Accelerate! With Andy Paul

Whitney Johnson is the author of the book: Disrupt Yourself. Master Relentless Change and Speed Up Your Learning Curve. Right off the bat, let me tell you that I love this book. If you’re in sales in any capacity and you’re struggling to Improve your performance, and perhaps need some additional motivation to make a change, then you need to read Whitney’s book. Whitney and I cover a lot of ground in this conversation. She explains how the S curve of innovative disruption, that was first popularized in the late Clayton Christenson’s famous book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, can be applied to your personal disruption, your personal transformation. The we dig into the psychology and neuroscience related to personal transformation and the factors that drive your motivation to learn. And we talk about why some people feel it’s a big risk to invest in their own development. A risk to disrupt themselves.

Liston Witherill is B2B sales consultant, trainer, and host of the Modern Sales podcast, on which I was honored to be a guest. In this episode Liston and I dig into the topic of building better sales habits using the science of habit formation. This whole topic of habits is a favorite of mine. Where many people see skills, I see habits. Habits practiced over and over can become skills. The ability to connect with another person on a human level? That’s a habit. Curiosity is a habit. Work on your curiosity habit and the skill of asking great questions emerges. So Liston and I go back and forth on the basic habits that all salespeople need and various schools of thought behind the science of habit formation.

Michael Bungay Stanier is the author of one of my favorite books The Coaching Habit. On this episode we talk about his new brand new book, The Advice Trap. Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever. Today we talk about the three main problems with giving advice: (1) your advice doesn’t work; (2) solving the wrong problem; and (3) proposing a mediocre solution. As a result, you risk becoming what Michael calls an Advice Monster. This episode was recorded in early 2020.

David Brock is CEO of Partners in Excellence and the author of the excellent book, The Sales Manager's Survival Guide. David is a self-described ruthless pragmatist and he joined me on this episode to talk about developing an effective sales execution framework. As Dave describes it "Increasingly salespeople and managers struggle to make sense of all the things they are being asked to do, and how these activities fit with each other.” So in this conversation we dig into Dave’s suggested sales execution framework and the 4 jobs sellers have to execute simultaneously.. 

Roger Connors is a 4x NYTimes and WSJ bestselling author. In this episode we talk about his latest book Get a Coach, Be a Coach. Roger believes that outdated, old-school, one-on-one professional coaching models make effective coaching scarce, expensive, and hard to justify for the masses. It works for a few, but not for the many. What’s the answer? Roger proposes a new model for coaching called Self-Directed Performance Coaching.

David Priemer is the author of the new book "Sell the Way You Buy: A Modern Approach To Sales That Actually Works (Even On You!)" On this episode we discuss how salespeople can arm themselves with progressive strategies for connecting with modern buyers.  Plus, we dig into why so many sellers find themselves executing tactics they sense are outdated, ineffective, and inconsistent with their personal philosophy. This conversation originally aired in early 2020.

Mark McInnes is author of the book Tactical Pipeline Growth: Winning the Outbound Battle for New Business. Mark’s a contrarian on the myths and bad practices that have built up around prospecting. It's why I liked his book. For openers we talk about why it’s better to have too few prospects in your pipeline than too many. I happen to agree with this. The low levels of quota attainment and win rates, that we all see and read about, are not a function of not having leads. It’s all about how ineffective sellers are once that they have leads. In which case more leads won’t solve the problem—it’s only doubling down on a bad bet.

Tyler Lessard is the VP of Marketing and Chief Video Strategist at Vidyard. As you might expect, Tyler and I are going to spend most of our time talking about video messaging. However, before we get to that, Tyler and I talk about his time at Blackberry, and some of the lessons that he learned from that experience of seeing the king of the hill dethroned by smartphones. Then, we get into what it takes to get a sales team to embrace video messaging. Tyler share some compelling stats about why you’d want to use video messaging and his key tips on what sales teams need to think about when rolling out a 'video’ program. 

Jeff Santelices is the Chief Revenue Officer at MindTickle. In this episode we start with what it means for a seller to be sales ready. Then we delve into the topic of sales learning and the levers managers can pull to improve sales performance. Next, Jeff shares the KPIs that he relies on to manage his team and reveals the one KPI that everyone uses that is totally useless. Finally, we talk about QBRs and how to run an efficient one in the midst of this pandemic.

Mike Weinberg is a consultant, speaker and author. His latest book is Sales Truth: Debunk the Myths. Apply Powerful Principles. Win More New Sales. Mike and I always have a ball talking about sales. And, I warn you, this episode runs a bit longer than normal because once we got started talking it was hard to stop. Today we're going to debunk some of the popular myths about sales that are popular online. We’ll dive deep into some of the key themes in Mike’s new book including: (1) Why sellers need to be more discriminating about the sales advice the follow; (2) how to avoid being stuck in the procurement pit; and (3) how to work with procurement to get the outcome you need. Plus, we'll get into why you need to trust your people, not your metrics.w

Kevin Davis is the founder of TopLine Leadership and author of The Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness. In this episode Kevin and I are talking about the importance of hiring coachable sellers. We get into why coachability is becoming even more important and how to screen for coachability in a job interview.

Mike Bosworth is the author of the classic book Solution Selling. In this episode, Mike and I talk about how to coach sellers to master creating trust and emotional connection in conversations with their buyers. Plus we talk about the importance of relationships in sales and why the idea of relationships makes so many seller so uncomfortable.

Nichole Porter is a Sales Lead for retail at Shopify and she was the winner of ringDNA’s Top Sales Coach Competition. If you didn’t hear about that, sales managers and coaches from around the world submitted videos of themselves coaching a few rep calls that we had recorded. The public voted on the top coaches and narrowed down the entries to our semi finalists. Then our panel of esteemed judges chose the winner: Nichole Porter. In this episode we talk about Nichole’s rapid career progression at Shopify and we dig into how Nichole coaches her own team members. 

Garin Hess, founder and CEO of Consensus, is author of the book, Selling is Easy. Buying is Hard: How Buyer Enablement Drives Digital Sales Transformation and Shortens Sales Cycles. In this episode we get into why the lack of alignment between sellers and buyers is one of the biggest impediments to improving sales performance today. Plus we discuss the change of perspective sellers need for success, namely that they don’t close deals, buyers do.

Steve Herz (President of The Montag Group) is the author of Don't Take Yes for an Answer: Using Authority, Warmth, and Energy to Get Exceptional Results. And he’s the President of The Montag Group, a leading agency representing top broadcast news and sports talent. In this episode we talk about personal development. Steve believes that we get a lot of positive feedback that we don’t actually deserve, In the age of “everybody gets a trophy” it could be the lack of honest feedback is what’s holding you back from performing at the level you desire. We dig into why the difference between being good and great is usually quite narrow. As many of you know, I think we do a real disservice to people who are looking to change by emphasizing transformation. Wholesales changes that are too often unsustainable. Steve and I discuss why it's often, a small tweak, a gentle adjustment, is all it takes to upgrade the trajectory of a career.

Tara Horstmeyer is currently the Director of Partner Success at Gravy. In this episode we have an extended conversation about building your personal brand on LinkedIn. Tara takes us through her journey over the past 10 months in her mission to use LinkedIn to share more, give more, engage more, learn more and grow more. Plus, we dig into the impact this engagement has had for Gravy and for her growth as a manager. (She’s killing it. She’s already been promoted twice so far this year.)

Keith Ferrazzi is author of NYT bestseller Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success One Relationship at a Time. On today's episode we get into Keith’s formula for success and it’s a sweet and direct rebuttal to the growing chorus of “experts" who want you to believe that relationships aren’t important in sales. Plus, we get tactical on how relationship building is done. This interview was recorded in 2018.

Sally Duby is the Chief Sales Officer and Partner at The Bridge Group. In this episode Sally and I dive into how to create more diversity in sales (tech in particular). We discuss whether leaders should set concrete goals and steps to improve diversity. And we talk about how to get more POC and women into leadership positions in sales.

Eric Barker is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong, On today's episode we get into how to build an awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses that allows you to navigate with and around them. Plus, why high school valedictorians don’t succeed the same way out of school and what that means for you. This interview was recorded in 2018.

Austin Rolling is the founder and CEO of Outfield. Austin’s journey is a great story of persistence and resilience. Not the least of which is that his product was created for field sales teams. And well, his team has had to pivot during COVID. We’ll get into what he’s doing to prepare for the next normal. We’re also going to talk about being homeless. As Austin was not that long before he started Outfield. That’s not the typical journey for an entrepreneur. You’ll want to make sure you check that out. And we dig into what Austin foresees as the future of field sales.