In the Funnel Sales Coaching

10/12/2026

Would you hire a salesperson who told you they were wrong?

I hope so.

Because one of the most important attributes we look for when recruiting professional salespeople is often misunderstood.

HUMILITY.

In professional sales, confidence matters. We need people who can engage executives, challenge customer thinking, and make compelling recommendations in a professional and consultative way.

But confidence and humility are NOT opposites. In fact, some of the best salespeople I've worked with demonstrate both.

At , humility is one of our 5 core recruiting attributes, alongside intelligence, drive, passion, and optimism.

Here's how we define it:

Humility is the ability to recognize your strengths without arrogance, acknowledge your limitations without insecurity, and remain genuinely open to learning from others.

Why does this matter?

Because professional sales is a continuous learning profession.

Markets change. Customers change. Competitors change. Technologies change. Macroeconomic forces change.

And the salesperson who believes they already know everything will have a difficult time improving.

So how do we interview for humility?

Here are 3 questions we love:

1. Tell me about a time you were absolutely convinced you were right — and later discovered you were wrong. What happened?

2. What's the most difficult feedback you've received from a sales leader? What did you do with it?

3. Tell me about a sales opportunity you lost because of something YOU did or failed to do. What did you learn? How did you apply that to your approach moving forward.

Listen for self-awareness. Accountability. Coachability.

And the ability to talk openly about mistakes without blaming everyone else.

The best salespeople are confident enough to contribute and humble enough to keep learning.

Tomorrow: Attribute #4 — PASSION.

10/12/2026

Everyone wants to hire a driven salesperson. But how do you actually interview for DRIVE?

At In the Funnel, we evaluate 5 attributes when recruiting professional salespeople:
Intelligence. Drive. Humility. Passion. Optimism.

Drive is the internal motivation, determination, and self-discipline to pursue meaningful goals, take consistent action, overcome obstacles, and sustain effort until results are achieved.

For me, drive has 3 components:
Ambition + Initiative + Discipline.
And all three matter.

Angela Duckworth's research and spectacular book hashtag also highlights the importance of sustained effort toward long-term goals.

The important lesson?
Drive is not how badly someone wants to succeed. It's what they're prepared to do, consistently and intelligently, to achieve success.

Here are 3 interview questions I recommend to assess a candidate's drive:

1. Tell me about a time you missed an important sales goal. What did you personally do to improve the situation?

2. Describe an opportunity you created entirely through your own initiative. How did you make it happen?

3. Walk me through how you organize a typical sales week to ensure you're making progress toward your goals.

Listen for ownership, initiative, preparation, consistency, and follow-through.

10/11/2026

Will AI elevate the need for true relationship selling skills?

AI may bring us back to the best version of professional selling.
That sounds counterintuitive.

Technology has frequently been used to place more distance between salespeople and buyers:
More automated emails.
More generic sequences.
More activity measured without sufficient attention to its quality.

But Fauser and Sparling see a more encouraging possibility.

AI can give salespeople three extraordinary capabilities:

1. Memory: Understanding the complete history of a customer relationship.

2. Pattern recognition: Finding meaningful signals across enormous amounts of information.

3. Personalization: Creating communication and insight that reflect the buyer’s specific situation.

Used properly, these capabilities should not remove the salesperson from the relationship.

They should give the salesperson more time and better information with which to strengthen it.

Imagine entering a customer conversation with a clear understanding of:
Everything your organization has done with that client:
The outcomes they value
The challenges they have previously encountered
The commitments both organizations have made
The opportunities that may not yet be visible
That is not automated selling.

That is an exceptionally well-prepared professional salesperson.

The future does not have to be AI versus human connection.
It can be AI helping human beings connect with greater relevance, preparation and care.

David Fauser called it “the dawn of the relationship seller again.”

Listen to more of Episode 125 of The Selling Well Podcast:

Podcast Episode · The Selling Well · October 8 · 49m

10/10/2026

Are you hiring the smartest salesperson? Or just the best interviewer?

One of the toughest jobs in sales leadership is recruiting great salespeople.

At In the Funnel, we look for 5 attributes when recruiting salespeople:
Intelligence. Drive. Humility. Passion. Optimism.

Over the next 5 days, I'm going to share how we define each attribute AND 3 interview questions you can use immediately.

Let's start with Intelligence.

Intelligence is the ability to learn quickly, understand complex situations, interpret people and business problems, and apply sound judgment to create value for customers. And it's MUCH more than IQ.

But in professional B2B sales, we also need emotional intelligence, business judgment, curiosity, and the ability to adapt.

IQ helps us understand the business problem. EQ helps us understand the people who must solve it.

Here are 3 questions I love asking candidates:
1. Tell me about the most complex business problem you helped a customer solve. How did you diagnose the problem?
2. Tell me about something completely new you had to learn to succeed in your sales role. How did you approach it?
3. Describe a time when new information caused you to change your sales strategy. What changed your mind?

Listen carefully to HOW the candidate thinks.

Are they curious? Analytical? Adaptable? Can they explain their reasoning?

Don't confuse an impressive vocabulary or polished presentation with intelligence.

And recruiting great salespeople deserves a strategic professional approach.

Tomorrow: Attribute #2 — DRIVE.

08/23/2026

What if you could learn directly from some of the world’s leading sales thinkers—one conversation at a time?

That was the idea behind The Selling Well Podcast.

We wanted to create what I often describe as an MBA for professional sales.

Not quick tricks.

Not manipulative closing techniques.

Not shortcuts designed to help sellers “win” at the buyer’s expense.

Instead, we explore the disciplines that create sustainable success:

• Building a compelling value proposition

• Understanding the customer’s business

• Conducting meaningful discovery

• Creating demand instead of waiting for it

• Coaching salespeople effectively

• Building trust through authenticity

• Communicating with clarity and confidence

• Using AI to become more valuable—not merely more efficient

Our guests have included respected authors, researchers, CEOs, sales leaders, coaches, and practitioners who have devoted their careers to understanding how people buy, sell, lead, grow and manage their mindsets for exceptional performance.

I’m thrilled that as of today The Selling Well is now ranked the #14 Marketing podcast in the United States on Apple Podcasts.

If you’re committed to mastering the profession of B2B sales, this show was created for you.

08/19/2026

You probably don't have a 90-day sales cycle.

You may have a 30-hour sales cycle spread across 90 days.

That distinction could fundamentally change the way we measure sales productivity.

In Episode 122 of The , Andy Paul challenges the conventional practice of measuring a sales cycle almost entirely by elapsed time.

Watch Andy explain why a sales cycle is a quantity—not merely a duration.

Then listen to our complete conversation

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-your-win-rates-in-sales-are-the-real-productivity/id1600603741?i=1000784002207

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08/18/2026

Sales has lost the ability to win.

That is Andy Paul’s assessment—and I think every CEO and sales leader should take it seriously.

In many B2B organizations, a salesperson with a 33% win rate is considered a top performer.

Andy’s response is wonderfully direct:

The minimum acceptable win rate should be 50.1%.

In other words, if an opportunity is genuinely qualified, a professional salesperson should win more often than they lose.

This is not about “winning at all costs.”

It is about becoming more selective about the opportunities we pursue, more thoughtful about the buyers we serve, and more effective at helping those buyers make important business decisions.

The impact extends well beyond new-logo revenue.

When salespeople win the right business for the right reasons:

Fewer people can produce more revenue

Customer acquisition costs improve

Sellers invest their time more intelligently

The business case for the purchase becomes stronger

Renewal rates can improve because the original decision created real value

Andy has hosted more than 1,200 sales podcast episodes, written three excellent books, including one of my favorites of all time, "Sell Without Selling Out - A Guide To Success on Your Own Terms" and sold the better part of a billion dollars during his career.

In my view, he is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) of sales podcasting.

When someone with that depth of experience says winning has become a lost art, it is worth asking a difficult question:

Have we built our sales organizations to win—or merely to generate activity and complete process steps?

As of today, The is ranked #20 on Apple Podcasts’ Marketing chart in the United States.

We are incredibly grateful to everyone helping us bring conversations like this to a growing audience. THANK YOU!!!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-your-win-rates-in-sales-are-the-real-productivity/id1600603741?i=1000784002207

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08/06/2026

he Ranking Isn't the Story.

There are moments in business that make you stop and reflect.
This is one of them.

More than two years after publication, Learn to Love Selling is currently ranked #1 on Amazon in:

🥇 Management Sales & Selling
🥇 Business Sales & Selling Techniques
🥇 Sales & Selling Techniques

As a self-published author, that's incredibly humbling.
But the ranking isn't what I'm most proud of.

When I wrote this book, I wasn't chasing bestseller status. I wanted to write the book I wish someone had given me during my sales career—a practical guide built on timeless principles, not passing trends.

Technology evolves. Markets change. AI continues to reshape selling.

But trust, curiosity, preparation, and helping customers achieve meaningful business outcomes never go out of style.

Thank you to everyone who has purchased the book, recommended it, or shared it with a colleague. Your support has made this possible.

Professional selling deserves professional development, and I'm grateful to play a small part in that journey.

What's one sales lesson that has stood the test of time for you?

07/29/2026

Before you send that angry email, ask yourself one question:

Am I operating from the House of Ego—or the House of Leadership?

In Episode 120 of The Selling Well Podcast, Nancy MacKay shared one of the most practical leadership frameworks I have encountered.

The House of Ego is built on behaviors we all recognize:

Wanting to look good.

Playing the blame game.

Judging from the high horse.

Becoming defensive.

Needing to be right.

Nancy’s advice is wonderfully direct:

“When you’re in a negative emotional state, do not talk to another human being.”

Check out the podcast AND Nancy's book, "It's Lonely At The Top" on Amazon today.

07/29/2026

The loneliest leaders are often surrounded by people all day.

That sounds like a contradiction—but it is one of the most important insights from my recent conversation with Nancy MacKay, Founder and CEO of MacKay CEO Forums.

CEOs rarely lack human interaction.

What they often lack is a safe place to discuss the issues they cannot easily share with their board, leadership team, employees, or family:

As Nancy explained:
“The key is that we make bad decisions and a lot of mistakes when we’re leading alone.”

Her solution is not simply having more people around you. It is surrounding yourself with trusted peers who understand the weight of leadership—and who are prepared to share their experience honestly.

This principle extends well beyond the CEO’s office.

Sales leaders and professional salespeople also perform better when they have trusted coaches and peers who can challenge their thinking, expose blind spots, and help them solve difficult problems.

Professional growth rarely happens in isolation.

Episode 120 of The Selling Well Podcast, “It’s Lonely at the Top,” is a thoughtful conversation about self-leadership, peer learning, health, relationships, and what it really takes to inspire others.

Spotify:1ZNsd4YNKVkYqDAPx9wpBZ

Apple: https://lnkd.in/gb7UW_VM

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