Welcome To Theinquisitor Podcast

Shelley O'Donovan gives a deep dive on building the soft skills that give leaders resilience and their team confidence. She shares several leadership triage approaches. We dig into psychology, values, and beliefs. As always, Shelley is great value for your time. Contact Shelley via linkedin.com/in/shellyodonovan Website: authenticinfluencegroup.com  (Company Website) Twitter: ShellyOdonovan -- Contact me via DM or marcus@laughs-last.com

"Buying is difficult. It's a salesperson's job to help their buyers navigate complexity," Kevin Dixon spent 20 years at Ericsson and achieved the status of top salesman so many times he got to keep the trophy. One year he hit 1012% of his profit target and was the highest paid person in Ericsson, worldwide. Founder and CEO of Boxxstep, he's a grizzled old sales veteran with an axe to grind against the insanity of current sales, sales management and sales leadership thinking. We got on like a house on fire! Kevin says, "Discovery is contrived and biased to get the answers you want". Instead, he advocates in depth buyer discovery, tracking: Who else is involved? What do they care about? What are the dynamics between them? How are you tracking the prospect’s business problems? How are you tracking needs and criteria? This stuff is obvious, but too often overlooked, ignored or rushed. Failure in these areas means you don't show up when you need to be, you aren't informed, so you don't bring value. 3 big no-no's

Wayne Moloney is the co-author of #TheWentworthProspect, a business novel tracking the seller's journey through her largest opportunity. Her mentor dies and is replaced by a terrible manager. Luckily her mentor left her a playbook on how to do it well. Wayne and I unpack what's wrong with enterprise selling and what works in the real world. Bristling with usable content including the EDVANCE system. Contact Wayne via linkedin.com/in/waynemoloney Websites: edvance.sale/  (The Wentworth Prospect) waynemoloney.com  (Company Website) businessroadmap.com.au  ( -- Contact me on marcus@laughs-last.com   

Andy Champion is a breath of fresh air in tech sales leadership. Have a listen to understand why. He's not alone. I have been fortunate enough to meet several through #TheInquisitorPodcast. Andy, and leaders like Tom Schodorf, Tom Castley, Gerry Hill, Andy Shaw, Mark Herbert, all carry an air of calm. They exude an air of steady,, reasoned intelligence. You know that their decisions won't be rash or rushed. Neither do they dither. And they are always fair. They love their people. And their people love them because they feel safe and that their backs are covered. In this episode, Andy explores some common sales leadership blindspots that are creating obscene amounts of unnecessary work, duplication of effort and wasted spend. We focus your attention on the right end of 3 very serious, widespread and persistent problems that you are probably familiar with. We dig deep into the impacts of underinvestment in management, short term thinking in leadership and investors, lack of focus on moving performance of the me

What is #HybridSelling? Why should you care? How should we be defining hybrid selling? How does the E.V.O.L.V.E. framework help you to focus on your highest value activities? Fred Copestake, founder of Brindis, a growth consultancy, has made his #HybridSellingHealthCheck available for free here https://hybridselling.scoreapp.com/ . How do you stack up? Fred's new book, "Hybrid Selling" is out now - https://tinyurl.com/HybridSelling  He's also author of "Selling With Partnering Skills" Contact Fred on linkedin.com/in/fredcopestake Website: linktr.ee/fredcopestake  (Links) Twitter: FredCopestake -- Contact me on marcus@laughs-last.com if you fancy getting jiggy on your sales operation

linkedin.com/in/mark-cotgrove-39035b   Twitter: markcotgrove

"I'm a product of the Rainbow Revolution. Nelson Mandela spoke to me. He told me I was responsible to make a difference. He inspired me, ... he inspired a nation to see what was possible in an inclusive culture in this great country", says Richard Doherty, founder of ScaleUp Consulting. Caught up in the optimism immediately following the end of apartheid it framed Richard's career. He helps founders drive predictable scale. We explore some interesting questions that lead to blindspots and missed opportunities. Who are your people? Who is really on your team? What are the crucial conversations your people need to be having? Are you leading the people in your ecosystem? What is the impact you have on those you lead when you're ambiguous about your purpose? Contact Richard via linkedin.com/in/rhdoherty -- Get in touch with me on marcus@laughs-last.com 

Are you hiring badly, repeatedly? Are you finding hiring reliable, consistent sales producers, tough? Join me and my guest Alan Fendrich, founder of AHS, Advanced Hiring Systems. We both take a robust approach to attraction of candidates, their rigorous qualification building around core values and beliefs. Discover why experience is almost never a real obstacle to whether someone will succeed in a role. We debate and define a highly developed recruitment process designed to test the real world capability of an individual to do the job for which you are hiring. If reducing attrition is a priority, start at the source of the problem - how and who you think you want to hire. To bring Alan and his team in to help you eliminate the single highest hidden cost in any business, wrong hires contact him via linkedin.com/in/alanfendrich Websites advancedhiring.com  (Company Website) blog.advancedhiring.com  (Blog) feeds.feedburner.com/SalesHiringSecrets  (RSS Feed) Twitter: alanfendrich -- And if you're repeated

Patrick Joyce is one of a tiny breed of top of the funnel super-producers who think and behave differently to the average. Pat recently booked 30 individual meetings within one critical target account, surrounding the key decision makers, gathering and connecting insights, so that they were well informed and fully prepared when it counted most. From a standing start he grew a pipeline worth $6m in 3 months. He produces more than most teams by breaking every rule, outplanning, out strategising and out-executing his competitors. Contact Pat via linkedin.com/in/pwilliamjoyce Website: thejoyce.net  (Blog) -- Contact me on marcus@laughs-last.com  

Andy Mutton was an accidental salesman who learned to qualify after spending a fortune of his employers' resources on non-opportunities and pipe-dreams. We discuss solutions to management attachment to outdated practices and beliefs, which lead to blindspots, chasing fictions, disengagement and high levels of turnover, chronic underperformance and ambiguity. Contact Andy via linkedin.com/in/andy-mutton Website: essentialsalesprocess.com And be sure to ask Andy about the #ESPcards -- Contact me on marcus@laughs-last.com Pop over to the Podbean or Apple podcast apps and leave an honest review please

"How can you produce a plan when you have no vision?", asks Lenwood M. Ross. We explore why training fails repeatedly and predictably.  We identify where leadership's attention is focused and why it often results in damaging unintended consequences. We ask the question why L&D isn't the right hand of the Board, spearheading the execution of their strategy. "The behaviour change is what's important", says Lenwood. By enabling to become operational coaches, your middle management layer, particularly in sales, will release the full creativity of every employee simultaneously. By enabling managers to offer Operational Coaching(TM), you free upwards of 40-60% of an average manager's working day to spend on high value management activities. Lenwood's core business is delivering digital transformation. The difference is he starts with the people. #Change, #Transformation and #OrganisationalDevelopment programmes are GUARANTEED to fail unless you bring your people on board and help them understand why the better

"How does the monthly forecast update cycle distract you from the real job of management?", asks Mark Boundy. Mark, Mikey Maynard and Marcus Cauchi explore why coaching is dead and managers are fooling themselves into thinking that sales can be reduced to a series of CRM reports. What is "pipeline blindness"? Why is MRR worship such a danger? This is a very robust conversation that delves deep into some of the most critical obstacles to sales success and business growth. Contact Mikey Maynard on linkedin.com/in/mikey-maynard-93b7791 Email: mmaynard@keyser.com Contact Mark Boundy on https://www.linkedin.com/in/markboundy/ Websites boundyconsulting.com/blog/  (My Blog) boundyconsulting.com  (boundyconsulting.com) Email: mark@boundyconsulting.com Twitter: BoundyMark -- Contact me on marcus@laughs-last.com if you found this episode thought provoking. Please tag someone who needs to hear it

"Develop a clear, micro-targeted definition of your ICP - very narrowly focused. Develop your messaging by using the language your prospects use to describe what you do for them. Leave no good reason for a qualified prospect to say no", says Wendy Weiss, who has been cold calling longer than most of you have been alive. She's the founder of the #Salesology prospecting method. She helps sellers grow their pipeline with quality appointments that lead to closed sales We explore how salespeople are largely left to their own devices when prospecting and why it is so ineffective. Wendy explains what works and why. It has nothing to do with you, your company or your products and services. What do your prospects want and need? How do they talk about it? Unless you understand that you may as well be speaking Babylonian! You will never be relevant. We explore these and other critical blindspots such as management by abdication, lip service training etc. Consider the crushing waste of this fact. 83% of newly h

Dominic Ashley-Timms is CEO of Notion. Notion is a lovely business. Scaling up, experiencing the first taste of exponential growth, they are punching well above their weight. In December 2021, they won the Personnel Today L&D supplier of the year having been competing with MetLife (among others) for this prestigious award. All other contenders for these awards were publicly listed with tens of thousands of staff> Notion had 35 people at the time. What makes Notion so special? #Notion enables enterprises to train thousands of managers to deliver in the moment, practical, #OperationalCoaching (TM) at scale, simultaneously. Imagine the impact of having hundreds or thousands of managers coaching 16-20 times a day. Clients report managers recovering as much as 50 days a year, each. ROIs in the region of 74-426x. Managers focusing on high value activity are released from doing the work they pay others to do so they can focus on design, leadership and coaching. Attempting to solve a problem by tackling the sympt

9x award winner, Jamie Martin joins me to discuss selling, hiring, managing and buying through the tough times. Pragmatic, no fluff Contact Jamie on linkedin.com/in/jamiemartin111 Websites facebook.com/theanomalycrystal  (Personal Website) facebook.com/correctcareerscoaching  (Company Website) linktr.ee/correctcareers  (Portfolio) Twitter: CorrectCareers -- Email marcus@laughs-last.com if you fancy a grown up chat about enabling your managers to get the best from every single salesperson on your payroll

Dr Alan Watkins is working to solve the world's toughest wicked problems. He and his team coach the Boards and Executives of the Fortune 500/FTSE350 to expand their thinking and speed of thought by factors of 10x, delivering ROIs as high as 6,000x. We dig into what wicked problems are, and how to get to their root causes, and how to develop equally wicked solutions. Alan is a polymath, so we get to explore problems through several interrelated lenses to see how wicked problems are interdependent. Alan shows the importance of looking at these complex, sophisticated problems from multiple perspectives, and shows why truly diverse teams are vital to prepare you what's to come. Contact Alan via linkedin.com/in/dralanwatkins Websites: complete-coherence.com  (Complete Coherence Ltd) complete-coherence.com/who-we-are/our-approach/  (Our unique leadership approach) complete-coherence.com/what-we-do/books/  (Alan's books) Twitter: AlanDWatkins   -- If you enjoyed this, please tag someone who'd find it helpful.

Farhad Eftekhari is founder of TechClass, a learning platform based on the Finnish education system. It caught my attention because the "gold standard" for completion of online learning is ... wait for it ... 3%! TechClass can boast 50% completion rates. We discuss the intent behind training and why so much training fails to move the needle in performance. A fascinating journey into what works and why. Contact Farhad on linkedin.com/in/farhade Website: techclass.com  (Company Website)   Twitter: farhadDev   -- To get hold of me email marcus@laughs-last.com  #ManagementEnablement #PartnerEnablement #LeadershipEnablement #StrategicAlliances #MastermindGroup

Carey Smith built Big Ass Fans from a small base to exit for $500m. He now runs a private investment fund. We talk investors vs speculators & gamblers. We explore why looking after your people leads to happy customers FOR LIFE. Carey pulls no punches. Nor do I. Lively, informative and packed with value, this is a not to be missed episode.  Contact Carey via linkedin.com/in/jcareysmith Website: jcareysmith.com/ -- Contact marcus@laughs-last.com if you want to scale up fast without losing control or burning out

Asa Hochhauser and his team build effective technology stacks for marketers to help drive pipeline, and sales sell more, more often, for more money. This episode is packed with practical advice, built on expertise and currency. Asa is direct, frank and pragmatic.  Stop buying shiny objects in the hope that you will fix your sales and marketing problems until you've given the requisite thought and investigation into your real problems. Technology alone will not solve the problem, and poorly considered tech implementations often result in unintended consequences. Salespeople spending less time in front of customers. Longer sales cycles. More activity and less effective action. Contact Asa via linkedin.com/in/asahoc Website: https://mcgaw.io/  Twitter: asahoch -- Contact me on marcus@laughs-last.com if you want to learn how to #AlwaysSellHOT   

David Allison and I discuss how values drive purchase behaviour and why understanding your prospects' values is a fast track to dramatically improving the efficacy and results from your marketing and sales activity.   A lively conversation teeming with pragmatic insights, fresh and better ways of understanding your customers, maximising the ROI from your data, your marketing and your sales efforts.    Contact David via linkedin.com/in/valuegraphicsfounder Website: valuegraphics.com  (Company Website) Twitter: valuegraphics_ -- Contact me on marcus@laughs-last.com. Leave an honest review at Apple Podcasts please. And tag your head of marketing so they listen to this episode too.