Preface: My first real experience of Jim Berryhill was in 2012. We were sitting in his lake house (North of Atlanta), with his business partner, John Porter and his son, Jake. It was in the very early days of Decisionlink, we were solving the problems of business value selling. They were just launching the company, I was advising them on the launch strategy. Unbeknownst to us, Jim and I had probably encountered each other years before. We were leaders driving competitive sales organizations. While we didn’t know each other, I had great respect for those organizations. Jim and John, were out t ..read more

As trivial as it may seem, the ability to pay attention is one of the most important behaviors for success. But what does this really mean, particularly when we have so much competing for our attention, and when we invest so much in getting the attention of others? Too often, it seems we focus more on the mechanics of what we do. losing sight of our purpose or what our actions mean–to ourselves and others. The act of paying attention is one of focusing intensely and compassionately on the world and people around us. Our acts of attentiveness shape everything and everyone around us. And the ab ..read more

It’s Friday, it’s been a busy, but great week. Sometimes, my mind starts turning into jelly and goes to weird places. I imagined myself interviewing for the CRO position in a high growth start up. Dave: Thanks for the opportunity to speak, I’m sure I can have a great impact in driving growth in your sales organization. CEO: I’m excited to speak to you. Can you tell me a little about the results you produced in your last role. Dave: We were scaling aggressively. We grew ARR tremendously past two years that I’ve been there. VCs are investing and have driven our market cap to hundreds of million ..read more

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a trite saying, but “The only constant in life is change……” Let me go through a few more just to get them off my chest: Be the change you want to see in the world…. Nothing changes if nothing changes… Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end… Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine…. Thanks for your patience, I need to get those out of my system. As much as we tire talking about the constancy of change, our jobs as sellers only exist because of change. We are trying to get our customers to change from the current products or s ..read more

We spend 100’s of millions on SKO speakers, books, and training–all focused on doing the things that drive business, sales and marketing performance. We are inspired by thousands of articles, podcasts, and videos–each offering the same answers to what we have to do to be successful. (I contribute my fair share to the clutter.) We know what we have to do, and, for the most part, each of us is well intended–we really want to do the things that cause us, our customers, and our companies to be successful. For example, as sales people, we know–without a doubt that: We’ve got to prospect and fill ..read more

Preface: Every once in a while, by pure chance, we meet someone who is inspiring. This is my experience with Inshal Khawaja. I first met Inshal about a year ago. I was working with Howard Dover on a “business acumen” program he was introducing into the UTD curriculum in the Fall of 2023. It involved interviews of senior sales executives. Ultimately, this would be done by students. I had piloted the concept through interviews with dozens of executives, but we needed to see how students would be able to implement the program. Inshal was working with Howard, so he assigned her to pilot the inter ..read more

Preface: Barry Trailer has been a leader in researching/surveying sales performance and providing deep insights into that performance. Something many people may not know is that Barry was trained as a civil engineer. Whenever I get on a Zoom call with him, I’m distracted by the classic drafting table on one wall of his office. We always exchange stories of sitting at those tables, doing designs on paper. Always brings back such fond memories. A couple of things stand out–one the survey Barry cites stating that sales people are tied with politicians in how credible people believe they are. And ..read more

Preface: Jill Konrath is one of the most well respected author, speaker, teacher on all things selling. She’s written 4 masterpieces on selling. More importantly, at least to me, Jill is an important mentor to me. She has been a very willing coach, helping me think and execute at higher levels. Very few people care enough to say, “Dave, you can do so much better….” Jill and I share a common dream, how to make a difference—in the people/companies we work with, in our communities, and in society. In the past year, Jill has shifted her focus to a very important mission: What’s Really Possible? S ..read more

It’s crazy to think that we purposely design our organizations to fail. Who would think of that, particularly in selling? We are driven to succeed, to over achieve our goals. We constantly talk about winning. If this is true, why do we see year after year of declining performance and results? For example, we see percent of people achieving goals declining—today roughly 40% of sellers are achieving or exceeding quota? To most of us, it’s unimaginable, but why do we see this persist YoY, even continuing to decline? We see win rates plummeting. I was quoted once saying, “I fire people whose win ..read more

Any reader who was trained as an engineer or anyone with experience in assembling machines (or Ikea furniture) will recognize the Tolerance Stack Up Error. But, too often, I see the equivalent of this problem in our GTM strategies and execution efforts. For those of you scratching your heads, let me describe the tolerance tack up error. When we are designing a machine, we specify the dimensions and performance characteristics of each part in the assembly. While we provide exact specifications, “It has to have dimensions of X inches, by Y inches, by Z inches. It has to have a hole of R inches ..read more