Welcome To Theinquisitor Podcast

"Strategy should be simple", says Gary Mitchell. He has never had a transformation programme fail to meet its desired goals in 35 years. Gary explains why starting with your customer journey is the foundation of great, #executablestrategy. He explains why failing to start with your customer sends you off target from the start. We break this down in a blow by blow approach to developing customer insights, mapping the customer journey, extracting the knowhow and real world experience from your people to define the 3-8 bets you are going to make that will get you 80% of your intended end point. We discuss who should be involved? When? Their roles? What will cause this process to fail? The role of leadership? And the importance of hitting the 6 month milestones to cement the credibility of your strategy across your entire organisation. Gary helps #PrivateEquity backed companies build strategies that deliver the growth and exit ambitions of their shareholders, their leaders and their employees by putting the custo

"Why Is Most Digital Marketing Total Horse Shit?" Marcus Hemsley is co-founder at The Fountain Partnership. Marcus and I met 14 years ago when I advised him to get some experience of life and business before becoming a coach. Thankfully he listened and spared the world another NLP coach and established a fantastic agency which to date is the only ever winner of Google’s Global Award for Growing Businesses Online. Marcus and I discuss why so much money is squandered on bad digital marketing, and what causes businesses to keep throwing good money after bad. We explore why you need to think as your customer and put in the hard miles of research, planning, testing, speaking to and listening to customers to make your marketing timely, relevant and valuable enough to drive buyer desirable behaviour at each stage of the funnel. We question why vanity metrics are prioritised over outcomes for clients, and discuss how Digital Marketing can work exceptionally well for some businesses when they go back to the first prin

The big question is why should retail marketing professionals care about #OpenBanking? With the removal of 3rd party cookies, many brands and retailers are scrambling to find workarounds to replace them. Andries Smit is CEO and co-founder of Upside. Upside provide consumers with instant #cashback paid straight into their savings account. Apart from the obvious benefits to consumers of not having to wait weeks or jump through hoops to get their cashback, consumers get to take advantage of highly targeted and personalised offers from brands and retailers. Andries explains how open banking enables retailers to grow spend from existing customers, map exactly how much their customers are spending with competitors, and use those insights to target offers to grow #walletshare, attract competitors' customers and build brand loyalty.  This represents the start of a renaissance in marketing and is possibly the biggest evolution in data driven marketing we've seen in our lifetime. If you know a finance director or CFO i

Kevin Beales is CEO of Refract. Kevin has taken refract from start up to being acquired by Allego. Kevin eats his own dog food. He and all his team use their conversational AI to analyse every call, improving incrementally on a daily basis. Everyone one of their salespeople listens to at least one of their own calls every day so they can experience what is like to be a buyer buying from them. Refract helps salespeople understand exactly how they're performing, and compare their performance on every call with millions of other calls. Ambitious, growth minded salespeople love this kind of technology. Closed minded and brittle salespeople complain its "Big Brother" gone mad. Great salespeople practice on purpose. The rest practice in front of the customer. We discuss the power of incremental learning, self reflection and self assessment of performance. We explore the many challenges of building a fast growing technology business in a new category. We discuss the joys of dealing with staff, investors, being acqui

There is both Art and Science in procurement. Phil Ideson helps purchasers and sellers form more effective partnerships. Phil says, "Procurement doesn't make decisions. Procurement does have any money. They influence decisions." The number one problem 600 procurement leaders said they have "is the perception of procurement". Their capability is misunderstood internally as simply providing cost savings, and by sellers as blockers and adversaries. We explore how procurement is measured and compensated, the mistakes made when tactical procurement treats low spend as low importance. Phil appeals for greater communication and collaboration to avoid the breakdown in human relationships which ultimately hurt the business. Contact Phill via LInkedIn linkedin.com/in/philipideson Website: artofprocurement.com  (Company Website)Email: philip@artofprocurement.comTwitter: pideson--Make sure you share this with your own procurement team if you have one, with your entire sales team and your senior management. Think of one p

Max Cates discusses the power of servant leadership. We explore leadership's role in developing their executive team, their management team and building the culture and operations. We discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of ethics, compensation, measurement. Contact Max via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-cates-0a8b4175/   -- Please share this with a friend who'd find it helpful -- Contact me on marcus@laughs-last.com   -- If you found this episode useful, please think of someone who ill benefit and share it with them -- To contact me marcus@laughs-last.com 

Zafer Karaca is Vice President, Services & Cloud, Enterprise at IBM. We discuss the complexity of selling complex enterprise solutions to large corporations. The challenges of getting all the moving parts working in concert internally, within the customer, with partners and even with competitors. We discuss how the ability to collaborate, even with your rivals is essential when selling to large enterprise customers is key to your customer's success and your own success. We explore how an infinite / growth mindset is essential and why a closed / finite mindset is harmful to you, your company and your customer. We dig deep into #strategicalliances where you sell WITH not just through partners. Contact Zafer via LinkedIn on linkedin.com/in/karacazafer -- Please share this episode with someone who could benefit from thinking differently about collaborative selling   -- Contact me via marcus@laughs-last.com   Join Sales: A Force For Good here - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12530021/   #SAFFG #ProCustomer #B

Dan Morris is founder and managing partner of Mindracer Consulting, who offer experienced, outsourced VPs of Sales to small and early stage scale up technology businesses. We explore what makes for an effective VP of Sales in a start up to scale, work effectively with the founder, stay focused, generate sales, build a team, create alignment, maintain motivation and drive behaviour. Contact Dan via linkedin.com/in/danmorrisprofile Website: mindracerconsulting.com  (Company Website)Phone: +1 347 509 4565 (Mobile)Email: dan@mindracerconsulting.comTwitterMindracerNYC worldofmorris -- If you found this useful, think of one other person who'd find it useful too and please share it. If you aren't already subscribed, please subscribe   -- Contact me at marcus@laughs-last.com if you want to be a guest on the podcast or you run a tech scale up in the £10-50m range and want to grow 200% per annum over the next 5-8 years

Anna Parker-Naples is a former actress turned podcaster and podcast consultant. If you aren't tapping into the potential of audio marketing, you are definitely missing a powerful resource. An audio audience can help you build your list, grow your sales & marketing funnel in a hyper-targeted way to drive predictable sales and account growth. Anna and I explore several areas relating to setting up your own podcast, getting it widely heard and building your audience. She gives tips on technology, brand building, things to avoid #TheInquisitorPodcast fuels over 50% of my income today by bringing my work to my target audience without ever pushing or having to sell overtly. If you have something to say that others will value, consider setting up your own podcast. Globally there are only 2 million shows covering many aspects of human activity and interest. In my experience, a large proportion of my audience listen to 2 x 1 hour episodes each week. That is a lot of exposure and reinforcement. If you find this epi

Lorna Lawless, is coaching psychologist specialising in coaching mental toughness. She coaches MMA fighters, salespeople and business leaders. We explore what is mental toughness? Why do people lack it? How does one acquire it? Unless you are aware of where you fit on the 4C-scale of mental toughness it is easy to self-sabotage or fall prey to your internal dialogue. It can diminish you power, eat into your self-concept or make you come across as rude, brash and insensitive. Lorna makes the point that we all have it and are born with a propensity to mental toughness, and it can be developed and coached, but too few managers and leaders are asking is what can they do to develop mental toughness in their people Control Commitment Challenge Confidence Contact Lorna via linkedin.com/in/lorna-lawless-b4729a40 Email: lorna@nextlevelcoaching.ie-- Who do you know who needs help with their #mentaltoughness, #resilience or #empathy? Please share this episode with them

For 30 years Zach Selch has identified, recruited, onboarded and grown over 1000 #ChannelSalesPartnerships across more than 130 countries We explore how to identify potential partners, how to select the right #partner and how to help them produce #InternationalSales quickly and consistently.  This episode is teeming with decades of practical advice. Listen and learn.  Zach’s book #GlobalSales documents virtually every step a vendor needs to take their business global and build a profitable international #distributionnetwork Contact  Zach via linkedin.com/in/zselch-internationalsales   His Amazon page is https://www.amazon.com/Zach-Selch/e/B08JZ6GVYJ/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1   Website: https://www.globalsalesmentor.com/   -- If you are the owner or CEO of a technology company and your goal is to grow your business and achieve real, sustainable hypergrowth with highly engaged and highly productive employees and clients who stick with you year after year, let’s schedule time for a brief conversation. To bo

Adam Lawrence shares his stories from his time as an investor. We explore how investors earn their scar tissue. We dig into how investors think and how to pick the right investors for your business. This episode has been the inspiration for my article on Medium called, "Interview With A Vampire" about how to get to the truth and qualify investors to make sure they are right for you and your business. A very frank and unvarnished conversation about one of the biggest mistakes many founders make selecting the wrong investor, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. Getting the right investor, for the right reasons, at the right time on the right terms can accelerate your growth but the failure rates of VC backed businesses are alarmingly high. I will say that in fairness to VCs, they are playing in the part of the market that is experimental - your product is new, your management may be untested, and your market may not be properly defined, so these factors carry high risk. Contact Adam via linkedin.com/in/ada

Evelyne Brink is a personal presence and video coach par excellénce. I've worked with Evelyne several time and can attest to how much better my results have been whenever I've had her directing and coaching my video shoots. A mother, actress, Germany's third funniest comedian, singer, author, Madonna impersonator and coach, Evelyne is indomitable and a bundle of energy and joy. But above all, she is practical. Her advice is simple to implement and will help you transform your performance and build your confidence on screen.  You can find Evelyne on https://www.linkedin.com/in/evelynebrink/ and via her website https://brinkcoaching.com/ And if you were around in the 80's here's a nostalgic trip down memory lane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsVplKh434g with Evelyne as Europe's number 1 Madonna impersonator   -- If you are the owner or CEO of a technology company and your goal is to grow your business and achieve real, sustainable hypergrowth with highly engaged and highly productive employees and clients who

"Trust your gut feelings", says Andy Shaw, "We've forgotten to trust our intuition since we became the apex predator". Trust your gut especially if it's not critical. Even if you fail, learn from the scar tissue and calibrate your gut feelings to hone your decision making muscle. If it's critical sense check your ideas with more experience. Ask "Who has already done what I'm trying to do?" It's the best shortcut to learning how to do stuff. We discuss what great looks like in sales, and what doesn't. We dig into Andy's philosophy on great business and great selling by doing a little bit of good. We dig into hiring salespeople and highlight empathy and courage, equal business stature, listening and business empathy. We explore collaboration, the need to slow down to speed up, selling past the surface level symptoms to get to the best solution for the customer, and we explore the power of scaling through strategic alliances. You can contact Andy via https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewdshaw/ Websites: Personal We

Ben Eddy is co-founder and CEO of Mobile Practice. As head of sales enablement for a large technology manufacturer he realised that most of the money and effort on training was wasted. 70% of learning happens in the field AFTER training is over. 74% of managers believe they are coaching their salespeople whilst only 17% of their salespeople believe they are being coached. The most effective learning occurs when a salesperson becomes aware of the impact their behaviour is going to have on their prospect, recognises how they need to modify their approach and then practices the new behaviour until it becomes habit. When they own the new behaviour and put it into context of their real life experience, they improve results. And isn't that really the reason why any business is investing in training their people? Not to get good scores on the smile sheets or track retention. Contact Ben via LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/ben-eddy-7123b12 Website: mobilepractice.io  Phone: +33 6 56 66 77 07 (Work)Email: ben@mobilepracti

Adam King is my kind of marketer. Author of "Conversational Relationship Marketing", founder of Think Like A Fish, he helps professional services firms make the most of the assets, resources and customers they have and squeeze every ounce of value from them without wasting money, opportunity or effort. His results flywheel concept is efficient, scalable and sophisticated without being complicated. We explore 7 revenue multipliers that help you build and accelerate your sales pipeline. We delve deep into the value of referral marketing systems, the power of content with context and the multiplier effect of strategic alliances. Get hold of Adam via linkedin.com/in/mradamking Websites thinklikeafish.co.uk  (Company Website) thinklikeafish.co.uk/podcast  (The Client Catching Podcast) thinklikeafish.co/talk-to-adam  (Talk To Adam) --   If you are the owner or CEO of a technology company and your goal is to grow your business and achieve real, sustainable hypergrowth with highly engaged and highly productive

Jonathan Jewell is an academic who lives with one foot in academia and another in business. In a philosophical conversation about change, innovation, exnovation and sales, we dig deep into sales and management behaviour, leadership , investors and where this leaves the customer. A challenging conversation that will leave you with many more questions than it answers. Well worth a couple of listens to unpack the many ideas we discuss. Commissioning academics to study sales can offer insights we can easily miss with our noses to the grindstone. If you doubt the value explore the great works of the likes of Neil Rackham, Dr Phill McGowan and the partnership between Corporate Visions and Stamford Contact Jonathan via - linkedin.com/in/jonathan-jewell Websites hyperpolymath.myblog.arts.ac.uk/  (Art Criticism (myblog.arts)) facebook.com/groups/ual.creativity  (UAL Creative Communities (FB)) -- If you are the owner or CEO of a technology company and your goal is to grow your business and achieve real, sustainable

Mike Bosworth is one of the living legends in sales. Creator of #SolutionSelling, sales philosopher and founder of #StorySeekers shares his years of experience as a salesperson, manager, leader, trainer and story teller. Mike identifies a major reason why 80% of recipients of sales training stop using training within 2 weeks after training ends. He shares a simple but highly effective solution that's proven in the field.  We discuss how to use story to secure C-level meetings via cold calls with minimal resistance, advance opportunities in your pipeline and build executive presence. A lively, informative and insightful conversation with a giant in the sales profession. Contact Mike via linkedin.com/in/mikebosworth Websites mikebosworthleadership.com  (Company Website) mikebosworth.com  (Personal Website) Phone: +1 858 350-5570 (Work)Twitter: mtbent--If you are the owner or CEO of a technology company and your goal is to grow your business and achieve real, sustainable hypergrowth with highly engaged and h

Cliff Simon is building a hypergrowth consulting firm in the Salesforce ecosystem. We discuss CRM in all it's glory. Why you need it, what makes it work, why most CRM implementation integrations fail to deliver what matters most - does it help your salespeople to sell more, more often to more customers? In a frank and unvarnished conversation we explore how to buy and how to sell CRM. We dig into why it usually gets bought for the wrong reasons and is hijacked by the audit functions, overburdens salespeople and managers and is poorly configured so it lapses into not being used or gets swamped with meaningless information. Contact Cliff via LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/cliff-simon --   If you are the owner or CEO of a technology company and your goal is to grow your business and achieve real, sustainable hypergrowth with highly engaged and highly productive employees and clients who stick with you year after year, let’s schedule time for a brief conversation. To book a 1 to 1 with me or check out my 250+ podcas

Dave Abbott, Gary Mitchell and Jill Robbins join me to discuss the power of strategic pricing to maximise lifetime customer value. Jill brings 20 years corporate procurement experience, Dave Abbott  is the author of How To Price Your Platypus 35 years executive leadership and marketing, and Gary Mitchell brings 35 years in transformation and turnaround programmes building value in PE owned companies. Each one brings fresh insight into pricing strategies, building value for and with customers that lead to long term, sustained partnerships between vendors and buyers. This is a challenging and stimulating conversation . I strongly suggest you take notes and a couple of listens to pull out all the ideas. Contact Dave via linkedin.com/in/diabbott Websites insight-bp.co.uk  (Insight Best Practice) consultyorkshire.com  (Consult Yorkshire) david-abbott-speaker.co.uk/  (David Abbott Speaker) Email: david@dabbott.co.ukTwitter: davidatinsight Contact Jill at linkedin.com/in/jillerobbins Websites businessfierce.