Art & Science of Complex Sales

How do you turn around an underperforming rep? Why isn’t your product selling? And how do you generate leads without burning cash on ads?

In this episode of the 3 Questions series, Michael Koory joins Paul Fuller to answer three questions on the minds of sales leaders, CEOs, and founders.

Michael explains why turning around a struggling rep starts with desire and a clear path, why companies that fall in love with their product’s features struggle to sell it, and why a problem-focused message is the fastest way to get traction. Because people buy painkillers in far greater quantities than vitamins.

In this episode, you’ll learn:🔹 The two questions to ask before trying to turn around an underperforming rep

🔹 Why falling in love with your product’s features can stop it from selling🔹 Why people buy painkillers more than vitamins, and what that means for lead generation🔹 What revenue drift is and how small accommodations add up

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction00:39 How to turn around an underperforming rep01:45 Why isn’t my product selling?02:46 How to generate leads without burning cash on ads03:51 Bonus: What is revenue drift?

About Michael Koory:
Michael Koory brings 25 year +, merging practical sales experience with academic insights to craft the Guide Selling System™. With a passion for helping businesses thrive, this book encapsulates dedication to transforming the sales landscape.

Why do so many top salespeople struggle when they become sales managers?

Kelly Riggs joins Paul Fuller to talk about his new book, The Five Power Moves: How Struggling Sales Managers Become Transformational Sales Leaders, and the practical moves that help managers turn potential into performance.

Kelly explains why accountability can’t be demanded, the three questions every struggling sales manager needs to answer, and what a Harvard Business Review study of 65,000 employees reveals about the tension between being liked and being effective.

The conversation also covers how to set expectations that are truly clear, why consistent one-on-ones create visibility, how to have the coaching conversation before frustration takes over, and why transformational sales leaders require salespeople to build detailed plans for hitting their numbers.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
03:14 Why accountability is the biggest struggle for sales managers
09:11 The three questions every sales manager must answer
13:13 Being liked vs. being effective
16:51 Clarity, consistency, and coaching
25:08 The SMART plan process

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About Kelly Riggs:
Kelly Riggs is an author, speaker, and founder of Business LockerRoom, Inc., where he has consulted with executives and companies throughout the United States and Canada since 2005.Kelly is a former sales executive, a two-time national Salesperson-of-the-Year, a serial entrepreneur, and the author of two books "1-on-1 Management" & What Every Great Manager Knows That You Don’t" and "Quit Whining and Start SELLING!" A Step-by-Step Guide to a Hall of Fame Career in Sales. 

His third book was the award-winning Counter Mentor Leadership: How to Unlock the Potential of the 4-Generation Workplace, co-written with his son, Robby Riggs. It was selected as the 2019 Gold Medal winner in the leadership category by Axiom Business Books Awards.

His most recent book, released in September 2026, is The Five Power Moves: How Struggling Sales Managers Become Transformational Sales LEADERS.

For more information, visit www.kellyriggs.com.Want to read the book?

Pick up The Five Power Moves by Kelly Riggs.
📌 https://thefivepmbook.com

What makes a sales manager effective, what does great coaching look like, and why does growth in sales often require getting uncomfortable?

Walter Crosby joins Paul Fuller for 3 Questions from The Art & Science of Complex Sales to share his perspective on sales leadership, coaching, and mental toughness.

Walter explains why managers should focus on being respected rather than liked, what he learned from two influential sales coaches, and why strong feedback can help salespeople improve.

The conversation also explores why the results we want are often on the other side of the uncomfortable calls, questions, and conversations we would rather avoid.

In this episode, you'll learn:

00:00 Introduction
03:18 Should sales managers try to be liked?
05:00 Walter's best sales coaches
06:54 Why difficult feedback matters
08:42 Timeless sales advice: Be like a bison
09:51 Getting comfortable being uncomfortable

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About Walter Crosby:

Walter Crosby is an award-winning sales development expert, author, sales coach, and speaker. He is driven to help entrepreneurs solve problems in their sales organizations and grow revenue.

How do you build trust with buyers when AI and automation are changing almost every part of the sales process?

Julie Thomas, CEO of ValueSelling Associates, joins Paul Fuller to explore new research into prospecting and what it reveals about gaining access and creating meaningful sales conversations in the age of AI.

Julie explains why cold calling still works, why respectful persistence matters, and why strong communication, active listening, and critical thinking become even more important as technology takes on more of the work around the salesperson.

The conversation also covers how automation can erode trust, why sales leaders need to keep investing in seller development, how to right-size the sales tech stack, and why technology should amplify good selling rather than accelerate bad selling.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:35 Julie Thomas’ journey in sales
04:21 How AI is changing prospecting
06:41 Why cold calling still works
14:41 How better conversations build trust
18:32 Why AI still requires strong sales skills
23:13 Rethinking the sales tech stack
30:14 Why trust matters more in the age of AI

About Julie Thomas:

Author, speaker and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, Inc., Julie Thomas works with revenue leaders, helping them achieve results they never thought possible. She also leads Growist™, a ValueSelling sub-brand empowering small businesses with proven sales frameworks. A former Gartner executive, Julie’s long-standing industry leadership has earned ValueSelling top awards as a pre-eminent provider of sales training. Her latest book is The Power of Value Selling: The Gold Standard to Drive Revenue and Create Customers for Life.

Want to explore the research behind the conversation?

Read ValueSelling Associates’ Cutting Through the Noise report for a closer look at what’s working in prospecting today.

📌 https://www.valueselling.com/research-ebooks/the-most-effective-sales-prospecting-tactics-in-the-ai-era

Where does AI actually add value in sales, and which fundamentals still matter no matter how much technology changes?

Dave Kurlan joins Paul Fuller for 3 Questions from The Art & Science of Complex Sales to share his perspective on AI in sales, the tools he relies on, and the fundamentals that continue to drive strong sales performance.

Dave explains why AI is most useful for research and efficiency rather than replacing the salesperson, why prospecting and a clear sales process still matter, and why consultative selling is becoming even more important.

The conversation also explores how AI can support sales management and why practicing the fundamentals can still give salespeople an advantage.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction01:22 Where AI is best used in sales03:22 The sales tool Dave could not do without04:43 Using AI to improve sales efficiency05:38 Why prospecting and sales process still matter06:00 Why consultative selling matters more than ever07:37 How to connect with Dave Kurlan

About Dave Kurlan:

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best selling author, radio show host, successful entrepreneur and sales development industry pioneer. He was inducted into the Sales & Marketing Hall of Fame in 2012.Dave was the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc. (OMG), the industry leader in sales assessments and sales team evaluations and named the Top Sales Assessment Tool 11 times.

Dave is currently the CEO of Kurlan & Associates, Inc., an international sales consulting firm he founded in 1986, specializing in sales team development. He possesses 40 years of experience in all facets of sales development, including consulting, training, coaching, recruiting, systems, processes, and metrics.

Dave has been a top-rated speaker at Inc. Magazine’s Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference, the Sales 2.0 Conference, Inbound, and the Gazelles/Fortune Sales & Marketing Summit.

He has been the focus of dozens of interviews online, on radio, television and in print, including World Business Review, Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. Dave has been a columnist at Top Sales Magazine since 2011.

He is the author of Mindless Selling and the best-seller, Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, voted the Top Sales & Marketing Blog 13 times. He is a contributing author to 4 other books including Stepping Stones, with coauthors Deepak Chopra and Jack Canfield.

Dave is an innovator, and most recently co-created an AI assisted tool that provides salespeople and sales managers with powerful, relevant and helpful sales coaching debriefs from call recordings and/or transcripts.

Why do some sales teams win consistently while others seem to rely on timing, experience, and luck?

Jeff Bajorek, Owner at Parabola Consulting, joins Paul Fuller to explore why sales teams need to understand what actually drives their success.

Jeff explains how to identify the habits behind top performance, understand why your best customers choose you, and turn those insights into repeatable behaviors that help teams win more intentionally.

The conversation also covers why doing more is no longer enough, why principles matter more than constantly changing tactics, and how customer insight can help teams become more specific about what actually works.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction03:09 How Jeff got into sales
07:32 Why mentorship matters in sales23:07 Why sales teams need to know why they win
25:14 Making successful sales behaviors repeatable
28:30 Turning top-performer habits into a process
30:52 Why sales tactics come and go
37:09 Why your best customers can tell you why you win
38:18 How to win more sales on purpose

What happens when your sales approach works for you, but nobody else can replicate it?

Vic Ing, founder of Viking Sales Consultants, explores why scaling B2B sales requires moving beyond instinct and building a repeatable sales process. He shares how to identify which sales habits actually work, use your ideal customer profile to qualify more effectively, and stop holding onto opportunities that are not a good fit.

The conversation also explores why founders need to turn what they know intuitively into a sales process that gives others a better chance to succeed.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
01:31 Vic Ing’s journey into sales
07:23 Learning sales through success and failure
08:19 How to reverse engineer what actually works in sales
18:19 Why every business needs an ideal customer profile
20:53 Why good qualification means saying no
25:10 Why a better sales system beats individual talent
28:17 Why founders struggle to scale sales
30:26 Turning founder instinct into a repeatable sales process

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About Vic Ing:

Vic Ing is a business consultant, sales trainer, author, and founder of Viking Sales Consultants. For more than thirty years, he has built, led, and supported revenue-generating teams in a variety of sales, leadership, and business development roles, and through Viking Sales Consultants has helped entrepreneurs, business owners, and sales professionals improve business development, strengthen customer relationships, and create sustainable growth. He is the author of Selling Is Easy (If You Know the Rules) and has facilitated hundreds of workshops, coaching engagements, and strategic planning sessions throughout Northeast Ohio.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoring/

Link to book: https://a.co/d/03KMZqH8

In this episode, Dave Brock returns to The Art and Science of Complex Sales to explore what actually drives sales excellence.

Sales organizations invest heavily in processes, training, CRM, coaching, metrics, and AI. But those mechanisms alone do not explain why some salespeople consistently outperform others.

Drawing from his book The DNA of Sales Excellence, Dave explains why the missing piece is often the mindsets and behaviors that make those systems work.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why tools and training alone do not create top performers
• What Dave means by the DNA of sales excellence
• How mindsets and behaviors connect to sales mechanisms
• Why CRM adoption requires more than training and enforcement
• How curiosity changes the way salespeople use AI
• Why AI amplifies the quality of the thinking behind it
• How leaders can recruit and develop for the right behaviors

Listen in to learn how sales organizations can connect people, processes, and technology to create more consistent performance.

About Dave Brock:

What would you expect of an idealistic graduate of UC Berkeley? Dave is driven by the mission of helping each individual and organization achieve their dreams, exceeding what they ever believed possible.

A theoretical physicist joining a four-person startup, right out of college; Dave soon learned there is a lot more to business success than a great idea and hot product. After failing in that start up, he got his MBA, then went to the “dark side,” selling mainframe computers to large banks and investment companies in New York City.

Dave progressed to executive leadership roles in high technology giants, also, was on the founding team of two successful technology startups with current market cap exceeding $50 Billion. He led the successful turnarounds of several companies, before starting Partners In EXCELLENCE.

He’s a popular guest on numerous podcasts, webcasts, and as a speaker; known for his ruthless pragmatism.

Dave is the author of the bestselling Sales Manager Survival Guide and the upcoming Sales Executive Survival Guide. Additionally, he’s a prodigious and provocative blogger.

Personally, Dave is an avid road-biker, struggling triathlete, and sailor.

Blog: https://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/

The DNA of Sales Excellence: https://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/the-dna-of-sales-excellence/

In this episode, Morné Smit returns to The Art and Science of Complex Sales to explore why clarity is one of the most important responsibilities of a sales leader.

Together, Paul and Morné discuss why beliefs drive behavior, how leaders can shape the narrative inside their teams, and why more activity does not automatically lead to better performance.

They also explore how preparation changes as sales teams scale, how AI can help leaders make sense of market conditions, and why separating high-payoff activities from low-payoff work can create significant amounts of time and focus.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why clarity should come before activity
• How beliefs shape sales behavior
• Why leaders need to set the narrative
• How a model week creates greater consistency
• Why preparation becomes more important at scale
• How to identify high-payoff activities
• What salespeople should delegate, automate, or stop doing
• Why every repeatable activity should have a playbook

Listen in to learn how better clarity can create better decisions, better behaviors, and stronger sales performance.About Morné Smit:Morné Smit is the Founder and CEO of Emerse Sales, where he helps founders and leadership teams build predictable revenue engines, stronger sales cultures, and scalable sales systems. Over the past two decades, he has worked with organizations across 65+ industries on four continents, helping leaders create clarity, improve execution, and drive sustainable growth through practical sales leadership and accountability.

How can companies protect revenue when experienced employees retire or leave?

Nate Tutas joins The Art & Science of Complex Sales to explore how manufacturing and distribution companies can capture tribal knowledge before it walks out the door.

He discusses why valuable customer knowledge and practical experience rarely make it into CRM or SOPs, and how AI can help turn that knowledge into useful onboarding, coaching, and sales resources.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why retiring employees create hidden revenue risk
• What tribal knowledge includes
• Why CRM and SOPs cannot capture everything
• How AI can help organize and preserve knowledge
• Why knowledge capture should happen continuously

Listen in to learn how to protect decades of experience and turn it into something the wider organization can use.

About Nate Tutas:

Your best people carry the knowledge that actually runs your business, and most of it lives nowhere but their heads. When they retire or walk out, decades of hard-won judgment leave with them. AI has only raised the stakes, because the companies that keep and compound their knowledge now move at a speed the rest can't touch.

Nate Tutas teaches companies how to keep that edge and turn it into speed. His argument is blunt: most companies don't fail because they're underperforming, they fail because they can't turn the ship fast enough, and no company can turn when the knowledge behind every decision keeps leaking out the door. His fix is the Tribal Knowledge Vault: capture the know-how trapped in your best people's heads, turn it into a shared doctrine the whole team can run on, and push decisions down to the lowest capable level without losing control. That is how you build maneuverability into a business. The friction that grinds most companies to a halt comes off, the team moves as one, and you outmaneuver competitors again and again. He calls it Maneuver Intelligence , or what the Marines call High Speed, Low Drag.

Nate is a Marine with fifteen years of industry experience, trained under NLP co-creator Dr. Richard Bandler. He is trusted by Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi's Mastermind.com team to coach the business owners at their live events, and was hired by Russell Brunson's team to build and run onboarding for a new platform launch. He is the founder of DAI Success and he's on a mission to unlock the potential in the middle class.