seen something in my news feed about making homemade yogurt. It looked interesting, so I bought some milk, studied the recipe, and made an attempt. And I failed. My concoction didn’t turn into yogurt at all. My immediate reaction was, “Well, this isn’t going to work; it must be a bad recipe.” I gave up after one failed attempt. But after watching those kids at the skatepark, I realized the giving-up-too-soon trap I'd fallen into. So when I got home from my trip, I went back, reread the recipe, walked back through my steps to figure out what went wrong, and tried again. This time it worked, and I actually made yogurt. The recipe wasn’t the problem. My execution was the problem. And I only figured that out by trying again. The Human Overconfidence Fallacy  Here’s the lesson: We are all susceptible to this human fallacy of believing that we can read something, watch something, or hear something once and then immediately do it perfectly. When it doesn’t work the first time (or even the second time), we conclude that the technique is flawed, or it won't work for us, or our situation is unique and different. But the truth is, we gave up too soon, before we gave the technique a fair shot. That’s just being human. We’re wired for overconfidence, instant gratification, and immediate results. When we don’t get them, we move on. Why This Matters in Sales  Let me bring this back to sales, because this pattern will absolutely kill your results. You read a book on prospecting, learn a new cold calling technique, watch a sales training video on objection handling, or attend a conference or training and learn new ideas. Then you try it. Maybe it feels awkward, or the prospect reacts differently than you expected. Maybe you stumble over the words, or you get shut down and rejected. So you conclude it doesn’t work, and you go back to what you were doing before, which, by the way, wasn’t working either. That’s why you were looking for something new in the first place. Here’s what you’re missing: Sales is and always has been a numbers game. Statistics and the law of averages matter. Even the best techniques don’t work 100% of the time. You have to use them enough times to see the patterns and to understand what’s working and what needs adjustment. The Iteration Process Those kids at the skate park weren’t just repeating the same failed attempt over and over. They were iterating. They’d try the trick, fail, and then make a small adjustment. They’d watch the video again, notice something they missed the first time, and then talk to each other about what went wrong and what to try differently. That’s the process: Try, fail, learn, adjust, try again. But most people skip the “learn and adjust” part. They just try, fail, and quit. Let me give you a sales example. Say you’re trying a new prospecting email template. You send it to ten prospects and get no responses. The try-fail-quit people conclude the template doesn’t work. But a try-fail-learn-adjust-try again high performer would ask:  Did I send it to the right prospects?  Was my subject line compelling?  Was the timing right?  Did my call to action make sense?  Should I test a different version? They’d iterate and test different variables until they figured out what worked. That’s what separates top performers from everyone else. They don’t give up after one attempt. Instead, they iterate until they succeed. The Success Leaves Clues Principle Here’s something else those kids understood: If someone else is doing something successfully, that means it’s possible. When they watched that YouTube video, they didn’t say, “Well, that guy is just naturally talented.” They said, “If he can do it, we can figure out how to do it too.” This is the “success leaves clues” principle. If someone else is making something work, that’s proof it can work. Your job is to master their patterns and believe that you can make it work too. When you read a book like Fanatical Prospecting, and you see examples of people who built massive pipelines using these techniques, that’s not fiction. Those are real people who learned how to execute these strategies. When you watch a training video and see someone handle an objection smoothly, that’s not magic. It is someone who practiced that response dozens or hundreds of times until it became natural. The clues and evidence are there. The only question is: Are you willing to put in the practice and endure the failures until you get there yourself? The Practice Paradox Here’s the paradox that trips people up: The techniques that work best often feel the most awkward at first. That’s because they’re different from what you’ve been doing, and anything different feels uncomfortable. For example, when I teach salespeople to slow down and use silence in negotiations, they hate it. It feels unnatural. They want to fill the silence with words. But the ones who push through that discomfort and practice using silence close bigger deals at better margins. When I teach salespeople to ask for referrals using a specific framework, they feel like they’re being pushy or scripted. But the ones who practice the framework until it becomes conversational generate more referrals than they ever thought possible. The discomfort is temporary. The results are permanent. But you have to get through the discomfort in order to get to the results. 5 Keys to Mastering New Sales Skills So, how do you actually implement what you learn? Here’s what I recommend: First, commit to practicing any new technique at least twenty times before you decide if it works. Not once. Not twice. Twenty times minimum. That’s how long it takes to get past the awkwardness and start seeing results. Second, track your results. Don’t rely on your feelings about whether something is working. Write down what happened each time you tried the technique. Look for patterns and notice what’s improving. Third, iterate. If something isn’t working after multiple attempts, don’t just abandon it. Adjust it. What needs to change? What variable can you test differently? Fourth, find someone who’s making it work and learn from them. If you’re struggling with a technique that others are using successfully, reach out to them. Ask questions. Watch how they do it. Fifth, be patient with yourself. You’re not going to master anything instantly. Give yourself permission to be bad at something new while you’re trying to master it. Your Homework this Week Here’s what I want you to do this week: Pick one technique you learned recently – from a book, a podcast, a training – and commit to trying it at least twenty times this week. Track what happens each time. Notice what’s working and what’s not, make small adjustments, and keep at it. Because here’s the truth: The techniques work. But you must put in the work before they will work for you.   Those kids at the skate park didn’t give up after the first fall. They kept going until they nailed the trick. That’s what separates winners from everyone else. Not talent, luck, or some magical gift. Just the willingness to try, fail, learn, adjust, and try again until you get it right. And remember, when it’s time to go home, make one more call. Because that one more call is one more rep, one more attempt to get better, and one more step toward mastering your craft.   One way to become a stronger sales professional and leader is the OutBound Conference. OutBound is the biggest, baddest sales and leadership training conference on the planet. At Outbound, you'll learn from the world's top sales and leadership experts and network with other high performers just like you. To reserve your tickets, go to OutboundConference.com 

Thank you for listening to our conversation on the Forward Thinking podcast as Nicholas Loise and Sher Downing, PhD, explore the intricacies of sales, leadership, and the importance of building relationships in the sales process. They discuss the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and salespeople, particularly the reluctance to engage in direct sales conversations. Nick emphasizes the need for a solid sales operating system and the importance of creating demand for products and services. Their discussion also covers the significance of understanding sales velocity and pipeline management, as well as the role of technology in enhancing sales processes. We hope our conversation provides valuable insights for anyone looking to improve their sales strategies and navigate the complexities of the sales landscape.Takeaways:Sales is about building relationships and trust.Overcoming reluctance to engage in sales is crucial.A solid sales operating system is essential for success.Creating demand is key to driving sales.Understanding sales velocity helps in managing expectations.Pipeline management is critical for cash flow and planning.Technology should enhance, not replace, sales efforts.Salespeople must be good students of human behavior.Follow-up is essential and should be value-driven.Sales strategies must adapt to changing market conditions.Nicholas says, "Sales is hand-to-hand combat. Selling isn't for the faint of heart."Learn more and connect with Nicholas here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasloisehttps://www.facebook.com/salesperformanceteam/https://salesperformanceteam.com/#sales #leadership #entrepreneurship #marketing #salesstrategies #salesoperatingsystem #demandcreation #salesvelocity #pipelinemanagement #salesreluctance

Set the bar low to build daily selling skills that stick! We hear it every day, “Shoot for the stars…. Reach for the stars….Aim High…..Set your sights high…..Dream big.”  Even the famed Herb Tarlek told us to, “Think big to be big”, on the 1970s sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.  While those sound great, most people fail to achieve those lofty goals because they don't know what to do on day one of that journey.  They set New Year’s resolutions on Jan 1, but by Quitting Day (Jan 16 this year), they don't know how to sustain their journey.  They set the bar so high and the daily journey effort so high that they crush under the weight.  Salespeople fall into this same trap! Listen in to learn the three steps to achieving great success in sales and life!

PODCAST DESCRIPTION  Robert Kiyosaki once taught me that 'your mission and passion in life is determined by the principle of 'doing what you love to alleviate what you hate.' In my case I love helping people, but in particular I hate seeing good people, sales people, professionals, being thrown to the wolves, with little or no training, skills, or tools, expected to sell, bring in revenue, feed the rest of the tribe. I particularly get annoyed when experiences sales managers or Directors just expect someone to be able to sell on the basis that 'if you can talk, you can sell..' My whole career for the past 25 years has been working with teams and sales professoionals to enable, empower, coach, mentor, and equip them to achieve their sales goals. Not to throw them to the wolves and expect them to come back with bucket loads of gold, jewells and signed contracts. Too many good people are struggling in sales—and it's not because they lack effort, intelligence, or integrity. It's because they've been sent out to hunt revenue with blunt spears and no training… then judged on the outcome. In this episode, Leigh Farnell unpacks why sales is not about talent or personality—but science, structure, and skill—and why accepting average performance is quietly destroying confidence, margins, and belief. You'll discover: Why a common sales language eliminates confusion, emotion, and guesswork How the science of influence removes the need for pressure, pushing, and "selling" The power of better questions to shorten sales cycles and create clarity Why objections should be handled before they appear—not at the end Why average performance isn't neutral—it's expensive, and how raising standards lifts everyone This episode is for salespeople, entrepreneurs, and leaders who care about people and performance—and who believe good people deserve better tools. No more blunt spears. No more innocent salespeople. Average ends here.   Book a strategy call here -- https://calendly.com/lfbb/pdc-30-minute-no-fee-strategy-meet     #salescoaching #salesstrategy #sales #salestips #salescoach #saleslife #salestraining #salestrainer #salesfunnel #business #performancedevelopment #performanceimprovement #performanceempowerment #leadership #leadinggrowth #leadershipdevelopment #leadershipcoach #ceo #managingdirector #leadershipteam #leadershipempowerment #newleadership

F2 is the AI platform for private markets investors, automating due diligence and portfolio monitoring workflows with agentic AI. After building ARK into a digital banking platform that scaled from tens of millions to tens of billions in loan volume, Donald Muir developed AI technology to automate debt placement on ARK's marketplace. When upmarket institutional lenders requested access to the AI for their entire deal flow—not just ARK's marketplace deals—Donald recognized the technology's standalone value. In this episode of BUILDERS, Donald shares how he's commercializing enterprise-grade AI for an industry where he personally spent years in the private equity bullpen, and how F2 is addressing the reliability and trust barriers that prevent AI adoption in high-stakes financial decision-making. Topics Discussed How F2 emerged from ARK's internal need to automate debt marketplace screening memos The technical approach to eliminating hallucination in Excel-based financial analysis Replicating private equity's "super day" interview format to prove AI capability with live deal data Sales team composition: hiring ex-finance professionals instead of traditional sales reps AI's role in evolving private equity analysts from menial tasks to system operators Product roadmap from due diligence to portfolio monitoring to deal syndication platform Maintaining operational independence while preserving strategic alignment with ARK GTM Lessons For B2B Founders Solve your own hardest problem first, then productize: Donald built F2's core technology to scale ARK's debt marketplace, focusing on the most difficult engineering challenge—reliable financial analysis of unstructured Excel data—because the marketplace required it. This resulted in technology that foundation models still haven't replicated over a year later. The aha moment came when institutional lenders wanted the AI for all their deal flow, not just marketplace transactions. Organic internal development created category-leading capabilities and validated product-market fit before commercialization. B2B founders should identify which internal operational challenges, if solved, could become standalone products serving the broader market. Design sales processes that mirror how your ICP evaluates talent: Donald replicated private equity's "super day" format where analyst candidates receive a data room, laptop without internet access, and three hours to produce an LBO model and investment thesis. F2 runs identical timed tests—customers send live deal data rooms under NDA, F2 generates investment committee memos using their templates, and presents same-day results. This proves the AI can perform at the standard funds use to evaluate human analysts they hire 18 months before start dates. B2B founders selling into industries with rigorous talent evaluation processes should reverse-engineer those frameworks into product demonstrations that speak to buyer expectations. Prioritize credibility over sales experience in technical markets: Donald's entire sales team consists of ex-finance professionals who lived in the seat—no traditional salespeople. These reps can screen-share investment memos created that morning and discuss them authentically with MDs and principals using industry-specific language. After 4.5 years running go-to-market at ARK, Donald teaches sales methodology to domain experts rather than teaching domain expertise to salespeople. For deals averaging half a billion dollars flowing through the platform, buyer credibility outweighs sales polish. B2B founders in specialized verticals should evaluate whether domain fluency or sales pedigree matters more for their specific buyer personas and deal complexity. Engineer for auditability before optimizing for speed: F2 focused on eliminating hallucination and achieving mathematical accuracy—solving what Donald calls the "reliability and trust" gap—before addressing workflow efficiency. The company name references the F2 keystroke used to audit Excel calculations at 3 AM in the PE bullpen. This positioning directly addresses the barrier preventing AI adoption for investment decisions: LLMs hallucinate, can't do math, and lack auditability. Only after proving the AI produces auditable, trustworthy output did F2 layer on speed benefits. B2B founders building for high-stakes decision environments should identify the fundamental trust barrier and make it the core technical focus before feature expansion. Leverage institutional knowledge as competitive differentiation: Beyond automating existing workflows, F2 enables firms to pipe in decades of institutional knowledge via API—instantly benchmarking new deals against thousands of historical transactions by vertical, revenue size, leverage levels, and management quality. This transforms screening memos from isolated analyses into context-rich evaluations informed by complete firm history. The AI doesn't just work faster; it has comprehensive context that individual analysts manually searching SharePoint folders could never access. B2B founders should identify where accumulated institutional data creates compounding value beyond point-in-time automation. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Here's a question I get asked all the time: What's the single biggest misconception holding salespeople back? That question came from a room full of college students at BYU-Idaho, ages 19 to 24, all exploring sales careers. And my answer is the same whether you're just starting out or you've been in the game for decades. The biggest lie about selling is this: Good salespeople have the gift of gab. You know the stereotype. The smooth talker. The fast-talking closer. The person who can talk their way into or out of anything. We've all seen it in movies, TV shows, and plays like Death of a Salesman. It's been around for a century, and it's completely wrong. The Truth Top Performers Know Here's what the best salespeople actually do: They listen. The greatest salespeople aren't the best talkers. They're the best listeners. They're individuals who know how to ask the right questions and know how to ask questions in a way that create these aha moments for prospects and customers. They understand something fundamental that average performers miss: Closing happens in the discovery process, not at some magical point where you lay the hammer down and ask for a sale. Think about that for a second. The deal isn't won when you deliver your polished presentation. It's not won when you overcome the final objection. It's won in those early conversations when you're asking questions, uncovering pain, and building relationships. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6xiSz9dGkI Why the Stereotype Persists The negative stereotype of salespeople has been pervasive in society for generations. Part of it's because no one really likes to be sold. And there are salespeople who are bad. They talk at people instead of actually taking the time to listen. But here's the reality: Lots of professions have negative stereotypes. Lawyers. Politicians. Salespeople aren't the worst of them. And here's the good side of that negative stereotype: Nobody wants to be in sales. So if you're in sales, you're making a whole lot more money than anybody else. That's a good thing. The people who look at the profession of selling and say, "I could never do that" or "I could never interrupt people or take that type of rejection," are the same people who will never experience the income, freedom, and impact that comes with being great at sales. The Power of Questions When you shift your mindset from talking to listening, everything changes. Instead of thinking about what you're going to say next, you're focused on what your prospect is telling you. You're asking questions like: What's driving this decision right now? What happens if you don't solve this problem? Who else is involved in this decision? What does success look like for you? These aren't manipulative tricks. They're genuine attempts to understand your prospect's world, their challenges, and their goals. And when you do that well, you create trust. You build relationships. You position yourself as a partner, not a vendor. The discovery questions you ask matter more than any pitch you could ever deliver. Handling objections starts with asking the right questions early in the process. Who's Really in Control Here's the truth: The person in control of the conversation is rarely the talker. In fact, it's almost always the listener. If you want to move deals, stop performing and start discovering. Build your calls around three things: smart opening questions, deep follow-ups, and crisp advances to the next step. You'll gain insights, not just airtime. And insights are what close deals. Success in sales isn't about being the loudest voice in the room. It's about being the most curious, the most engaged, and the most intentional about moving the sale forward. What You Need to Unlearn Right Now If you've been operating under the assumption that you need to be a great talker to succeed in sales, unlearn that immediately. Replace it with this truth: You need to be a great asker and an even better listener. Your job isn't to convince people. Your job is to help people convince themselves by asking questions that lead them to their own conclusions. When prospects discover the solution themselves through your questioning, they own it. They believe it. And they buy. That's the relationship you build through asking questions. That matters the most. The Bottom Line Stop trying to out-talk your prospects. Stop preparing 47-slide presentations. Stop thinking that your job is to educate and inform. Your job is to discover. To listen. To understand. To ask the questions that help your prospects see clearly what they need to do next. The best salespeople aren't the smooth talkers. They're the smart listeners who know that the power of the sale is in the questions they ask, not the words they say. If you master this one fundamental truth, you'll close more deals than all the gift-of-gab salespeople combined. And you'll build a career based on relationships, trust, and value instead of pressure, manipulation, and empty talk. That's how you win in sales. That's how you build lasting customer relationships. And that's how you separate yourself from everyone else who's still chasing the lie. Visit salesgravy.com/live to see all of our upcoming virtual and in-person events.

Here's a question I get asked all the time: What's the single biggest misconception holding salespeople back? That question came from a room full of college students at BYU-Idaho, ages 19 to 24, all exploring sales careers. And my answer is the same whether you're just starting out or you've been in the game for decades. The biggest lie about selling is this: Good salespeople have the gift of gab. You know the stereotype. The smooth talker. The fast-talking closer. The person who can talk their way into or out of anything. We've all seen it in movies, TV shows, and plays like Death of a Salesman. It's been around for a century, and it's completely wrong. The Truth Top Performers Know Here's what the best salespeople actually do: They listen. The greatest salespeople aren't the best talkers. They're the best listeners. They're individuals who know how to ask the right questions and know how to ask questions in a way that create these aha moments for prospects and customers. They understand something fundamental that average performers miss: Closing happens in the discovery process, not at some magical point where you lay the hammer down and ask for a sale. Think about that for a second. The deal isn't won when you deliver your polished presentation. It's not won when you overcome the final objection. It's won in those early conversations when you're asking questions, uncovering pain, and building relationships. Why the Stereotype Persists The negative stereotype of salespeople has been pervasive in society for generations. Part of it's because no one really likes to be sold. And there are salespeople who are bad. They talk at people instead of actually taking the time to listen. But here's the reality: Lots of professions have negative stereotypes. Lawyers. Politicians. Salespeople aren't the worst of them. And here's the good side of that negative stereotype: Nobody wants to be in sales. So if you're in sales, you're making a whole lot more money than anybody else. That's a good thing. The people who look at the profession of selling and say "I could never do that" or "I could never interrupt people or take that type of rejection" are the same people who will never experience the income, freedom, and impact that comes with being great at sales. The Power of Questions When you shift your mindset from talking to listening, everything changes. Instead of thinking about what you're going to say next, you're focused on what your prospect is telling you. You're asking questions like: What's driving this decision right now? What happens if you don't solve this problem? Who else is involved in this decision? What does success look like for you? These aren't manipulative tricks. They're genuine attempts to understand your prospect's world, their challenges, and their goals. And when you do that well, you create trust. You build relationships. You position yourself as a partner, not a vendor. The discovery questions you ask matter more than any pitch you could ever deliver. Handling objections starts with asking the right questions early in the process. Who's Really in Control Here's the truth: The person in control of the conversation is rarely the talker. In fact, it's almost always the listener. If you want to move deals, stop performing and start discovering. Build your calls around three things: smart opening questions, deep follow-ups, and crisp advances to the next step. You'll gain insights, not just air time. And insights are what close deals. Success in sales isn't about being the loudest voice in the room. It's about being the most curious, the most engaged, and the most intentional about moving the sale forward. What You Need to Unlearn Right Now If you've been operating under the assumption that you need to be a great talker to succeed in sales, unlearn that immediately. Replace it with this truth: You need to be a great asker and an even better listener. Your job isn't to convince people. Your job is to help people convince themselves by asking questions that lead them to their own conclusions. When prospects discover the solution themselves through your questioning, they own it. They believe it. And they buy. That's the relationship you build through asking questions. That matters the most. The Bottom Line Stop trying to out-talk your prospects. Stop preparing 47-slide presentations. Stop thinking that your job is to educate and inform. Your job is to discover. To listen. To understand. To ask the questions that help your prospects see clearly what they need to do next. The best salespeople aren't the smooth talkers. They're the smart listeners who know that the power of the sale is in the questions they ask, not the words they say. If you master this one fundamental truth, you'll close more deals than all the gift-of-gab salespeople combined. And you'll build a career based on relationships, trust, and value instead of pressure, manipulation, and empty talk. That's how you win in sales. That's how you build lasting customer relationships. And that's how you separate yourself from everyone else who's still chasing the lie. Ready to Master the Art of Prospecting? Join us at Sales Gravy Live: Fanatical Prospecting Bootcamp in Atlanta, GA on March 10-11th. Two days of intensive training where you'll learn the proven systems and techniques that top performers use to fill their pipelines and crush their quotas. Stop guessing. Start prospecting like a pro. Register now at salesgravy.com/live.

Burnout is one of the biggest silent killers of performance in sales — and most people completely misunderstand where it comes from.In this episode, Nick Nascimento breaks down the real psychology behind sales burnout and why it's not caused by working too hard, long hours, or repetitive tasks. In fact, some of the highest-performing entrepreneurs and salespeople work more than anyone else — yet never burn out.So what's the difference?Nick walks through:-Why burnout happens (and why most people get it wrong)-The psychological root of burnout-The 7 biggest causes of burnout in sales-How misalignment, lack of purpose, and environment drain performance-Why chasing the prize instead of the process leads to exhaustion-The difference between transactional vs transformational mindset-How identity conflict fuels burnout-Why progress and growth are non-negotiable for motivation-Most importantly, Nick shares 5 critical mindset shifts that will help you:-Overcome burnout-Prevent burnout long-term-Build discipline without relying on motivation-Shift from reactive to proactive living-Reconnect with purpose, growth, and identity-Create systems that sustain results over timeThis episode is for:-Salespeople feeling stuck, drained, or unmotivated-High performers who feel busy but unfulfilled-Entrepreneurs chasing results but losing purpose-Anyone who wants long-term success without burnoutIf you've ever felt tired, bored, unfulfilled, or disconnected from your work — this episode will change the way you think about burnout forever.Subscribe for more content on sales, discipline, mindset, and personal growth.Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.

Chad Peets is one of the great sales leaders of our time. Previously, he was the sales saviour at Snowflake and was an advisor to the CEO there. He was also an MD at Sutter Hill where he sat on the board of companies like Sigma Computing and Augment Code.  AGENDA: 04:53 How to Recruit the Best Sales Talent Today  06:27 Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruitment in Sales 11:29 How to Evaluate Sales Talent: Green and Red Flags 21:58 Why Remote Work is BS and You Have to be in Office 23:43 How to Improve Sales Team Performance in Just 24 Hours 27:45 When to Fire vs When to Give More Time 32:10 How to Set Sales Quotas Effectively 34:39 Adjusting Compensation Plans for Better Performance 37:50 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS 41:08 Biggest Lessons on Leading Sales Teams 50:37 What is The Future of Enterprise Sales with AI 58:40 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts  

Chad Peets is one of the great sales leaders of our time. Currently, Chad is leading all things sales at X. Previously he was the sales saviour at Snowflake and was an advisor to the CEO there. He was also a MD at Sutter Hill where he sat on the board of companies like Sigma Computing and Augment Code.  AGENDA: 04:53 How to Recruit the Best Sales Talent Today  06:27 Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruitment in Sales 11:29 How to Evaluate Sales Talent: Green and Red Flags 21:58 Why Remote Work is BS and You Have to be in Office 23:43 How to Improve Sales Team Performance in Just 24 Hours 27:45 When to Fire vs When to Give More Time 32:10 How to Set Sales Quotas Effectively 34:39 Adjusting Compensation Plans for Better Performance 37:50 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS 41:08 Biggest Lessons on Leading Sales Teams 50:37 What is The Future of Enterprise Sales with AI 58:40 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts  

Are you really doing enough to hit your sales goals—or are you giving up too soon?In this high-impact episode, we break down the 10X sales philosophy made famous by Grant Cardone and uncover the gritty truth behind why relentless effort beats talent, charm, or even strategy. If you're a sales leader or business owner wondering why your growth has stalled, this is your wake-up call to realign, re-engage, and go bigger.Here's what you'll take away from this episode:The mindset and action patterns that helped Grant Cardone build a billion-dollar empire—and how to apply them in your own career.The real numbers behind sales success, from touch points to follow-ups, and why most people quit just before the breakthrough.How to plan and execute a relentless, high-energy start to the new year—without burning out or losing balance. Hit play now to learn how persistence, clarity, and high-action execution can radically shift your results in the next 12 months.New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.Grow Your Sales By 25% - Book in for a FREE 30-minute Sales Process Audit and walk out with 3 rapid actions that will GROW your SalesTo see how we've helped business grow their sales: Read Client ResultsWatch TestimonialsOr email Ben if you would like to get in touch: hello@strongersalesteams.comThis podcast helps the entrepreneur, founder, CEO, and business owner in the trade, construction and industry segments, regain focus, build confidence, and achieve measurable results through powerful sales training, effective sales strategy, and expert sales coaching—guiding every sales leader, sales manager, and sales team in mastering the sales process, optimizing the sales pipeline, and driving business growth while fostering leadership, balance, and freedom amidst overwhelm, stress, and potential burnout, creating lasting peace of mind and smarter decision making for every California business and Australia business ready to scale up with excellence in sales management.

Salespeople don't struggle because they lack tactics. They struggle because of the language they use—often without realizing what it reveals about how they're thinking. In this episode, Art Sobczak shares 26 sales words and phrases he's banning in 2026. Not because they sound bad—but because they quietly lower status, create resistance, and sabotage confidence before the conversation ever begins. You'll learn why phrases like "Sorry to bother you," "Just checking in," "Thoughts?" and "This is a cold call" don't just hurt response rates—they signal insecure thinking that prospects immediately pick up on. This isn't about memorizing better scripts. It's about thinking, preparing, and showing up like a professional—so the language fixes itself. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why weak, apologetic sales language is a symptom—not the real problem The hidden thinking behind permission-seeking and low-status phrases How certain "best practices" actually trigger resistance Why professionals don't replace phrases—they replace standards How to start eliminating language that no longer belongs in professional sales Art groups the 26 banned words into clear categories, explains what each phrase reveals about your thinking, and shows how this language quietly holds salespeople back—often without them realizing it. Subscribe to the Smart Calling Report at http://SmartCallingReport.com Get more info on the Smart Calling Prospecting and Sales Coaching and Training app at http://Studio.com/Art  

Do you plan to hit your sales goals, or just hope you will? You set goals in January. By March, they are forgotten. It's because most salespeople confuse wanting something with planning for it.  “I want to close more deals this year.” That is not a goal. That is a wish. “I want to be better at prospecting.” Still not a goal. Just a vague intention that leads nowhere. Real sales goals require a system. Not motivation. Not inspiration. A repeatable process that turns big numbers into daily actions you can actually execute. This four-step sales goal planning system turns annual quotas into weekly, executable actions that salespeople can control and measure. Why Most Sales Goals Fail Before February Most salespeople treat goal-setting like a New Year's resolution. They write something down, feel good about it for a week, then watch it disappear under the weight of quota pressure and full calendars. Three things kill sales goals before they have a chance: Lack of specificity. Your brain cannot attach to something vague. There is no finish line, no way to measure progress, and no emotional connection to the outcome. No breakdown. Big numbers paralyze you. Looking at an annual quota feels impossible. Your brain shuts down. You don't know where to start, so you don't start at all. Zero accountability. Goals that live only in your head are easy to abandon. There is no consequence for missing them because nobody, including you, is really tracking them. Research consistently shows that people who write down specific, challenging goals and track them perform significantly better than those who rely on vague intentions or hope. The difference between hitting your number and missing it is having a systematic approach to sales goal planning and the discipline to execute it. Step 1: Identify Your Major Milestones Big goals overwhelm you. When you stare at “close $1.5 million this year,” your brain checks out. It feels too big, too far away, and too abstract. The first step in effective sales goal planning is breaking that number into key checkpoints. These milestones tell you whether you are on track or falling behind. For a $1.5 million annual goal: Q1: $375K Q2: $375K Q3: $375K Q4: $375K Now you are not chasing $1.5 million. You are chasing $375K this quarter. Still significant, but manageable. Take it further. What does $375K mean for your pipeline? If your average deal size is $50K, you need eight closed deals per quarter. If your close rate is 25 percent, you need 32 qualified opportunities in your pipeline each quarter to close those eight deals. Suddenly, that intimidating annual number becomes a concrete monthly target of roughly 11 qualified opportunities. You cannot control whether a deal closes, but you can control how many qualified opportunities you put in your pipeline. That is the number you chase. Step 2: List Your Specific Tasks Milestones tell you where you need to be. Tasks tell you how to get there. These numbers will vary based on your market, deal size, and conversion rates. The point is forcing your goal all the way down to weekly actions you can control. This step requires brutal honesty about the activities that actually generate results in your sales process. If you need 11 qualified opportunities per month and your prospecting-to-opportunity conversion rate is 10 percent, you need 110 prospecting conversations monthly. What does that look like in weekly tasks? 30 outbound calls 15 LinkedIn connection requests with personalized messages 10 follow-up emails to lukewarm prospects 3 referral conversations Assign realistic timeframes to each task. Making 30 calls doesn't require four hours. It requires 45 minutes of focused effort. Block the time, make the calls, move on. The more specific you get, the less room there is for excuses. You either completed the tasks or you did not. You are either on pace or you are behind. If you cannot list the specific weekly tasks required to hit your goal, you do not have a sales goal. You have a hope. Step 3: Consider Obstacles and Resources Every goal has obstacles waiting to derail it. Ignoring them does not make them disappear. Identify what will try to stop you, then plan around it. The biggest time killers in sales are rarely mysterious. Meetings that don't move deals forward. Prospects who will never buy but keep you engaged. Administrative tasks that someone else should handle. Reorganizing your CRM instead of filling it with opportunities. Here is how to expose them. Track your time for one week. Write down every activity in 30-minute blocks. No editing. No judgment. Just honest data. At the end of the week, categorize everything: Income-producing activities like prospecting, discovery, and closing Income-supporting activities like proposals, follow-up, and research Waste, which is everything else Most salespeople discover they spend less than 30 percent of their time on income-producing activities. If that is you, you just found out why you are not hitting your goals. Once you know where your time actually goes, you can protect the activities that matter. Block prospecting time before meetings start. Batch administrative work. Decline meetings where your presence adds no value. Now identify resource gaps. What do you need that you don't have? Skills you need to develop. Tools that would improve your results. Support from leadership to open doors with key accounts. Find these gaps early. Discovering you lack a critical skill in November is too late. Step 4: Stay Flexible Without Lowering the Goal Sales goal planning requires flexibility in tactics, not flexibility in commitment. Markets shift. Buyers change. Your original plan may need adjustment. That does not mean the destination changes. Review your goals monthly and let the data guide you. Ask three questions: Am I on track What's working What's not working If something is working, do more of it. If something isn't working, adjust your approach. For example, your data might show inconsistent execution, poor list quality, or weak follow-up. The answer is not abandoning foundational activities like cold calling. The answer is tightening your process, improving targeting, or reinforcing outreach with disciplined follow-up. Flexibility means adjusting how you execute, not lowering the standard because the work is harder than expected. Salespeople who hit ambitious goals stay flexible in their methods and uncompromising about the outcome. Monthly reviews keep you honest. They prevent you from wasting months on ineffective activity before realizing you are off track. Execute Your Sales Goal Planning System Take one goal right now. Write it down with a specific number and a deadline. Break it into three to five milestones. List the weekly tasks required. Identify your two biggest obstacles and the resources you need to overcome them. Then execute. Review weekly. Adjust monthly. Never stop driving toward the outcome. This system works because it eliminates ambiguity. You know what needs to happen this week. Obstacles don't blindside you because you planned for them. You aren't following a broken plan for six months because you built in regular reviews. While other salespeople hope for a good year, you will be executing a plan. While they react to whatever fires pop up, you will be proactively driving toward measurable outcomes. The difference between salespeople who hit their goals and those who do not is not talent or luck. It is having a systematic process for turning big goals into daily actions and the discipline to follow through when motivation fades. Sales goals don't fail because you lack desire—they fail because the plan isn't specific enough to execute. Download the FREE Goal Planning Guide to turn your sales goals into results. 

Do you plan to hit your sales goals, or just hope you will? You set goals in January. By March, they are forgotten. It's because most salespeople confuse wanting something with planning for it.  “I want to close more deals this year.” That is not a goal. That is a wish. “I want to be better at prospecting.” Still not a goal. Just a vague intention that leads nowhere. Real sales goals require a system. Not motivation. Not inspiration. A repeatable process that turns big numbers into daily actions you can actually execute. This four-step sales goal planning system turns annual quotas into weekly, executable actions that salespeople can control and measure. Why Most Sales Goals Fail Before February Most salespeople treat goal-setting like a New Year's resolution. They write something down, feel good about it for a week, then watch it disappear under the weight of quota pressure and full calendars. Three things kill sales goals before they have a chance: Lack of specificity. Your brain cannot attach to something vague. There is no finish line, no way to measure progress, and no emotional connection to the outcome. No breakdown. Big numbers paralyze you. Looking at an annual quota feels impossible. Your brain shuts down. You don't know where to start, so you don't start at all. Zero accountability. Goals that live only in your head are easy to abandon. There is no consequence for missing them because nobody, including you, is really tracking them. Research consistently shows that people who write down specific, challenging goals and track them perform significantly better than those who rely on vague intentions or hope. The difference between hitting your number and missing it is having a systematic approach to sales goal planning and the discipline to execute it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qcAEM3qG3g Step 1: Identify Your Major Milestones Big goals overwhelm you. When you stare at “close $1.5 million this year,” your brain checks out. It feels too big, too far away, and too abstract. The first step in effective sales goal planning is breaking that number into key checkpoints. These milestones tell you whether you are on track or falling behind. For a $1.5 million annual goal: Q1: $375KQ2: $375KQ3: $375KQ4: $375K Now you are not chasing $1.5 million. You are chasing $375K this quarter. Still significant, but manageable. Take it further. What does $375K mean for your pipeline? If your average deal size is $50K, you need eight closed deals per quarter. If your close rate is 25 percent, you need 32 qualified opportunities in your pipeline each quarter to close those eight deals. Suddenly, that intimidating annual number becomes a concrete monthly target of roughly 11 qualified opportunities. You cannot control whether a deal closes, but you can control how many qualified opportunities you put in your pipeline. That is the number you chase. Step 2: List Your Specific Tasks Milestones tell you where you need to be. Tasks tell you how to get there. These numbers will vary based on your market, deal size, and conversion rates. The point is forcing your goal all the way down to weekly actions you can control. This step requires brutal honesty about the activities that actually generate results in your sales process. If you need 11 qualified opportunities per month and your prospecting-to-opportunity conversion rate is 10 percent, you need 110 prospecting conversations monthly. What does that look like in weekly tasks? 30 outbound calls 15 LinkedIn connection requests with personalized messages 10 follow-up emails to lukewarm prospects 3 referral conversations Assign realistic timeframes to each task. Making 30 calls doesn't require four hours. It requires 45 minutes of focused effort. Block the time, make the calls, move on. The more specific you get, the less room there is for excuses. You either completed the tasks or you did not. You are either on pace or you are behind. If you cannot list the specific weekly tasks required to hit your goal, you do not have a sales goal. You have a hope. Step 3: Consider Obstacles and Resources Every goal has obstacles waiting to derail it. Ignoring them does not make them disappear. Identify what will try to stop you, then plan around it. The biggest time killers in sales are rarely mysterious. Meetings that don't move deals forward. Prospects who will never buy but keep you engaged. Administrative tasks that someone else should handle. Reorganizing your CRM instead of filling it with opportunities. Here is how to expose them. Track your time for one week. Write down every activity in 30-minute blocks. No editing. No judgment. Just honest data. At the end of the week, categorize everything: Income-producing activities like prospecting, discovery, and closing Income-supporting activities like proposals, follow-up, and research Waste, which is everything else Most salespeople discover they spend less than 30 percent of their time on income-producing activities. If that is you, you just found out why you are not hitting your goals. Once you know where your time actually goes, you can protect the activities that matter. Block prospecting time before meetings start. Batch administrative work. Decline meetings where your presence adds no value. Now identify resource gaps. What do you need that you don't have? Skills you need to develop. Tools that would improve your results. Support from leadership to open doors with key accounts. Find these gaps early. Discovering you lack a critical skill in November is too late. Step 4: Stay Flexible Without Lowering the Goal Sales goal planning requires flexibility in tactics, not flexibility in commitment. Markets shift. Buyers change. Your original plan may need adjustment. That does not mean the destination changes. Review your goals monthly and let the data guide you. Ask three questions: Am I on track What's working What's not working If something is working, do more of it. If something isn't working, adjust your approach. For example, your data might show inconsistent execution, poor list quality, or weak follow-up. The answer is not abandoning foundational activities like cold calling. The answer is tightening your process, improving targeting, or reinforcing outreach with disciplined follow-up. Flexibility means adjusting how you execute, not lowering the standard because the work is harder than expected. Salespeople who hit ambitious goals stay flexible in their methods and uncompromising about the outcome. Monthly reviews keep you honest. They prevent you from wasting months on ineffective activity before realizing you are off track. Execute Your Sales Goal Planning System Take one goal right now. Write it down with a specific number and a deadline. Break it into three to five milestones. List the weekly tasks required. Identify your two biggest obstacles and the resources you need to overcome them. Then execute. Review weekly. Adjust monthly. Never stop driving toward the outcome. This system works because it eliminates ambiguity. You know what needs to happen this week. Obstacles don't blindside you because you planned for them. You aren't following a broken plan for six months because you built in regular reviews. While other salespeople hope for a good year, you will be executing a plan. While they react to whatever fires pop up, you will be proactively driving toward measurable outcomes. The difference between salespeople who hit their goals and those who do not is not talent or luck. It is having a systematic process for turning big goals into daily actions and the discipline to follow through when motivation fades. Sales goals don't fail because you lack desire—they fail because the plan isn't specific enough to execute. Download the FREE Goal Planning Guide to turn your sales goals into results. 

Salespeople are sick of hearing "Your price is too high."  But, what if the real issue isn't the price?  Here's a secret that almost nobody knows, including all those gurus telling you to sell value.  They don't always buy the best value.  But, they can invariably be counted on to buy the lowest risk!         The biggest issue in the minds of your customers and prospects is not price, and it is not value – it is risk.   Let's dig into this. *************************************************************************** Dave Kahle is a B2B sales expert and a Christian Business thought leader.  He has authored 13 books, presented in 47 states and 11 countries and worked with over 500 sales organizations.  In these ten-minute podcasts, his unique blend of out-of-the-box thinking and practical insights will challenge and enable you to sell better, lead better and live better.        Subscribe to these ten-minute helpings of out-of-the-box inspiration, education and motivation. WWW,DaveKahle.com Dave's Substack page (PW) Subscribe to Dave's Newsletters

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1909: Christine Comaford reveals the top reasons sales professionals, especially millennials, are quitting faster than ever: lack of mentorship, outdated tools, missing data insights, and no clear sales playbook. Backed by research and expert insight, she offers actionable strategies to help sales leaders reduce burnout, boost retention, and build a more resilient, tech-savvy team. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://smarttribesinstitute.com/salespeople-burning-faster-ever-heres/ Quotes to ponder: "88% of sales professionals are unable to find or bring up critical sales material up on their smartphones." "Salespeople need to ramp up rapidly, and have a clear playbook to navigate prospects and the selling process." "Companies that want to set their sales team up for success should move away from general purpose tools and invest in more modern sales-specific tools and platforms." Episode references: ClearSlide: https://www.clearslide.com The Bridge Group: https://www.bridgegroupinc.com Deloitte Millennial Survey: https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html Glassdoor: https://www.glassdoor.com

If you've been looking for a way to hit or exceed your annual quota, qualify for President's Club, or simply earn a bigger paycheck or bonus, focusing on helping business owners reduce their tax burden by investing in your product, service, or software in the final weeks of the year can give you the edge you need to get more sales closed. Business Owners are Motivated to Reduce Taxes In the United States, there are millions of SMBs, and the vast majority of these businesses are what we call pass-through organizations for tax purposes. This means that the owners or partners in these businesses report the profits on their personal tax filings. Unlike big companies, small companies don't have the luxury of rolling profits over to the next year. So whatever they made this year, they have to pay taxes on. As the calendar winds down, business owners are often motivated to invest in products, services, and software solutions in order to reduce taxable income. In other words, if a business has shown strong profits throughout the year, its owners might be keen to spend some of that money on improving their operations, expanding their capabilities, or streamlining their processes—right now—rather than hand over a large chunk of their profits to Uncle Sam come tax season. Business Owners Hate Paying Taxes To understand why this year-end period is so critical, let's get into the mindset of a small or medium-sized business owner. Unlike large enterprises with multiple departments and complex accounting strategies, SMB owners are often personally invested in the company's financial results because those results are essentially their income. It's how they pay their mortgage and put food on the table. For this reason, they watch their revenue and expenses closely. As the year comes to an end, they're looking at their bottom line and thinking about the upcoming tax bill. For many of these business owners, profit is a double-edged sword. Don't get me wrong, they want to make a profit. But at some point, too much profit triggers a much higher tax bill. If there is one thing I know about small and medium-sized business owners, it's that they hate taxes. They are always looking for ways to legally minimize their tax liability. One easy and productive way to do this is to make fully or partially depreciable investments in the business before December 31st. That could mean buying new equipment, software, training packages, or services that will not only improve the business long-term but also reduce taxable income for the current year. An Urgent Need to Spend As a salesperson, the key takeaway here is that your prospects have a natural, time-bound incentive to spend. If you can position your product or service as the right investment at the right time, you might find it easier to close those deals that seemed just out of reach during the rest of the year. And by the way, if you are dealing with decision-makers who are pushing off decisions to next year, this is a great way to get past that objection. Framing Your Business Case I want to be clear, though, that most businesses are not going to spend money for the sake of spending money. Savvy business owners want to reduce taxes and do the right thing for their company. Therefore, you can't just be transactional. You still must follow the sales process and build a bridge to the value of tax savings AND business improvement when making your business case. It's all about framing your product or service as a strategic investment rather than a mere expense. For example: If you sell software tools that improve operational efficiency, make the case for how your solution will help them save on labor costs, reduce errors, and streamline workflows. If you're selling advertising, highlight how a year-end launch of a new campaign will lead to immediate results that set the stage for a strong Q1. If you sell capital equipment, walk them through how the new equipment will make them more productive and help them expand their business in the new year. The key is to connect the value of your offering directly to the timing. Consider messaging like: “This is an opportune moment to upgrade your systems, so you'll enter the new year with a competitive edge and potentially lower your tax liabilities this season.” “By getting your campaign locked in before the year closes, you can reap immediate tax benefits while ensuring your advertising starts generating leads in January when you need them the most.” "If we get the equipment ordered now, it will be delivered in Q1, giving you plenty of time to get a high ROI next year." When you can tie the ROI of your product to both tangible improvements and the financial perks of year-end spending, the business case becomes much more compelling, and you will sell more. Tailor Your Approach While the end-of-year tax incentive is a common denominator, not every SMB is identical. Some might be profitable but cash-constrained, while others have capital burning a hole in their pockets. Some may be in sectors that had a booming year, while others are just recovering from a difficult market. The more you understand the unique challenges and goals of each prospect you're targeting, the better you can tailor your approach. Before you pick up the phone, walk through their door, or send an email, do some research. Check out their recent announcements, whether they're hiring or expanding. Look into trends in their industry. Understanding these nuances will help you fine-tune your messaging. If you know a business is tight on cash, emphasize flexible payment plans or financing options. If the business is flush with profit, reinforce the immediate tax advantage and the strategic value of reinvesting those funds. Empathy and relevance are your allies here. Show that you understand their position and that your solution aligns perfectly with their current goals. That personal touch, combined with the natural urgency of year-end, is a powerful recipe for closing the deal. Lead With Urgency: Clear, Direct, Compelling I don't want to sweep under the rug how important timing and urgency are with this tactic. While you don't want to be completely transactional, you do want to be direct. As we approach the end of the year, many SMB owners have a long to-do list: Finalizing paperwork, inventory checks, reviewing vendor contracts, preparing for holiday promotions, and on and on. They're busy. They have limited time to spend on sales pitches. This means your outreach needs to be respectful of their schedule and also clear, direct, and compelling. Say right away: “I'm reaching out before the year ends because I have a solution that can help you maximize your tax benefits this year and help you grow your business next year." Being direct and to the point respects their time and sets the context immediately. If you need more help with direct and to-the-point messaging, grab your copy of my book, Fanatical Prospecting, and review Because Statements. It's crucial that you create and maintain a sense of urgency. Not the aggressive, pushy kind, but a natural urgency rooted in a real calendar event: The year-end. The clock is ticking, and if they don't make their purchase by December 31st, they will miss out on the potential tax advantages. This deadline isn't artificial—it's a reality. Use it to frame your conversations. Urgency helps prospects prioritize your offer over other distractions in their busy schedule. Handling Objections You might encounter objections like: “We're too busy to consider new solutions right now,” or “We don't have enough budget.” In these cases, it's wise to highlight the cost-saving and tax benefits again. Stress that investing now can actually put them in a better position financially. Remind them that waiting until next year could mean missing out on an opportunity to reduce this year's taxable income. If time is an issue, propose a quick and efficient implementation plan. Show them that you can be agile and help them integrate the solution without massive downtime. If budget is a concern, consider promotions, discounts, or favorable financing terms. Sometimes, offering a small year-end incentive can tip the scales in your favor. The Five Keys to Selling More to SMBs at the End of the Year SMBs have a natural incentive to invest before year-end: They want to reduce their taxable income and set themselves up for a strong next year. Frame your product as a strategic investment: Highlight the value, ROI, and tax benefits that come with a year-end purchase. Avoid being transactional: Follow the sales process and position yourself as a partner who can help them navigate this critical period. Tailor your approach to each SMB's situation: Research their needs and adjust your prospecting message accordingly, showing empathy and relevance. Create urgency with a real deadline: The calendar itself is your ally; emphasize that the benefits come from acting before December 31st. Here's the deal, though: Do not wait. Start this process now. The low-hanging fruit is out there, but it will rot on the vine if you fail to pick before the sand runs out of the hourglass this year. Check out the BRAND NEW Jeb Blount Ultimate Sales Success Box Set. It's the perfect gift for the sales professional in your life!

If you've been looking for a way to hit or exceed your annual quota, qualify for President's Club, or simply earn a bigger paycheck or bonus, focusing on helping business owners reduce their tax burden by investing in your product, service or software in the final weeks of the year can give you the edge you need get more sales closed. Business Owners are Motivated to Reduce Taxes In the United States there are millions of SMBs and the vast majority of these businesses are what we call pass-through organizations for tax purposes. This means that the owners or partners in these businesses report the profits on their personal tax filings. Unlike big companies, small companies don't have the luxury of rolling profits over to the next year. So whatever they made this year, they have to pay taxes on. As the calendar winds down business owners are often motivated to invest in products, services, and software solutions in order to reduce taxable income. In other words, if a business has shown strong profits throughout the year, its owners might be keen to spend some of that money on improving their operations, expanding their capabilities, or streamlining their processes—right now—rather than hand over a large chunk of their profits to Uncle Sam come tax season. Business Owners Hate Paying Taxes To understand why this year-end period is so critical, let's get into the mindset of a small or medium-sized business owner. Unlike large enterprises with multiple departments and complex accounting strategies, SMB owners are often personally invested in the company's financial results because those results are essentially their income. It's how they pay their mortgage and put food on the table. For this reason, they watch their revenue and expenses closely. As the year comes to an end, they're looking at their bottom line and thinking about the upcoming tax bill. For many of these business owners, profit is a double-edged sword. Don't get me wrong, they want to make a profit. But at some point, too much profit triggers a much higher tax bill. If there is one thing I know about small and medium sized business owners its that they hate taxes. They are always looking for ways to legally minimize their tax liability. One easy and productive way to do this is to make fully or partially depreciable investments in the business before December 31st. That could mean buying new equipment, software, training packages, or services that will not only improve the business long-term but also reduce taxable income for the current year. An Urgent Need to Spend As a salesperson, the key takeaway here is that your prospects have a natural, time-bound incentive to spend. If you can position your product or service as the right investment at the right time, you might find it easier to close those deals that seemed just out of reach during the rest of the year. And by the way, if you are dealing with decision-makers who are pushing off decisions to next year, this is a great way to get past that objection. Framing Your Business Case I want to be clear though that most businesses are not going to spend money for the sake of spending money. Savvy business owners want to reduce taxes and do the right thing for their company. Therefore, you can't just be transactional. You still must follow the sales process and build a bridge to the value of tax savings AND business improvement when making your business case. It's all about framing your product or service as a strategic investment rather than a mere expense. For example: If you sell software tools that improve operational efficiency, make the case for how your solution will help them save on labor costs, reduce errors, and streamline workflows. If you're selling advertising, highlight how a year-end launch of a new campaign will lead to immediate results that set the stage for a strong Q1. If you sell capital equipment walk them through how the new equipment will make them more productive and help them expand their business in the new year. The key is to connect the value of your offering directly to the timing. Consider messaging like: “This is an opportune moment to upgrade your systems, so you'll enter the new year with a competitive edge and potentially lower your tax liabilities this season.” “By getting your campaign locked in before the year closes, you can reap immediate tax benefits while ensuring your advertising starts generating leads in January when you need them the most.” If we get the equipment ordered now it will be delivered in Q1 giving you plenty of time to get a high ROI next year. When you can tie the ROI of your product to both tangible improvements and the financial perks of year-end spending, the business case becomes much more compelling and you will sell more. Tailor Your Approach While the end-of-year tax incentive is a common denominator, not every SMB is identical. Some might be profitable but cash-constrained, while others have capital burning a hole in their pockets. Some may be in sectors that had a booming year, while others are just recovering from a difficult market. The more you understand the unique challenges and goals of each prospect you're targeting, the better you can tailor your approach. Before you pick up the phone, walk through their door, or send an email, do some research. Check out their recent announcements, whether they're hiring or expanding. Look into trends in their industry. Understanding these nuances will help you fine-tune your messaging. If you know a business is tight on cash, emphasize flexible payment plans or financing options. If the business is flush with profit, reinforce the immediate tax advantage and the strategic value of reinvesting those funds. Empathy and relevance are your allies here. Show that you understand their position and that your solution aligns perfectly with their current goals. That personal touch, combined with the natural urgency of year-end, is a powerful recipe for closing the deal. Lead With Urgency: Clear, Direct, Compelling I don't want to sweep under the rug how important timing and urgency are with this tactic. While you don't want to be completely transactional, you do want to be direct. As we approach the end of the year, many SMB owners have a long to-do list: Finalizing paperwork, inventory checks, reviewing vendor contracts, preparing for holiday promotions, and on and on. They're busy. They have limited time to spend on sales pitches. This means your outreach needs to be respectful of their schedule and also clear, direct, and compelling. Say right away: “I'm reaching out before the year ends because I have a solution that can help you maximize your tax benefits this year and help you grow your business next year." Being direct and to the point respects their time and sets the context immediately. If you need more help with direct and to-the-point messaging, grab your copy of my book Fanatical Prospecting and review Because Statements. It's crucial that you create and maintain a sense of urgency. Not the aggressive, pushy kind, but a natural urgency rooted in a real calendar event: The year-end. The clock is ticking, and if they don't make their purchase by December 31st, they miss out on the potential tax advantages. This deadline isn't artificial—it's a reality. Use it to frame your conversations. Urgency helps prospects prioritize your offer over other distractions in their busy schedule. Handling Objections You might encounter objections like: “We're too busy to consider new solutions right now,” or “We don't have enough budget.” In these cases, it's wise to highlight the cost-saving and tax benefits again. Stress that investing now can actually put them in a better position financially. Remind them that waiting until next year could mean missing out on an opportunity to reduce this year's taxable income. If time is an issue, propose a quick and efficient implementation plan. Show them that you can be agile and help them integrate the solution without massive downtime. If budget is a concern, consider promotions, discounts, or favorable financing terms. Sometimes, offering a small year-end incentive can tip the scales in your favor. The Five Keys to Selling More to SMBs at the End of the Year SMBs have a natural incentive to invest before year-end: They want to reduce their taxable income and set themselves up for a strong next year. Frame your product as a strategic investment: Highlight the value, ROI, and tax benefits that come with a year-end purchase. Avoid being transactional: Follow the sales process and position yourself as a partner who can help them navigate this critical period. Tailor your approach to each SMB's situation: Research their needs and adjust your prospecting message accordingly, showing empathy and relevance. Create urgency with a real deadline: The calendar itself is your ally; emphasize that the benefits come from acting before December 31st. Here's the deal though. Do not wait. Start this process now. The low-hanging fruit is out there but it will rot on the vine if you fail to pick before the sand runs out of the hourglass this year. Check out the BRAND NEW Jeb Blount Ultimate Sales Success Box Set. It's the perfect gift for the sales professional in your life!

AI will replace low-level sales, but not emotional intelligence. The future belongs to the communicators who can connect, frame, and persuade.Learn how to invest in real estate with the Cashflow 2.0 System! Your business in a box with 1:1 coaching, motivated seller leads, & softwares. https://www.wealthyinvestor.com/Want to work 1:1 with Ryan Pineda? Apply at ryanpineda.comJoin our FREE community, weekly calls, and bible studies for Christian entrepreneurs and business people. https://tentmakers.us/Want to grow your business and network with elite entrepreneurs on world-class golf courses? Apply now to join Mastermind19 – Ryan Pineda's private golf mastermind for high-level founders and dealmakers. www.mastermind19.com--- About Ryan Pineda: Ryan Pineda has been in the real estate industry since 2010 and has invested in over $100,000,000 of real estate. He has completed over 700 flips and wholesales, and he owns over 650 rental units. As an entrepreneur, he has founded seven different businesses that have generated 7-8 figures of revenue. Ryan has amassed over 2 million followers on social media and has generated over 1 billion views online. Starting as a minor league baseball player making less than $2,000 a month, Ryan is now worth over $100 million. He shares his experiences in building wealth and believes that anyone can change their life with real estate investing. ...