Accelerate! With Andy Paul

Bill Sanders is the CEO of Mobus Inc. and the author of Creative Conflict: A Practical Guide for Business Negotiators. He talks about negotiating as more of a creative process compared to how we normally perceive it. Bill shares his perspective on the fact that negotiation is simply something most people don't enjoy. It's tense and conflict is almost always present. He also talks about the negotiating continuum and how sellers can go about each step in the process. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Striking a balance between competition and cooperation - Bill: "Competition is always going to be there. Whether it's just between the two of us or from outside forces that are forcing us to compete in some way. Our take on negotiating is fairly simple. You do have to be able to defend your interest in a competitive negotiation." Sometimes it can get so tense you'll have to leave the room - Bill: "A lot of being a good negotiator is being able to live with the tension and conflict. Not to be combative about it, but be pleasant

Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna are Co-Founders of DCM Insights and also Co-Authors of The Jolt Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision. Even when a customer thinks your solution is great, they could still worry about messing up the purchase. Matt and Ted share their insights on the 3 things customers are afraid of messing up that lead to a no-decision. They also discuss the status quo being an influential factor in the whole process. The duo then share advice on limiting the overindulgence of customer information requests. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES "No decision" is the decision to stick with the status quo - Matt: "Challengers are actually very good at showing the customer the pain of same is actually worse than the pain of change. They're very good at breaking the hold that the status quo has on the customer and we know that hold is very powerful." Indecision is a very human problem and it isn't a new thing - Ted: "I think the question is how have we dealt with it. It existed in the mind of buyers bu

AJ Bruno is the Founder and CEO of QuotaPath. Incentive compensation is a hot topic but the fact remains that comp plans have barely changed in a hundred years. There needs to be a discussion on other ways to fairly measure the value of a seller's contribution to the outcome of a sale. AJ shares his perspective on the circumstances when paying commission makes sense, as well as when it doesn't. Quota has become a lazy thing when it is arbitrary without factoring in a seller's aspirations, when sales leaders are not trained to handle it correctly, and when technology is not used to better serve customers. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Create a comp plan based on value contribution - AJ: "If you're just putting together a comp plan because, well, that's just what sales teams do, then you're probably not looking at it correctly. However, if you're looking at the role and what that person does and their valuable contribution, and you're doing a little bit of experimenting and testing all the way, what you will find, becaus

Nigel Green is the Founder of Business of Primary Care, CRO of Affirm Health, and the host of the Revenue Harvest Podcast. Companies that want to grow from 10 to 50 million in annual revenue need to effectively hire salespeople. The team that got you to $10 million might look different to make it to 30 or even 50 million. Nigel discusses the biggest obstacles in hiring sellers and the biggest mistakes leaders make during the hiring process. He also shares his 6 steps for selecting the right candidates, which measure culture fit just as much as competency, and gives actionable tips to ask out-of-the-box questions that reveal the character traits that you are looking for. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Hiring based on fit is essential to build a top-performing sales team - Nigel: "I break it down into 3 Cs. So you've got competency, which is the stuff that they've used to done. Are they technically sound? Can they orchestrate a demo? Can they use technology? Do they understand the tech stack? Can they ask the right quest

The voice of the customer is essential to developing a customer-centric experience. In this episode, Mallory Lee (VP of RevOps at Nylas) returns to discuss how to use the voice of the customer data to align company results. This data can show you where your customers are experiencing pain so you can build solutions accordingly. Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn: Alastair Woolcock (CRO, Revenue.io) Howard Brown (CEO, Revenue.io) And our Special Guest: Mallory Lee (VP, Revenue Operations, Nylas) Sponsored by: Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe: Sales Enablement Podcast Selling with Purpose Podcast RevOps Podcast *If you'd like to ask the guys a question that could get answered on the show, call our new message line at (323) 540-4777. Just leave your name, where you're from, and your question and we'll do our best to answer it on an upcoming episode.

Jennifer Allen is formerly Chief Evangelist of Challenger and now Head of Community Growth at Lavender. She's joining me today, along with my occasional co-host, Howard Brown, founder and CEO of Revenue.io. Jennifer discusses the psychology of no-decision and why buyers who choose the status quo are actually making a decision, just not the one you want. She also gives an introduction to the Challenger Sale and the 5 sales mindsets they discovered, as well as gives tips on what sellers can do to ensure a buyer actually makes a buying decision. Jennifer also talks about The Challenger Loop to get quick feedback from the customer about what went right and wrong in the deal. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES A better product does NOT convince a buyer to make a decision- Jennifer: "[Better] is my least favorite word in sales now because I think it's the number one word that led to a lot of my status quo, no decision deals because what I failed to realize is people don't always want better. Like, good, in most cases, especially i

Brit Bartolini is a Senior Enterprise Account Executive at Blueboard. She shares her initial reluctance to enter sales due to negative stereotypes, and her subsequent surprise that sales are actually a transfer of enthusiasm through storytelling. She also digs into how it is to sell to sales and HR leaders and how recognition and incentives keep sellers motivated and fresh. Brit talks about using the 5 love languages in her selling and how stories about experiences create a bond in a primarily online sales culture.  HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Give sellers experiences to recognize their hard work - Brit: "I'm going to take away that justifiability factor. Go do something nice for yourself because you pushed harder, you went above and beyond, and then come back and tell us that story because that story, as we know in sales, has a ripple effect. It makes people care, it makes people feel connected. It motivates others." Cash is not the incentive to a winning sales culture - Brit: "When we're thinking about sales cultu

Lee Salz is a sales management strategist and author of several books including Sell Different! and Sales Differentiation which helps sellers win more deals at the prices they want. Lee discusses why this is important especially when the differences between your product and the competitor's product are very slim. Lee explains that how you sell is equally important as what you sell, if not more so. He shares how to sell to decision influencers, as well as the reasons why top sellers put their buyer's needs before their own. Lee also digs into the buying experience and how to ask horizontal and vertical questions during discovery. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Create a matrix of outcomes to guide discovery meetings - Lee: "You reverse engineer the meeting and you start by asking yourself this question, 'It was a great meeting if I accomplished what?' Identify the outcomes that would make for a great discovery meeting. And if you think of it in terms of a matrix, the left-hand column, here are the desired outcomes." "The

Daniella Bellaire is the CRO at Diversio. There has been much progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), but the real work is just about to get started. Storytelling is a powerful tool for sharing this message and Daniella shares how they use storytelling for Diversio's go-to-market. Daniella digs into the challenges of making DEI a priority in companies, as well as its tendency to shake up the very culture of organizations. Andy and Daniella also talk about how DEI is actually good for business and how encouraging diversity creates better retention and job satisfaction overall. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES DEI is inevitable as a new generation starts taking over - Daniella: "You think about what's happening in the workforce... as boomers retire, who's coming in to fill these jobs? Who's coming in as top talent in the organization? Who is now going to be coming into these leadership roles over the next 5, 6, or 10 years? That's a generation that cares about equity and inclusion and diversity in the workplace.

Is RevOps just Sales Ops 2.0? According to Mallory Lee, VP of RevOps at Nylas, simply renaming Sales Ops to RevOps isn't the right way to do it. Coming from a marketing background with a tight focus on Sales-Marketing alignment, Mallory knows what it takes to create a successful RevOps function that does what it's supposed to do. She shares how RevOps can help tell an objective, data-driven story about the value of what different teams are working on. Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn: Alastair Woolcock (CRO, Revenue.io) Howard Brown (CEO, Revenue.io) And our Special Guest: Mallory Lee (VP, Revenue Operations, Nylas) Sponsored by: Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe: Sales Enablement Podcast Selling with Purpose Podcast RevOps Podcast *If you'd like to ask the guys a question that could get answered on the show, call our new message line at (323) 540-4777. Just leave your name, where you're from, and your question and we'll do our

George Bronten is the Founder and CEO of Membrain. In markets where your solution looks very similar to the competition's, how you sell is the big differentiator. George digs into the elements of how most sellers sell and the role of sales technology in making the how of selling better and not just faster. He also discusses the key metrics that sales teams should be paying more attention to, but in all likelihood, are not. The very words sellers use also matter and George defines some terms which are commonly used in sales, such as buyer's journey but are often confusing in their interpretation. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Learn to use language strategically to build trust - George: "How will we stand out in this competitive market? When we talk to clients, I mean even down to which words we use because if you sound like every other seller and you're just self-centered and that comes through, you won't build that trust that you need to gain their business in the end. It's like the trust equation. You divide it by the

Mark Stiving is the Founder and Chief Pricing Educator at Impact Pricing LLC, as well as the host of the podcast Impact Pricing and author of the book Selling Value. Today, Mark talks about what value is and how it relates to both buyers and sellers. He digs into how sellers must be keen in determining if a buyer is in a will I or which one buying decision. He defines the different types of values such as inherent value, relative value, and economic value, and says that understanding each is important to sell better from your buyer's perspective. Mark also shares the 4 value-based characteristics that buyers and sellers should look for and the concept that buyers trade off price for value. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Defining inherent and economic value for a business - Mark: "Inherent value is what's the value of solving the problem? If you're gonna go buy something, I don't care what it is, as a consumer, as a business, if you're gonna go buy something, the reason that you're buying it is that you believe it has mo

How do you start a new RevOps position? Do you hit the ground running or take it slow and learn as much as you can about your new environment? Sara Bush is 60 days into her new role as the Senior Director of Revenue Operations at Revenue.io, so she's perfectly positioned to share her checklist of how to tackle your first 100 days as a RevOps leader. Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn: Alastair Woolcock (CRO, Revenue.io) Howard Brown (CEO, Revenue.io) And our Special Guest: Sara Bush (Senior Director, Revenue Operations, Revenue.io) Sponsored by: Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe: Sales Enablement Podcast Selling with Purpose Podcast RevOps Podcast *If you'd like to ask the guys a question that could get answered on the show, call our new message line at (323) 540-4777. Just leave your name, where you're from, and your question and we'll do our best to answer it on an upcoming episode.

Jeff Bajorek is an advisor and coach to B2B sales leaders, author of Rethink the Way You Sell, and host of the podcast of the same name. Sales leaders tend to forget that managing sellers are pretty much the same as how sellers engage with their customers. Sellers are a sales leader's product. With this perspective shift, sales leaders create accountability for how their sellers are working and, by extension, how much they're hitting quota. An environment of accountability, knowing that the people up the ladder have your best interests at heart, is actually a part of enablement. But accountability goes both ways and Jeff gives his insights on maintaining quality control and leadership training that appears to be lacking in today's environment. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Managers can't lead when they don't know what's happening at the front - Jeff: "The worst managers I've ever worked for were only behind their computer, just doing what the numbers were telling them, and there was a lack of intuition there. There wa

Josh Kamrath is the CEO of Bongo, a skills validation and sales enablement tool that helps sellers put their knowledge into action. Josh digs into how their asynchronous format allows their users to demonstrate their skills and competencies in an authentic way by leveraging AI feedback and coaching. Josh shares some of their more common use cases, such as helping salespeople overcome objections, as well as providing real-time feedback to both the salesperson and their manager. There is a trend today where sellers receive a ton of training but not enough practice—and Bongo helps to bridge this gap. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Explicit Monitoring Theory states that people are overly self-conscious with a "Big Brother" type of setup - Josh: "When you're being monitored on a high-stakes, high-consequence conversation, there's no reason to put more stress into that equation. I'd rather and our users would rather practice and prepare for that stressful high-stakes conversation, and that's really where Bongo's focused." En

Running a successful business means creating a high-achieving, predictable, and well-understood revenue engine. Sean Lane, VP of Field Operations at Drift, returns to break down the best ways to surface insights and measure success within a RevOps framework. Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn: Alastair Woolcock (CRO, Revenue.io) Howard Brown (CEO, Revenue.io) And our Special Guest: Sean Lane (Vice President, Field Operations, Drift) Sponsored by: Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe: Sales Enablement Podcast Selling with Purpose Podcast RevOps Podcast *If you'd like to ask the guys a question that could get answered on the show, call our new message line at (323) 540-4777. Just leave your name, where you're from, and your question and we'll do our best to answer it on an upcoming episode.

Oscar Trimboli is the author of Deep Listening and he teaches that listening is the requirement to understand a prospect's needs and gives value to their words and beliefs. He digs into the differences between hearing and listening and shares research that shows that up to 55% of a seller's day is spent listening. A good seller will listen for what is not being said and ask questions that lead the prospect to say what they really need. Oscar also discusses hearing versus listening and the 5 levels of listening, as well as the power of pausing in a conversation to allow the prospect or buyer to fill in the gaps. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Ask questions about what's not being said - Oscar: "People who listen okay in a selling situation are listening to get the sale and beat the competition, but great sellers and great listeners are listening for the business case and listening for the customer's problem. I think there's a listening that's a little bit more systematic in sellers that are orientated around the business

Pouyan Salehi is the CEO and Co-founder of Scratchpad. Sales is a complex job, and it is made even more complex when salespeople are part of a larger organization. The fast pace and the need to constantly be finding and managing new and existing customers make it difficult to execute well. Over time, things tend to become more complex, rather than simpler. This is due to the introduction of new technology, different types of buyers, and various processes. The question is whether or not this complexity is necessary, or if it could be streamlined to make the selling process easier. Andy and Pouyan agree that just because something can be done with new technology, doesn't mean it should be — and that this often falls on the back of the sellers. They believe that time is not the only factor that is impacted by complexity, but that the emotional hit it takes on salespeople is also significant. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES A complex tech stack drains much more energy than many might think - Pouyan: "You look at a sales org

In today's competitive climate, endless amounts of products and services are vying for a customer's attention. The winners must differentiate and truly understand the needs of every prospect individually. Alastair and Howard sit down with Sean Lane, VP of Field Operations at Drift, to discuss the best ways to address those challenges and meet your customers where they are. Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn: Alastair Woolcock (CRO, Revenue.io) Howard Brown (CEO, Revenue.io) And our Special Guest: Sean Lane (Vice President, Field Operations, Drift) Sponsored by: Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe: Sales Enablement Podcast Selling with Purpose Podcast RevOps Podcast *If you'd like to ask the guys a question that could get answered on the show, call our new message line at (323) 540-4777. Just leave your name, where you're from, and your question and we'll do our best to answer it on an upcoming episode.

Casey Graham is the CEO of Gravy and the Co-Founder of Command AF. There are real nontraditional benefits to building a strong LinkedIn culture in your organization. Casey shares how personal brands give sellers headstarts for success, and that helping these individuals do so circles back with mutual benefits down the road. Casey digs into how he created Gravy's LinkedIn culture by fostering freedom of expression and using metrics that demonstrate the impact of a LinkedIn personal brand. One of Casey’s greatest lessons for others is that creating a personal brand is something that you get to keep forever regardless of educational attainment.  HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Breaking down the posts that work and don’t work guides sellers - Casey: "We broke it down to where there's 13 different types of post that I post and we branded them different things to say, hey, this post is the Twitter post. This post is what we call the vulnerable proverb. This post is called this, and so we would break it down and create a system