The Win Rate Podcast with Andy Paul – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of the Win Rate Podcast, Andy discusses the importance of strategic decision making in sales, emphasizing better discovery, qualification, and the necessity of focusing on ideal customers. He is joined by panelists Noel Goggin, CEO & Culture Leader at Conga, Ryan Staley, Founder & CEO, Whale Boss, and Kyle Williams, Founder at Brickstack. The conversation gets into utilizing AI for sales efficiency, fostering impactful customer relationships, and aligning sales efforts with value-based selling. The guests also delve into the importance of business acumen and trustworthiness in successful sales engagements.

Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate.

In this episode of the Win Rate Podcast, Andy is joined by an outstanding panel of sales pros, including Steven Benson, CEO and Founder of Badger Maps, Jon Feldman, VP of Sales at anecdotes.ai, and Michael Pedone, Chief Sales Scientist at salesbuzz.com. Andy starts it out with a the reaction he saw from a post on LInkedIn about win rates near 20%. The gets into a deep discussion on why we are seeing this, along with sales effectiveness, qualifying leads, the importance of in-person interactions, the shift towards performative selling, the critical (yet complicated) role of sales managers, strategic thinking, effective coaching, and the value of field sales in today’s tech-driven environment.

Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate.

Today Andy is focusing on a discussion with his outstanding panel of guest, Lee Salz, Keynote Speaker, Consultant and Sales Management Strategist at Sales Architects, Lahat Tvzi, CEO at Tfisot Group, and Jonathan Spier, CEO at Rev. They explore the disproportionate focus on top-of-funnel activities in sales versus the actual selling process, and emphasize cutting down the number of proposals to increase conversion rates. Andy explains the reward of getting on a plane to have an in-person meeting for high-value deals.

Listen to the full episode on Apple and Spotify

Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate.

Today Andy is joined by Vince Beese, Founder and CEO of Sales@Scale, Anthony Iannorino, Keynote speaker, bestselling author and renowned sales leader, and Mike Bosworth, bestselling author, speaker, and sales philosopher as they discuss the importance of sales leaders thinking critically about how to make their teams more effective. They begin with the headshaking statistic of a 17% win rate and agree that any action is better than leaving your team in such a horrible situation.

They emphasize the significance of considering all stakeholders involved in the sales process, including the reps, their families, the clients, and the company itself. They urge leaders to assess whether they are truly helping these individuals and if not, to act before the situation gets worse.

The group discusses the effectiveness of different types of sales leads and dig into the data about self-sourced vs. generating inbound leads with lower win rates, and how each of those play out over time.

They share stories about the importance of sales effectiveness and learning early on, the need for a solid strategy and theory to guide sales efforts so you don’t waste time and resources. They also discuss the value of recognizing changes in buyer behavior, why certain approaches are more effective than others, and that transparency and truthfulness are vital. Not just to clients, but most importantly to ourselves, as they note that salespeople often credit their wins to superior salesmanship and attribute losses to external factors.They also reflect on the common mistakes of rushing deals for quick wins, but losing out on larger long-term gains.

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Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate!

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Today Andy is joined by guests Amy Hrehovcik, sales enablement guru, podcaster and coach, Cian McLoughlin, CEO of Trinity Perspectives, and Leslie Venetz, Founder of Sales Team Builder. Together they delve into the world of bid management, communication, and sales. They start by discussing the power of creativity and innovation in documentation, emphasizing the impact that visual appeal can have on perceptions of competence and professionalism. They highlight the importance of personalization and communication as the guests share their experiences of customers' frustration with generic content and the value of incorporating win themes into demos, documents, and responses.

They stress the need to balance automation with human nuance, emphasizing the challenging but necessary task of creating an environment where customers feel comfortable providing candid feedback. The conversation then shifts to the return of face-to-face and explore the benefits of in-person interactions, such as improved communication, body language reading, and relationship building, which have led to quicker sales cycles.

They then turn to the most important topic -  win-loss analyses. They reveal that  product and price play almost no role in decision-making and the buyer's experience with the seller is the primary factor driving decisions, especially when products are perceived to be similar. Leslie and Amy share insights on the importance of retrospectives or after-action reviews, stressing the need to go back to buyers and gather accurate information on why a deal was won or lost. This information is crucial for improving future deals, as initial responses are often not the real reasons. They also stress the need for experimentation in the current business landscape and the potential negative impact of carelessness or lapses in professionalism, the invisible friction in the sales cycle, and maintaining high standards of professionalism to build and retain trust throughout the process.

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Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate!

Thank you to our sponsors:

Allego

Clozd

Cognism

Welcome to the first episode of The Win Rate Podcast with Andy Paul! 

After years of providing essential sales advice via his wildly successful Sales Enablement Podcast, Andy has a new mission.  As overall B2B sales effectiveness has declined over the past decade he has made it his goal to provide sellers with the critical  knowledge they need to elevate their Win Rate, which is the most important measure of the value they provide to buyers.

Today Andy welcomes his guests, Brandon Fluharty and Dave Brock, to explore the most important factors that influence win rates and provide practical takeaways sellers can use to improve theirs. They start by discussing the decline in sales effectiveness and the average win rate in B2B sales for medium sized deals, which is currently at 17%. And they explore why so many sales managers and sellers are seemingly unaware of their win rates and the impact their win rates have on their sales. 

They discuss the irrational focus of many sales leaders on sales activity, such as the number of dials and emails made, and question the effectiveness of using technology to robotically send out personalized emails quickly. 

Dave discusses the need for a culture shift and emphasizes the importance of measuring impact rather than just focusing on activity metrics. They also explore the core performance levers in sales, including win rate, average deal size, and sales cycle. 

Throughout today’s episode, Andy, Brandon, and Dave emphasize the need to find the right type of customers and focus on what they value, and the importance of effectively managing the  time, energy, and attention of buyers and sellers alike. They emphasize the importance of defining one's impact and prioritizing high-value activities to increase fulfillment and results. 

Key Subjects:

* Defining win rate, tracking progress, managing process.

* Impact over activity in high-growth SaaS companies.

* Outcomes over activities.

* Low win rates impact on marketing effectiveness and product-market fit.

* "Importance of performance levers in sales"

* Reduced meetings, doubled productivity, increased revenue.

* Design thinking needed in changing macroeconomic environment.

* Find customers who value your offer, prioritize tasks.

* More is not always better

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Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate!

Thank you to our sponsors:

Allego

Clozd

Cognism

In this Win Rate episode highlight, Andy challenges his panel of sales experts (Lee Salz, Keynote Speaker, Consultant and Sales Management Strategist at Sales Architects, Lahat Tvzi, CEO at Tfisot Group, and Jonathan Spier, CEO at Rev) to smash the traditional sales discovery practices and how they would go about it a different way. They talk about the common goal of gaining insight from the prospect, but how so many fail to take this opportunity to provide value right away during initial meetings. It's the key to fostering a consultative mindset to create lasting relationships, especially in the SaaS industry.

Listen to the full episode on Apple and Spotify

Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate.

On today's episode of the Win Rate Podcast, Andy has another all-star panel featuring Lee Salz, Keynote Speaker, Consultant and Sales Management Strategist at Sales Architects, Lahat Tvzi, CEO at Tfisot Group, and Jonathan Spier, CEO at Rev. They discuss redefining sales processes to enhance efficiency and focus, which sometimes includes tearing down the accepted practices and recreating them. The group talks about the importance of consultation over discovery, targeted selling using AI for creating ICPs, and the need for quality over quantity in sales activities. The also dive into the role of leadership in driving better sales outcomes and moving beyond traditional metrics to improve win rates and customer relationships.

Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate.

In this episode, Andy showcases an incredible discussion with sales leaders Mark Hunter, sales speaker, trainer and consultant, Todd Busler, CEO at Champify, and Tom Williams, Head of Revenue Strategies at Clari. The panel discusses whether sales quotas are still relevant or useful, and explore other ways to measure and reward overall productivity. They explore the psychological impact of quotas, the importance of having measurable targets, and other productivity-based assessments. They get into some insights from Charles Goodhart’s law, how focusing solely on targets can limit true potential, and also touch on ways to accurately calculate sales productivity and the benefits of a more nuanced approach to evaluating sales performance.

Listen to the full episode on Apple and Spotify

Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate.