GTM Engineering and the Real State of B2B Sales Technology
B2B sales has changed more in the last five years than in the previous twenty combined. Some of that is buyer behaviour. A lot of it is the infrastructure now available to any sales operation willing to build it, infrastructure that produces genuine results when it’s built on the right foundations. The vocabulary has shifted […]
B2B Sales Hiring: The Roles Most Founders Get Wrong
I’ve had some version of this conversation more times than I can count. A founder calls me, frustrated, convinced they have a pipeline problem or a closing problem or a people problem. We spend twenty minutes on it and what emerges is simpler and more expensive than they expected. They’ve been hiring the same two […]
How to Build a B2B Sales Process That Closes More Deals
Most B2B sales processes look more functional than they really are. I say that having spent years working inside sales organisations of all shapes and sizes, and the pattern is consistent enough that I’d stake a lot on it. There’s a pipeline, there’s a CRM, there’s a team doing the work, and from the outside […]
How to Handle Price Pressure in B2B Sales Without Discounting
Somewhere in your sales team right now, a deal is being discounted that didn’t need to be. The buyer pushed back, the seller felt the pressure, and the path of least resistance was to give something away. It happens in almost every sales organisation I work with, and it costs more than most business owners […]
How To Use AI In Your Sales Process For Better Transparency and Results
The AI-in-sales conversation has largely settled on one idea: automate the top of the funnel and do more outbound with less effort. Better sequences, smarter personalisation, lead enrichment that used to take your SDR an hour and now takes thirty seconds. If that’s where your energy has gone, fair enough. Those tools work and the […]
Why You Need a Sales Management Operating Rhythm
After working inside hundreds of sales organisations, one thing stands out above almost everything else. Plenty have a strategy. Far fewer have a management system that can actually carry that strategy all the way to the frontline. Most sales leaders I speak to can tell me their revenue target. They can tell me their headcount, […]
Selling in the Zone: What Elite Sales Performers Do Better
Lawrence Taylor only truly entered the zone about five times in his entire NFL career. Five games. Out of hundreds. And he’s widely considered the most dominant defensive player in the history of American football. “Everything was moving in slow motion,” he said. “I could be out there all day. Totally blocked out.” Now think […]
Why You Should Hire Sales Talent From Other Industries
A few years ago I watched a founder make a hire that I was quietly sceptical about. The candidate had never worked in the industry, didn’t know the product category, and had spent the previous six years selling into a completely different market. What she did have was a track record of serious quota performance, […]
Sales Transformation Is Dead, and That’s a Good Thing
The old sales transformation cycle used to go like this: a new Head of Sales arrives, excitement builds, 18 months of chaos ensue, a year of stabilisation follows, and then, if you’re lucky, a brief pause before the next overhaul. I’ve watched this play out dozens of times across the organisations I’ve worked with. It […]
Choosing Sales Incentives: Cash Is Not Always King
I’ve been looking at sales compensation plans for a long time now, and there’s this thing that keeps showing up. Companies pay their sales teams pretty well, sometimes really well, and the teams still feel flat. Like there’s no energy there. What usually happens is a rep closes a decent quarter, gets their commission check, […]
Why Good Salespeople Interview Well and Perform Badly
There is a hire that almost every founder I have worked with has made at least once. The person interviews brilliantly. They are confident, articulate, have a story for every question, and leave the room with the energy still humming. Six months later you are having a very different conversation. Pipeline is thin, excuses are […]
How to Motivate a Sales Team for Consistent High Performance
The late Australian billionaire Richard Pratt had a line he was fond of using with his people. “Encourage your team to be committed to a project rather than just involved in it. You know the difference, don’t you? In a meal of bacon and eggs, the chicken is involved. The pig is committed.” It’s a […]