5 years ago, COVID hit.
Nick and I had the crazy idea to start a podcast to help us get to President’s Club.
(instead of watching Netflix or sitting in Zoom happy hours)
1-2-3 episodes in… we couldn’t believe it.
It was actually taking off.
And it turns out, what we learned might’ve been helpful for a few of you too:
- In week 1, we crossed the 1k download mark.
- In year 1, we hit the 500k download mark.
- In year 2, we blew through a million downloads.
And today, we stand as the #1 sales podcast in the millions with 300 episodes down.
So today, we’re breaking down the top 15 things we’ve learned in 300 episodes that have truly changed the way we sell, forever:
- 3 Cold Calling
- 3 Cold Email
- 3 Discovery
- 3 Process
- 3 Leadership
We’ll breakdown every tactic rapidfire style with links to each episode so you can get the full thing.
Let’s roll 👇
COLD CALLING
1: The Ledge (Ep. 83 with Jeb Blount)
Have a statement that buys you 1-2 seconds to recompose yourself when you’re hit with an objection.
Example:
“Shoot, this one’s on me! I guess I would have heard from you if you were interested!”
2: Chunking Up (Ep. 245 with Jason Bay)
When cold calling an executive, "chunk up" the specific, champion-level problem into what it *actually* means for an executive.
Example:
“I see a lot of teams manually calculating commissions off of spreadsheets - are you finding that that’s leading to inconsistent compensation?”
3: How To Open A Cold Call (Book Summary)
The Tailored Permission Opener owns that you’re making a cold call and disarms the prospect with brutal honesty (lead with context, own the cold call, get permission).
Example:
"Emma, I just finished reading a bit about your firm's new insurance defense practice group. I’m gonna be honest, this is a cold call...but it is a well-researched one!
Can I get 30 seconds to share what I saw in that press release that prompted me to call you, then you can tell me whether or not it makes sense for us to speak?"
COLD EMAIL
4: Run The Triple (Ep. 6 with Ryan Reisert)
Run the triple by leading with an email, follow up with a LinkedIn touch, end with a cold call.
Bang bang bang.
It’s hard to ignore a seller who shows up looking like a real human.
5: The Segue (Ep. 4 with Kyle Coleman)
Random personalization is not personalization. Segue your personalization into a problem:
❌ “Hey, saw you went to UT; want to buy life insurance?”
✅ "Saw you just launched a parallel dialer, typically we find it’s hard to break through the noise when there’s so much AI-enabled GTM tech out there nowadays."
6: Trigger Templates (Club Playbook with Charly Johnson)
This one builds on tip #5.
Literally, save that exact observation + problem as a template so you can personalize at scale.
Do this for your top 5 prospecting triggers and you’ve got 80% baked emails every time.
Discovery
7: PPO Agenda (Ep. 1 with Joe Caprio)
No more 17 minute agendas. Start every call with:
- Purpose: Explain that the goal is to figure out whether or not there’s a problem even worth solving.
- Plan: For that reason, you can set the expectation that you’ll spend time getting to know their business (AKA discovery) before diving into a demo or pricing.
- Outcome: From there, allude to the decision that they’ll make at the end of the call to decide whether or not it’s even worth going deeper.
8: Bucket Questions (Ep. 134 with Kevin "KD" Dorsey)
Lay out options whenever you’re asking discovery questions so that it’s easy for your prospects to agree to a problem.
Example:
"Typically, we see COOs of law firms have one of two main areas of focus related to billing.
1: Either automating a manual client in-take process.
2: Or billing and assembling bills for insurance in order to stay compliant with new policies.
Which one is most relevant for you?"
9: The Magic Moment Question (Ep. 247 with Charles Muhlbauer)
Your prospect agreed to a problem, so ask: "when was the moment you realized that was a problem?”.
You'll ALWAYS get a story – and that’s your bridge between operational problems and executive problems.
Process
10: The Champion Sandwich (Ep. 130 with Morgan Melo Barrett)
Before you go into the big team meeting, pre-plan a prep call with your champion and a debrief after.
The prep call gives you a primer on all the players.
The debrief call tells you how it was received.
11: Popcorn Pricing (Ep. 265 with Belal Batrawy)
Price the small popcorn high ($8) and the large popcorn low ($10) to incentivize them to buy more.
For example, when selling software licenses,
- Offer the individual seat option at $1000/seat = $1000 total
- Offer the enterprise team option at $500/seat (3 seat minimum) = $1500 total
12: Yo-Yo Selling (Ep. 43 with Ian Koniak)
If you sell into C-Suites, start by winning over the executive and ask for introductions to the relevant department leads.
Run your full deal cycle through each lead then come back to the exec with an executive summary and recommendation.
Leadership
13: Document The WGLL + Practice (Ep. 285 with Kevin "KD" Dorsey)
Document and practice the WGLL (“What Good Looks Like”).
Step 1: Build a WGLL Library: Write down the key steps in any sales process in simple bullet form, then collect calls, emails, and recordings that show it in action.
Step 2: Practice forward: In 1:1s, ask your reps which upcoming meetings and moments they need to nail. Find the WGLL documentation that matches it, and practice-practice-practice in live roleplays before they get in the game.
14: Sales Stages + What You're Trying to "Get" (Lead Playbook with Mark Kosoglow)
Discovery is not a stage. Demo is not a stage.
Stages should be what you need to get your prospect to do:
- Problem agreement
- Solution agreement
- Power agreement
- Commercial agreement
- Vendor approval
And you can get these things in 1, 2, or 10 calls. Why do a “deep-dive demo” call if they already agreed to the solution in your discovery call from the harbor tour demo?
15: Invert The Hiring Funnel (me on Lead Playbook Pt 2. - it was Nick's choice!)
If they don’t fully understand the opportunity with your team, your best candidates will leave the interview process before they agree to be grilled in 3+ interviews.
When outbound recruiting candidates, spend 75% of the time in the first interview selling your top 5-10 candidates on the opportunity.
Using the other time to evaluate, you’ll earn the right to essentially use a permission based opener and invite them to be grilled on the next couple of interviews.
THANK YOU for 300 Unbelievable Episodes, Folks.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re one of the folks whose made it possible for Nick and me to call this crazy thing a “job.”
Thank you for making us a part of your morning commute every week.
Thank you for trusting us to share what we’ve learned from the best sellers in the world.
300 episodes in, our goal hasn’t changed.
We hope that we give you something new every week that gets you 1% closer to President’s Club.
Catch the complete breakdowns of each of these All-Time Top 15 Tactics in our 300 episode special👇
