Have you ever caught yourself babbling in a sales conversation? John Kaplan has, and he shares some spirit around asking yourself the question - “Why are you talking?”
Show your customer you’re focused on them and want to genuinely understand their business pain. John Kaplan joins us to walk through some small tricks he uses to make sure he keeps sales conversations focused on the customer.

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Here are some additional resources on keeping the focus on the buyer:
- Why Your Active Listening Skills Are Crucial to Hitting Your Number
    - https://bit.ly/3hlHPUK
- Improve Your Active Listening Skills [Podcast]
- https://apple.co/2R1Tq0H
- 3 Things You Need In Every Deal 
- https://apple.co/3xWEJwt

How do you ensure you’re selling for a great company or moving to a great company?
Part of believing that what you do matters, means loving what you do. Companies make great promises when looking to hire top sales talent or retain top performers. Be confident you’re in the right spot and making the right moves in your sales career. John Kaplan shares his opinion on how elite sellers ensure that they’re selling for great companies, including:
- What evidence to look for
- How companies enable salespeople to operate at an elite level
- How to test the internal operations and traits of a sales organization


Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Sales Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Here are some additional resources on picking a great company:
- How to Ensure You're Selling For A Great Company
- https://bit.ly/2RqFk8B
- Signs You’re Working for a Company That’s Staged for Growth
- https://bit.ly/3vGHQGG
- Four Questions Every Sales Organization Needs to Answer 
- https://bit.ly/3uhR4Jb

Great conversations only happen when salespeople aren’t afraid to be uncomfortable.
Being elite often comes down to being the person who can ask great discovery questions with patience, empathy and confidence. Force Management Facilitator Antonella O’Day shares how to dig deep in discovery conversations in a way that creates a healthy tension in the conversation, including:
- The biggest misconceptions when adding positive tension to sales conversations
- How to prepare to drive interest from buyer
- Best practices for helping sellers dig deep in a way that’s empathetic
Here are some additional resources on discovery:
- Executing Effective Discovery Podcast
- https://apple.co/3dSpXi6 
- Our Most Popular Content on Executing Effective Discovery 
- https://bit.ly/3vkqP52 
Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

This episode is the first in our new podcast series “Lessons Learned in Sales”, John Kaplan talks with Senior Director of Consulting and Facilitation Patrick McLoughlin about his own career including:
- The lessons he’s learned from some great managers and the mantra he uses today
- The worst mistake he ever made
- The time a colleague stole a prospect’s glasses
This is a conversation you don’t want to miss!
Here are some additional podcasts featuring PaddyMac:

How to Move Yourself Beyond Mediocrity [Podcast] 

   - https://apple.co/3xbK1n9

The Handoff: SDR to AE [Podcast] 

- https://apple.co/32z7hgM

Improve Your Active Listening Skills [Podcast]  

   - https://apple.co/3ek5YYz
Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Sales Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Competitors catch up to your solutions. When they do, your “unique” differentiators won’t hold up.
Marty Mercer stops by the podcast to provide tips on steering a buyer’s solution requirements away from your competition (including an impending “do nothing” or “no decision”).
He teaches how to effectively prepare for conversations around decision criteria, so you can build out a list of buyer solution requirements that will validate a premium price. He also covers what to do when a customer shares a capability that you know your solution is at a disadvantage for.
This episode is one of those that you’ll want to save and come back to time and again for a refresher when you’re up against challenging competition or need a solid win.
Here are some additional resources on influencing customer requirements:
- Navigating the Decision Process with Multiple Buyers [Podcast]
- https://apple.co/3tiTSFI
- How to Ask Trap Setting Questions
- https://bit.ly/2Qf6gYx
- Prepare and Practice to Confidently Execute Sales Calls [Podcast]
- https://apple.co/3mHNcyc
- Front-line Manager Coaching Resources 
    - https://bit.ly/3g7eooT
Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

One of the most basic things you can do as a sales organization is ensure that your executive team and entire company is aligned on the key value and differentiation of your solution. When you have consistent answers to the essential questions, you have the framework to equip sales to articulate your solution’s business value and differentiation in a way that drives bottom-line impact. John Kaplan joins us to discuss how companies generate consistent, cross-functional agreement on the four essential questions, and why it’s critical to accelerating business growth.


Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Here are some additional resources on generating company alignment with the buyer:
- Four Questions Every Sales Organization Needs to Answer
- http://bit.ly/3c3jfnz
- Intercom Increased Average Deal Size by 261% After Generating Alignment
http://bit.ly/3e63YVn
- The Secrets to Aligning Your Company on Customer Value and Differentiation
 -http://bit.ly/3bcVV7u

Selling too low in an organization is a common challenge for many salespeople. Brian Walsh shares best practices from salespeople and company leaders who have enabled their teams to sell higher, aligning to bigger business problems. He covers:
- How sales leaders and managers can look inward to improve their ability to equip sellers to sell higher and drive accountability around pursuing high-level opportunities
- The framework and point of view salespeople need to get in front of decision makers higher, wider and deeper in a sales organization and make an impact
- How sellers can leverage people lower in an organization to determine who key players are and gain access to them (i.e. why sellers shouldn’t right these people off)
Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Here are some additional resources on Selling too Low:
-Navigating the Decision Process With Multiple Buyers [Podcast] 
- Why Sales Reps Struggle With Metrics in a Sales Conversation
- https://bit.ly/3keTi86
- Purpose Process Payoff
- http://bit.ly/3bfkpNe

Improve your ability to navigate your buyer's decision process and win deals that involve multiple decision makers.
John Kaplan walks through key tips for getting multithreaded in your deals and to ensure you’re communicating effectively with the key players in the buying organization, including:
- What actions you can take early on in the sales process to effectively influence a customer’s decision process
- How to get higher, wider, and deeper in your organization to determine key decision makers and multiple buyers who will have a say in the final “yes”
- Tips for making an impact in front of each stakeholder in an opportunity

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Here are some additional resources on decision process:
- How to Ask the Right Questions in Your Sales Conversation
- http://bit.ly/2NoJ7Sy 
- Why Sales Reps Struggle with Metrics in the Sales Conversation
- http://bit.ly/3keTi86
- Executing Effective Discovery [Podcast]
- http://apple.co/37GDsOC

Selling to an economic buyer is always challenging and often different from one deal to the next.
Improve your ability to make economic buyers and decision makers stand in their moment of pain and demand an urgent solution to their business challenges. John Kaplan breaks down three key questions you need to answer for your economic buyer in order to propel a deal forward.

Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Here are some additional resources on economic buyer:
- Close the Excuse Department and Shorten Sales Cycles
- http://bit.ly/3dzElMA
- Maximize the Effectiveness of Proof Points [podcast]
- https://apple.co/3btxqSy
- Earn Your Right to Keep Talking [Templates]
- http://bit.ly/2NQTDln

Gearing up to launch a strategic initiative or are you in the middle of creating an adoption plan?
Kathleen Schindler, Force Management Managing Director of Customer Success shares current best practices sales leaders are using to make changed behaviors stick. Kathleen supports some of our most successful customers and sales teams as they work to roll out new sales capabilities and make them stick. She shares:
- How sales leaders and managers are leveraging the remote environment to drive adoption and accountability
- What to think through when developing the long-term adoption plan for your sales initiative
- How to incorporate managers in the adoption plan and support their ability to drive on-going reinforcement.


Check out this and other episodes of The Audible-Ready Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Here are some additional resources on reinforcing an initiative
- Insights on Maintaining Virtual SKO Momentum
- http://bit.ly/3uH7H1J
- How to Equip Managers to Drive Lasting Results from a Sales Initiative
- http://bit.ly/3uHVYjg
- How to Set Up an Effective Adoption Plan Around Your Sales Kickoff
- http://bit.ly/3sxTrpW