Have you ever walked into a sales meeting feeling perfectly prepared - research done, questions ready, value proposition polished - but still felt something was off? The reality is, research alone can only get you so far – mindset is the true catalyst behind every sales outcome, yet it is so often overlooked in our preparation.

In this Snippet, Dan and Pam explore why traditional pre-meeting prep often misses the mark, and how shifting your mindset can transform your entire approach to sales conversations. If you're ready to discover the power of mindset and learn techniques that can dramatically improve your conversations, listen to this Snippet, then scroll back to Episode 118, How to Activate Your High-Performance Mindset, to hear the full discussion.

Today, people feel pressure to prove themselves on social media—sharing every win and accomplishment. Yet, the most successful people rarely feel the need to broadcast their achievements. When looking at who actually makes it in business long-term, there's one quality that stands out above all others: humility.

In this episode, Dan and Pam explore why humility is the hidden key to high performance. You'll learn what true humility looks like in business and relationships, and why it actually has nothing to do with downplaying your talents. We'll break down the specific behaviors that set humble high performers apart, and why all the success in the world doesn't entitle any of us to special treatment as human beings. If you want to understand how humility can transform your relationships and results—not the fake kind we see on social media, but the real deal—this episode is for you. 

Have you reached your full potential?

If you’re a high performer, the answer should be a resounding "not yet." There's always room for growth, always another level to reach. Personal growth is a never-ending journey where we are constantly working toward becoming the next version of ourselves.The secret is learning how to embrace that change.

In this episode of Breaking Sales, Dan and Pam dive deep into the power of change and experimentation. They’ll explore why experimentation is crucial for personal and professional growth, and how it can help you reach that next level of performance. We'll break down the mindset shifts needed to embrace change, and why being willing to make mistakes is essential for learning and growth. You'll learn how to approach change as a game of creation, and discover practical exercises to visualize and work towards your future goals.

Automation is a necessary tool in today’s world, but what happens when it’s used poorly? When it comes to your outreach, automation can destroy one of the necessary components of your relationship with your prospect: reciprocity. In this snippet, we revisit Dan’s conversation on reciprocity with Jeremy Donovan, who was formerly the SVP of Revenue Strategy at the sales engagement platform SalesLoft.

If you want to revisit the full-length conversation, scroll back to episode 33, Start Asking and Start Giving with Jeremey Donovan.

Your mindset impacts your results. There’s a lot of people out there giving “advice” on how to be a better sales professional. But guess what? A lot of their well-intentioned advice is outcomes-based—not mindset-based. In the first episode of a three-part series, Dan and Pam demystify some of the myths out there around why sales professionals fail, and they begin to share the real reasons, and how to avoid them.

One of the quickest ways to discredit your outreach is to communicate assumptions about why your prospect hasn’t responded. Listen to this 180 Conversation as Dan and Pam share their critiques of an anonymous thread of email messages that reveal the author’s serious scarcity mindset.

If you’re calculating your pipeline wrong, then your business is at stake. That’s why Dan is setting the record straight on pipeline in this snippet episode. Listen in to hear Dan share how he calculates pipeline for maximum accuracy—and, as an added bonus, his method is going to boost your relationship with your prospects, too.

To hear the rest of the conversation, listen to Episode 26: Are You Measuring the Wrong Things?

Why do so many in sales struggle to reach their full potential? Many reasons. Listen in as Dan and Pam break down three of them based on their work coaching top performers for over a decade. After listening, you’ll have more self-awareness to identify which of the three is getting in your way.

No credibility = no meeting. If you’re missing the bare minimums in your outreach (Who are you? Why should they care? Who are you associated with?) then you’re never going to get their time.

In this 180 Conversation, Dan and Kiley share an outreach that caused Kiley to simply respond: “You have no credibility”. Listen in to gut-check your own outreach—are you being genuine and helpful, or are you being self-serving?

What’s your top priority when talking to clients? If your automatic answer isn’t to learn, you need to go back to the drawing board. Listen in to hear Dan break down 4 assumptions you’re making about your prospects that are holding you back from being a top performer, and more importantly, his strategies for moving past them.

If you’d like to listen to the full episode, listen to Episode 29: 4 Assumptions Blocking You From Success.

A lot of work goes into getting your first call with a prospect, and naturally, you want to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward. Or better yet, start off with a competitive advantage. It starts with the science of visualization, making sure you have the right mindset, and then activating it through role play. Just like an athlete, chef, or any other high performer would do. Listen in as Dan and Kiley walk you through their best practices for meeting preparation.

Outreach cadences have become ridiculous. Sometimes it takes 14, 16, 18+ messages to get a meeting. Why is that? Bad outreach cadences like the one in this episode.

In today’s 180 Conversations, Dan and Kiley share a painstakingly lengthy one-way outreach cadence that ends in Dan begging it to stop before Kiley is even halfway through. Listen in to hear why it’s more important than ever that you break the pattern of BS outreach.

You can develop and strengthen the muscle and skill of resilience to believe in yourself—but most don’t know how to do it. Simply saying “I need to be more resilient” isn’t enough. So how do you become more resilient to achieve that next level of success? Listen in as Pam and Kiley break down the three components of resilience. Identify ways to increase the toughness and stamina you need to create and experience a higher level of performance.

It's no secret: many people in high-performance careers pride themselves on their work ethic. At first, the late nights, early mornings, and minimal sleep feel exciting and fulfilling. But as time goes on and they advance further in their careers, many begin to realize this approach isn't sustainable, or even productive in the long run.

In this episode of Breaking Sales, Dan and Pam explore the critical importance of rejuvenation and grounding for high achievers and why taking time to recharge isn't just a luxury—it's a necessity for maintaining clarity and avoiding burnout.

You'll discover how small, intentional habits can make a big difference in your overall well-being and productivity, the hard choices that come with prioritizing rejuvenation, and why being deliberate is so critical to avoiding burnout. Dan and Pam even share their personal methods of mental and physical rejuvenation, from evening walks and classical music to early morning workouts and prioritizing sleep, as inspiration on how you can make a change in your life.

Tune in if you're ready to transform your mindset and boost your performance without sacrificing your well-being.

t’s been over 2 years, so if you still aren’t nailing your virtual meetings, it’s time to straighten that out. Dan and Kiley break down body language cues and give actionable tips to improve your virtual meetings—for you and your prospects & clients.

If you’d like to listen to the full episode, listen to Episode 22: Your Virtual Brand From Home.

If you want your prospect to take you seriously…don’t impersonate your pet. Listen in to this 180 Conversation as Dan and Kiley share an anonymous email that will have you laughing and learning.

Have you ever wondered what your prospects think about change? Are they open or closed? How much is too much? In this episode, Dan and Kiley share a question strategy that can give you tremendous insight into your prospect’s ability to embrace and pursue change.

The smallest actions turn into habits. Those habits make or break your progress toward your goals. Shifting your mindset to commit to the small things spills over into the larger things, and before you know it, your goals are crushed. Listen in as Dan & Kiley discuss what it takes to make your goals happen.

To hear the full conversation, listen to Episode 54: Four Paths to Transform the New Year.

Questions can be powerful—are you using them to their full potential? Two things influence how you ask questions in a meeting with a prospect: your mindset and the outcome that you expect. Are you asking questions so you can find an angle to tee up your solution, or are you asking questions that help your prospect think through what they need to in order to evaluate change?  Listen in as Dan and Kiley discuss how to ask questions that motivate your prospect to think. 

If you have ever made a promise to a prospect that you can add value or guaranteed that what you do will help them, listen in! Making promises based on assumptions will create skepticism on the receiving end. This is rooted in attachment to scarcity, damaging trust before you even get to a conversation. This 180 Conversation reminds us why it’s so important to approach prospects with neutrality.

Empathy leads to meaningful engagement. In order to gain their trust, you have to help your prospects objectively debate whether or not their current state is still serving them–and in order to do that effectively, they have to know you're there to help first, not sell. Listen to this snippet to hear Dan and Kiley talk about how important solid listening and question-asking skills are for your first conversation with a prospect.

To listen to the full conversation, check out Episode 1: Your Prospect's Point of View

Discipline is a ten-letter word that induces both stress and freedom. In the short term, you feel stressed about making the consistent daily sacrifices to meet your goals, uncertain if your efforts will pay off. Procrastinating these efforts increases stress because you carry the knowledge that you didn’t stay consistent or bring your best. Before you know it, you’ve moved further away from the key habit or routine required to achieve your goal and created a new pattern of not committing to yourself. It becomes a barrier to your success. Listen in as Pam and Kiley provide a different perspective on discipline—how it drives and creates freedom.

Your prospects don’t know you. They don’t know if you’re there to really help them or just make a sale. Before you can even think about pitching them some kind of solution, they need to trust you and know that you’ve got their back. Doing this out of order can cause distrust and actually add to the potential risk that they perceive. Ultimately, it will result in them staying the course and maintaining the status quo without making a change—even if they really do need to do something different. Listen in as Dan and Kiley discuss the relationship between trust and risk and how to keep this top of mind in your prospect meetings.

Has this ever happened to you?

You walk into a sales conversation with your product demo ready. You’ve rehearsed your presentation to perfection, knowing every line and figure by heart, only to find your prospect is disengaged and uninterested in your production.

There’s a reason this didn’t work: You made the conversation about yourself.

Instead of approaching the prospect with curiosity and asking questions about their business, you relied on a rehearsed demo presentation that didn’t require you to step out of your comfort zone and engage with the prospect on their level. So how do we fix this?

In this snippet, Dan shares why relying on your demo, though tempting, can hurt your ability to connect with your prospects and close the deal. We’ll explore why this leads to missed opportunities and misaligned solutions, and how you can adjust your mindset to better serve your prospect’s needs, not your own need for comfort and security.

Listen to this snippet, and if you liked it, scroll back to episode 42, “Disqualifying You Is Easier” to hear the full conversation.

Sometimes you just need a short burst of inspiration in your day. Enter: Snippets. These short episodes will give you a quick hit of challenging, insightful information that will inspire you to be better in your day-to-day.

In this first Snippet episode, Dan is asking: which type of player are you? Are you an A player, who challenges themselves farther, faster, and better–without the need for trophies; Are you a B player, who is a high achiever, but struggles with complacency; Or, are you a C player, who is always looking for the next finish line and a bottle of champagne to pop? Listen in to find out.

To hear this full conversation, listen to Episode 35: The Difference Between A, B, and C Players.

Have you ever looked in the mirror and questioned your success or how you created it? You created expectations and standards for how your conversations should flow, how to judge conversational progress (good or bad), and defined an endless list of “do’s and don’ts.” In some circles, you are considered successful. But it’s a road less traveled –and few do – when you consider giving up the familiar for a new approach. Listen in as Dan and Kiley talk with Mike and Sean, their client from the management consulting firm, PointB. They learned to bet on themselves and their teams using a different approach to compete and take down the giants in their space.

Success in sales begins and ends with your ability to connect with prospects in need of your offering. Some circles call it hunting. Others prefer a more distinguished description – business development. Experts everywhere tell you what, how, and when to do it. Consistency is key. Here’s the bottom line: if you want to get better at connecting with prospects, think and manage your behavior. Listen in as Dan and Kiley walk you through eight innate human behaviors that hold the key to better and more consistent outreach performance. Several will surprise you.

In the journey to high-performance, you need a scoreboard. Without it, you have no idea what’s working or not and how to make adjustments for better results.

In this episode, Pam and Kiley dive into the uncomfortable conversation of metrics. You’ll learn why they’re so important, why we might not like them, and why you need to pay close attention to what you’re NOT measuring.

Do you have expectations of your prospects? In this 180 Conversation, Dan and Kiley share what happens when you expect a response from your cold outreach. In the end, your expectations may be killing your chances of getting a response.

Credentialing yourself is about elevating yourself on a pedestal. It mostly happens when pride collides with insecurity. Instead of impressing the recipient, it leaves them feeling skeptical and unimpressed. If you want to impress, double down on your questions and learning. Take a genuine interest in the other person. In this episode, Dan and Kiley explore the issues with credentialing and break down the five things you should do before sharing your accomplishments with the prospect.

Tired of asking questions and receiving surface-level answers? This episode is for you. Over the past three years, Dan has listened to 100s of recorded prospect conversations, and behavior trumps skill. Yes, it’s critical to prep your questions before any conversation so you have a roadmap of what you want to learn. But it’s your ability to become self-aware and self-regulate five specific behaviors that forever changes the effectiveness of your questions – what you learn and how those questions build trust between you and your prospects. Listen in as Dan and Kiley blow the lid off of asking better questions and out-pacing your competition.

Sales leaders often stress the importance of differentiation. But what if I told you that the conventional wisdom on how to stand out in sales conversations actually makes you sound more like everyone else?

When have you ever heard a competitor of yours say to the prospect, “our resources aren’t that good?” 

Differentiation isn't about having the most offices, the smartest people, or even the best product. True differentiation has to come from within you - how you show up mentally.

In this episode of Breaking Sales, Dan and Kristie dive deep into what it takes to stand out in a crowded marketplace. They’ll challenge the conventional wisdom about differentiation and explore why your mindset matters more than any feature or benefit you can tout. How it’s often your ability and willingness to ask the questions others are afraid to ask. 

Do you sacrifice your credibility to make your outreach stand out? In this 180 Conversation, Dan and Kiley break down an outreach that starts out promisingly but ends with a chicken sandwich. Confused? So was the prospect. Listen in as Dan and Kiley explore what happens when you try too hard to stand out and why using frivolous tactics is never the solution.

What do you do when a prospect says they’re not willing to share information with you? In this Conversation Dissection, James Chalmers, Senior Advisor at Moneta, joins the show to share his experience with a distrusting prospect. As Kiley and Dan take James through the exercise, they explore how you can proceed with empathy and detachment in these interactions, while paying attention to the red flags you’re feeling along the way.

What happens when your cadence is well-timed, but your content misses the mark? In this lively 180 Conversations episode, Dan and Kiley analyze a series of two emails to demonstrate how your approach can minimize the prospects’ perception of your value and expertise – and get them to ignore your outreach. Hint: stop making the outreach about what you want – no one cares. Your prospect only cares about the things that matter to them and surrounding themselves with people who have their back.

Work-life balance sounds great, but does anyone ever truly achieve it? In this episode, Kiley and Lappin180 Coach, Pam Evanson, introduce the concept of work-life integration to describe the symbiotic relationship between personal and professional life. You’ll learn how to prioritize and stick to your goals, structure your time for optimal efficiency, and employ discipline and accountability to get the most out of your business and private life every day of the week. This enlightening conversation covers mindset, process, and the high-performance results you can achieve from taking deliberate action.

You can take failure and identify with it as a permanent label or use it as nothing more than temporary feedback. Focusing on failure causes failure. The more you measure your worth through an outcome, the more pressure you place on yourself, and the higher the likelihood of procrastinating the actions you need to take to achieve success. In this episode, Dan takes a quick deep dive on reframing your perception of failure to help you embrace it as part of your high-performance journey.

Would you refer business to someone you’ve never met or spoken to – not knowing anything about their reputation or character? When your first touchpoint is asking someone to network, it can give the impression of scarcity. The approach might attract other scarcity-minded professionals, but it rubs others the wrong way. In this episode, Kiley and Dan share a similar experience of someone who wanted – but failed – to connect with them due to their odd, automated outreach approach.

When it comes to high-pressure sales conversations, your mental game is everything. Have you ever wondered how elite athletes and other top performers can quickly bounce back from mistakes to perform in the clutch? Let’s take the mystery out of mindset. In this episode, Dan and Kiley reveal the power of anchor and activation thoughts to influence how you react or respond in prospect meetings. Listen as Dan shares some of his own activation thoughts for performing in the clutch with high intent, abundance, and detachment.

When was the last time you actually enjoyed responding to an RFP?

The harsh reality is that buyer expectations are through the roof. The old playbook just doesn't cut it anymore. But what if there was a way to completely flip the script on RFPs? To turn them from a soul-crushing exercise into a chance to truly connect with your prospects?

In this episode, Kristie and Dan dive into the mindset shift that can help you disrupt the RFP game, challenging everything you think you know about the process.

What if instead of a scripted song and dance, you could have a real dialogue? What if you could build trust by being radically honest? And what if setting clear boundaries actually led to more success?

Dan and Kristie break down exactly how to approach RFPs in a whole new way. One that keeps you objective, strategic, and focused on what really matters: helping your prospects make the best decision possible.

If you’re ready to throw out the old RFP rulebook and try something that might just transform your entire sales approach, listen in.

Where you find yourself 12 months from now is up to you. For most people, New Year's resolutions are made to be broken. Without a plan or process in place to achieve success, it’s easy to quit, make excuses, and fail. In this episode, Dan and Kiley offer meaningful suggestions to get more out of your business (and life) in the new year. It begins and ends with the process you build and hitting incremental milestones along the way. Remember, you can’t control your results – but you can control your process.

Have you ever had a sales experience where it was so obvious that your prospect would be better off making a change to you – but they didn’t? In this episode, Dan draws a parallel to sales from a story in Chip and Dan Heath’s book, The Power of Moments. The story is a powerful example of how the obvious can be hard to see when habits, biases, and perceptions go unchecked. Discover how the positive tension you create with your questions will always outperform your demo and presentation

Setting and pursuing goals can be tedious. To change your results – you first have to change the way you look at things. Simply committing to more discipline, hard work, and a better attitude isn’t going to cut it. In this episode, Dan and Kiley go deep on four transformational paths that will add energy, fulfillment, and momentum toward whatever it is you want to achieve or experience in 2022. Listen in as they share their own experiences on what drains energy and what ignites it. The best part? You decide what, when, and how often – one step at a time.