As the year winds down and Q4 ramps up, sales professionals face the pressure of closing strong. In this episode, Rachel sits down with John Boney to discuss how sellers can maintain focus, prioritize effectively, and execute with clarity and discipline during the final stretch of the year.Whether you're managing stretch deals, navigating procurement hurdles, or trying to re-engage quiet accounts, this episode offers practical advice to help you finish the year with momentum—and set the stage for a successful Q1.

Key Takeaways:

• Intentional Urgency: Learn how to drive urgency without sounding pushy by aligning with customer outcomes rather than internal sales timelines.
• Pipeline Segmentation: Break down your deals into three buckets—winnable, stretch, and next-year opportunities—to focus your efforts where they matter most.
• Avoid Common Pitfalls: Discover the top mistakes reps make in Q4, including leading with discounts and ignoring procurement/legal timelines.
• Reactivating Quiet Accounts: Use proof points, industry insights, and respectful “breakup emails” to reignite stalled conversations.
• Mutual Action Plans: Co-create timelines with buyers to ensure alignment and avoid last-minute surprises.
• Leveraging Internal Stakeholders: Engage leaders and cross-functional partners early to help move strategic deals forward.

Resources Mentioned:

• “Asking for Help” Podcast Episode

Enjoy this replay of a great episode with John Kaplan, who explains the importance of owning your success and shares tips on how to put yourself in a position to succeed as a sales rep.

Plus, as promised, here is the definition of a floppy disk for our younger listeners: a thin plastic disk coated with magnetic material on which data for a computer can be stored (Merriam-Webster).

If you have any ideas for future episodes, send them to Rachel at [email protected].

Here are some additional resources

• How to Ensure You're Selling for a Great Company (forcemanagement.com)
• How to Make Sure You're Working for Great Companies | Podcast
• Building an Accountable Culture | Podcast

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Enjoy this replay of a great episode with John Kaplan. Preparing for your deal is critical. Preparing others for your sales call has equal impacts on your success. If you want someone to join you on a call (product engineer, manager, etc.), you have to be able to provide them with fluency about the deal and clarity on their role in the conversation. John Kaplan covers what information you need to share and how help ensure those joining you are best prepared.

Here are some additional resources

• How to Ask for Help on Your Deals
• 5 Things to Do Before Your Next Sales Conversation
• Key Things to Do After Every Sales Call

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Enjoy this replay of a great episode with John Kaplan. Discover the mantra you can use to successfully navigate opportunities that require you to move up and down in organizations. Hear John Kaplan’s tips for continually building a business case that maps the technical capabilities of your solution to the required capabilities for different decision makers in an organization. He explains what the mantra is, how you can build it through customer conversations, and leverage it to get champions to sell on your behalf.


Here are some additional resources

• Align with the Buying Process: The Power of the Mantra
• Why You’re Struggling With Metrics in the Sales Conversation
• Navigating the Decision Process With Multiple Buyers [Podcast]

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Enjoy this replay of a great episode with John Kaplan. As a seller, you need to communicate effectively with people throughout an organization - both on the economic and technical levels. That means adjusting your sales conversation to what’s relevant to the individual in front of you. In this episode, John Kaplan shares insights that will allow you to swiftly adapt to any type of sales conversation. He gives advice to help you:

• Prepare for conversations at the executive table.
• Manage meetings wherein both technical and business buyers are present.
• Overcome Seller Deficit Disorder.
• Use the Mantra framework to narrate a story that every decision-maker involved in your deal can get behind.

Here are some additional resources:

• Subscribe to Ascender: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/PlanComparison
• Ascender Sales Topics - Positioning Yourself against the Competition
  • https://youtu.be/YayJtT22TEg
• Ascender Course: Getting to the Economic Buyer
  • https://bit.ly/3U6dObH

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Enjoy this replay of a great episode with Brian Walsh. If you’re selling a new technology, it may be difficult to align to a pain point. How do you align to pain the customer doesn’t even know they have? Many AI startups have this challenge. How do you get the customer to see a new way of doing old things? 

In this episode, Brian Walsh breaks down ways you can think about your sales conversation so you’re able to drive urgency, even when you’re selling in a new category. He also runs through how to set up a test project, in order to build credibility with the customer.


Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Becoming elite as a sales organization demands a culture of accountability. A great sales planning process combined with a voracious qualification process builds an ecosystem of accountability across large-scale sales organizations. John Kaplan shares what these companies implement to foster a culture of accountability, detailing key steps for leaders and reps to take. 

Here are some additional resources:

• Set A Results-Driven Sales Planning Mindset
• Develop a Sales Franchise Mindset
• How to Improve Qualification in Your Sales Organization

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

In today’s episode, John Boney joins Rachel to share his best advice on time management as a sales rep. He highlights the importance of operating with a mindset of ownership over your territory, discusses the calendar management habits of elite sellers, explains how to balance current deals with pipeline generation, and urges reps to sell proactively rather than reactively. He also advises managers on adding value to teams while avoiding micromanagement.


Here are some additional resources:

• Get MEDDICC Certified on Ascender!
• Actionable Account Planning | Ascender Course
• Effective Opportunity Coaching Sessions | Ascender Course
• Five Things to Help You Uncover New Business Opportunities | Ascender Article
• Sales Managers: Test Your Reps’ Ability to Compete in Deals | Ascender Article
• Are You Owning Your Success As a Salesperson? | Ascender Video
• The Franchise Mindset | Podcast
• Building a Rhythm Around Pipeline Generation | Podcast
• How to Uncover Buyer Needs | Podcast

Visit Ascender, a platform designed solely for salespeople who own a quota. If you enjoy the Audible-Ready Sales Podcast, Ascender is perfect for you! We put out content every day with insights to help you level up in your sales career.
Check out the platform here: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/Subscribe here: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/PlanComparison

Enjoy this replay of a great episode with John Kaplan. One common scenario that all sellers are likely to face, especially when joining a new company, is inheriting others’ accounts. In some cases, you’ll follow someone who did a stellar job, and other times, you’ll have to pick up the pieces of someone not as successful. Both circumstances pose their own set of unique challenges. John Kaplan shares insights about how to approach joining a new account. He gives advice about:

• The first steps to take after inheriting an account.
• The need to be audible-ready to speak to the people already in the account you’re inheriting.
• How to begin developing the relationships you need within the account.
• What to do when faced with skepticism or hostility from the customer upon your entrance into the account.

Here are some additional resources:

• Subscribe to Ascender: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/PlanComparison
• How to Ensure You're Audible-Ready in Your B2B Sales Conversations
  • https://bit.ly/3G3mhIr
• Selling to Hesitant Customers | Podcast
  • https://apple.co/3G1hTKa

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Enjoy this episode, which was originally aired in August 2022, with John Kaplan. Solution requirements are a critical component of every deal you sell. These are things that must be in place in order for a buyer to achieve their desired outcomes, and they exist with or without your solution. In today’s episode, John Kaplan explains the importance of recognizing your customer’s solution requirements and what to do with that knowledge. You will learn how to:

• Bridge the customer’s current state to their desired future state.
• Position your value in a way that influences the customer’s requirements.
• Ask great discovery questions that show your customer how your solution is needed to solve their business issues.

Here are some additional resources:

• How to Stack Customer Requirements in Your Favor
  • https://bit.ly/3AMo4z3
• The Missing Link Between Your Differentiation and Your Buyers
  • https://bit.ly/3dVvQ0H

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.