Geoff Colvin is the NYTimes best-selling author of a couple of my favorite business books, "Talent is Overrated" and "Humans Are Underrated." On today's episode we dive deep into how technology has been changing the nature of work and what this will mean for sales. We dig into how the definition of great performance is being changed. And why research shows that in a future filled with AI that great performance requires us to be more intensely human. This interview was recorded in 2017.

Kraig Swensrud is the Founder and CEO of Qualified. On today's episode, Kraig and I get into why today’s buyers expect real-time, personalized experiences. Plus, we get into why the old Sales Development Rep (SDR) process is leaving pipeline on the table.

Justin Michael is the founder of the SalesBorgs, a new community for sales and revops, and he’s joining me on this episode to talk about sales in the future. I like to caveat these conversations with a quote from the Nobel prize winning physicist Nils Bohr, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” But, hey, the prospect of being wrong has never stopped me before. So why start now? Justin has a particular point of view about what the future will hold for sales. For instance, we’ve got various measures of potential. IQ for intelligence. EQ for emotional intelligence. RQ for relational intelligence. We’re going to talk about whether sellers will need TQ - technical intelligence - in order to fully compete in an automated future. We’re going to explore that and much, much more.

Scott Roy and Roy Whitten are co-authors of the book, "Decision Intelligence Selling: Transform the Way Your People Sell." Today we dig into what companies need to do to transform their selling using their RACE transformation equation. Plus, despite all the talk about the "revolution" that has hit sales in the past 10 years, nothing could be further from the truth. Sales is stuck in the past. And all the technology in the world hasn’t changed that. We get into why and possible fixes.

Rick Blake was my first sales manager. He didn’t hire me but he took over as my manager after I’d been selling just a few months. This was a long time ago. If you can do higher math, you can calculate how long ago it was by checking out my LinkedIn profile. Rick retired earlier this year after a long career in sales. He had some BIG jobs along the way. retiring as General Manager of a huge division of HP. This is such a fun conversation. Rick shares some stories about me as a rookie sales person, we talk about what’s changed in sales over the past four decades and wasn't hasn't.

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Amy Hrehovcik is Channel Director at Sales Hacker, Inc.A few weeks ago I read an article Amy wrote about the mental health challenges that salespeople face day in and day out. What particularly struck me about the article was Amy’s courage in revealing and talking about her own struggles with mental health. So, I asked Amy to come join us on this show to talk about mental health in sales.

Amy's article: https://www.saleshacker.com/mental-health-sales-advantage/

Jonah Berger is a professor at Wharton business school and author of a new book titled, "The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind." There's a passage in it that stands out, "Behavioral scientist Kurt Lewin once noted, 'If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.' But the reverse is also true. To truly change something, you need to understand it.” Sales is all about change. People are doing things a certain way. They know they probably need to change. But making the decision to change is hard. And it becomes measurably harder to help them make the decision to change if they don’t feel that they are understood. Which is one of the topics we’ll talk about in this episode: How to enable conversations by finding common ground in shared experiences. Plus, we get into how people have a built in resistance to being persuaded and the steps you can take to mitigate that and engage people in conversation. 

Stephen M.R. Covey is a New York Times bestselling author of one of my all-time favorite business books, "The Speed of Trust." It’s on my list of books that should be required reading for anyone in sales. There is no better book at explaining the impact of trust on business. This episode was recorded in late 2017 but the subject of trust is timeless and the way Covey explains will help you understand what trust truly is in practical terms. As he writes, "Trust is a pragmatic, tangible, actionable ASSET that you can create." Trust is hard, it’s real and quantifiable. You are going to be challenged by this. Don't miss it.

Steven Rosen is a well-known sales leadership coach and author of the book, “The Sales Managers Success Guide: 52 Sales Management Tips.” In this episode we’re talking about sales coaching. It’s a topic I talk about a lot on this show. With good reason. Research says that sales coaching is the #1 sales management activity that drives improvement in sales performance. Except as Steven and I get into into in this episode, there’s not a uniform definition for what sales coaching is. That’s a big problem. Is it mentoring? Skills development? Deal coaching? Plus, if sales coaching has the potential to drive performance improvement, why don’t companies invest more in training sales managers how to do it?

Sangram Vajre is the co-founder and chief evangelist of Terminus and host of the FlipMyFunnel podcast. This is such a fun conversation. Sangram is big thinker. We talk about fine tuning your message. We get into one of Sangram’s current passions: being intentional and creating community. We also get into personal improvement and leadership’s role in motivating people to invest in themselves. Plus, we also talk about why CEOs need to have experience selling their own products.