Mike J Midgley

Mike J Midgley Public Figure Page of Mike J Midgley

Mike J Midgley is a dynamic NXD, digital entrepreneur and public speaker

10/17/2025

Your Sales Training is Failing Because You're Treating Every Rep the Same
Here's what's broken about sales training.

- You identify a problem.
- You build a training program.
- You hit the entire team with it.
- Monday at 9am, everyone's in the same session.
- Then you send them back into the field and hope it sticks.

Laura Keith, CEO of Hive Perform and Hive Learning, disrupted her own $10M business because she saw this model dying in real time.

"What we should be able to do with a large sales team is identify what that means for Rep 1, Rep 2, Rep 3, Rep 4," Laura told me. "Not hit all reps up with the same training and leave them to it."

Think about that.

- Rep 1 is crushing demos but can't close.
- Rep 2 is brilliant at discovery but fumbles the technical conversation.
- Rep 3 needs help with objection handling.
- Rep 4 is struggling with qualification.

And you're giving them all the same training. At the same time. In the same format.
Laura's building something different. Personalization at scale. Meeting reps exactly where they are in the deal flow, not every Monday at 9 o'clock in the morning.

"The ability to personalize, the ability to meet the rep and understand, you know, if it's every demo they need to improve on, then meet them when the demos are happening," she says. "You can get really specific on timing, personalization, and it can be in multiple formats. It could just be fast feedback, it could be a Gong recording, it could be Hive Perform SETS initiatives where we look at following a rep for a month, taking particular skills and helping them to level up against those skills."

This isn't about replacing training. It's about making it relevant. Personal. Timely.

Next monday, Laura and I dive deep on the Force & Friction Podcast into why traditional sales training is dead, how AI enables personalized coaching at scale, and why she made the boldest decision of her career to disrupt her own business.

If you're responsible for sales performance and your reps aren't improving, you need to hear this conversation.

10/16/2025

The $139K Monthly Leak: How One SaaS Company Was Hemorrhaging Revenue

86% of clients paying below list price. $139K in monthly recurring revenue just... gone.

In our final episode of the SaaS Pricing Optimization Series on the Force & Friction Podcast, pricing strategist Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz from Valueships reveals a case study that will make every SaaS founder check their discounting immediately.

The Shocking Discovery:
A client with approximately $8M MRR was leaking nearly $140K monthly through unconscious discounting and grandfathering. That's $1.68 million annually walking out the door.

The 10% Rule Revisited:
When the difference between your list price and actual charged price exceeds 10%, it's time to act. This isn't about currency exchanges or small variations - this is about systematic revenue leakage.

The Scale of the Problem:
This wasn't just a few enterprise deals gone wrong. Across 18 different plans and 2,000+ clients, the pattern was clear: massive discounting across the entire customer base.

The PLG Myth Busted:
Think this only happens with complex enterprise sales? Wrong. Even product-led growth companies with simple pricing pages suffer from this challenge.

The 5% Buffer Zone:
Krzysztof allows for 5% flexibility to account for currency exchanges and minor variations. But when 86% of your monthly clients are below list price, you're not dealing with rounding errors - you're dealing with a systemic pricing problem.

The Wake-Up Call:
If you haven't audited your actual SaaS charged prices versus list prices recently, you might be sitting on a similar revenue leak right now.

Complete Series Now Available:
Episode 1: The Value Challenge
Episode 2: The Price Setting Challenge
Episode 3: The Discounting Challenge

Don't let unconscious discounting steal your growth. Links in comments.

10/16/2025

From 26% to 66% Coverage: The Clay ROI Story Nobody's TellingThe full episode with GTM engineering expert Michael Saruggia is LIVE on the Force & Friction Podcast where we talk about the money you're leaving on the table right now.

Michael shared a case study that should make every RevOps leader sit up and pay attention.
"I have a case where going from Clearbit to Clay, we moved the coverage of the enrichment from 26% to 66%," he told me. "But think about it, it means that with the same investment in marketing, you're probably getting not twice because not all of them become some MQLs, but 30, 40% more MQLs just because you reach more leads. This is huge."

Let that sink in. Same marketing budget. 30 to 40% more MQLs. Just by fixing your enrichment.

And it gets better. Michael breaks down the real ROI of Clay:

"You can probably spend 1K per month on Clay and get their best list operations for SDRs and AEs. So with just a couple of use cases, you can actually get rid of B2B enrichment products that are usually broken."

He's talking about at least six figures in budget savings. Not to mention the operational lift.

But here's Michael's bold prediction that caught my attention: "In my opinion, it will become huge, like a decabillion company like HubSpot and Salesforce. It's here to stay."

Why? Because we're seeing it wrong. We think Clay is an outbound tool. Michael sees it as go-to-market operations for enterprises.

This conversation is packed with real numbers, real case studies, and real strategies for extracting value from your company's assets. If you're investing in GTM engineering or thinking about it, you need to hear this.

Listen now to the full episode. https://buff.ly/ejQkNpy

10/15/2025

Why Your SaaS Pricing Is Like Buying a Car (And What That Teaches Us)

Every car has an alarm. No car company differentiates itself through alarms. They differentiate through engines.

In our ongoing Force & Friction Podcast SaaS Pricing Optimization Series, pricing strategist Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz from Valueships uses this powerful car analogy to reveal why most SaaS companies are destroying their upsell potential.

The Four Types of Features:
1: Core Features (The Alarm):
Everyone expects them, everyone gets them. These should be available in every plan because they're table stakes, not differentiators.

2: Differentiable Features (The Engine):
High preference, high willingness to pay. These should separate your price plans and create upsell incentives. A 500 horsepower engine costs more than 100 horsepower for a reason.

3: Add-On Features (The Leather Seats):
Low preference but specific use cases. Only a small subsegment needs them, but they're willing to pay extra. These should be monetized as add-ons, not included in core plans.

4: Trashland (The Undercarriage):
Necessary but not promotional. As Krzysztof explains, "It would be hard to drive a car without the undercarriage. Nevertheless, those are features you shouldn't promote, and if you have a feature list, it should be at the very, very bottom."

The Fatal Mistake:
If you give all your differentiable features in your cheapest plan, your clients will never upsell again. Your Net Revenue Retention will tank.

The Strategic Insight: Feature placement isn't just about functionality, it's about monetization strategy. Get it wrong, and you cap your growth potential forever.

Series Recap:
Episode 1: The Value Challenge
Episode 2: The Price Setting Challenge
Episode 3: The Discounting Challenge

All episodes available now. Links in comments.

10/14/2025

Here's the brutal truth that nobody wants to talk about.

- You've hired a GTM engineer.
- You've invested in Clay
- You've built the signals
- You've got the data flowing.

And your ROI is... nowhere.

Michael Saruggia sees this failure pattern everywhere, and he's not holding back.

"The real reason people fail in terms of RevOps and GTM engineering, they don't see the ROI, is not the signals," Michael told me. "It's how you are activating people with these signals and making sure AEs, SDRs, and the people inside of an organization first actually prospect these people."

Here's what's actually happening in your organization right now.

You're sending leads to your sales team.
Those leads don't convert.
Your reps stop prospecting them. And they don't even tell you they've stopped.
You're looking at Salesforce thinking everything's fine, but the trust is already broken.

"If you're sending leads and leads do not convert, they stop prospecting and don't even tell you," Michael says.

This is the missing piece. It's not about the technology. It's not about the signals. It's about activation and trust.

GTM engineering isn't RevOps with fancier tools. As Michael puts it, "RevOps is CRM, dashboard, data management. GTM engineering is more, I bring what RevOps is doing and I activate the reps. Yes, activation."

And activation is everything.

This Thursday Michael and I dive deep into why most companies don't need a GTM engineer yet, the difference between micro-relevance and mass personalization, and how to actually activate your sales team instead of just drowning them in signals.

If you've invested in GTM engineering and aren't seeing results, you need to hear this conversation.

10/14/2025

Would You Outsource Your Product Development to Your Competitor?

The question that stops every SaaS founder in their tracks.

In our ongoing Force & Friction Podcast SaaS Pricing Optimization Series, pricing strategist Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz from Valueships poses this powerful analogy that exposes the fatal flaw in competitive pricing strategies.

The Competitive Pricing Trap:
- Competitor A charges $100
- Competitor B charges $200
- "Let's be safe and charge $150"

Sounds reasonable, right? Wrong.

Krzysztof's Reality Check:
"Why would you outsource the biggest profitability lever to your competitor?"

1: The Cost-Plus Problem:
Starting with costs and adding margin feels safe because you guarantee profit on every sale. But you're focusing on yourself, not your clients or the value you deliver. The impact you can capture is severely limited.
2: The Competitive Problem:
Basing your pricing on competitors means you're letting them control your most important revenue decision. You wouldn't let competitors design your product, so why let them set your prices?
3: The Missing Element:
Both approaches ignore the most important factor - the value you deliver to customers and their willingness to pay for that value.

This is why value-based pricing isn't just another strategy, it's the only strategy that puts you in control of your profitability destiny.

Missed the series? Catch up on all episodes: (links in comments)
Episode 1: The Value Challenge
Episode 2: The Price Setting Challenge
Episode 3: The Discounting Challenge

10/13/2025

You're Treating an Investment Like a Luxury

Most leaders think having an Executive Assistant is something you earn at a certain point in your career.

They're wrong.

Paige McPheely just dropped this on the Force & Friction Podcast, and it's the kind of insight that changes how you think about growth:

"By and large we think of having an assistant as a luxury, something that you have to earn at a certain point in your career. And I would argue that not betting on yourself by making that investment earlier, you're actually missing out on your own potential and growth."

Read that again.

You're not "earning" the right to have support. You're choosing whether or not to unlock your own potential.

Here's what Paige sees at Base HQ: Leaders waste valuable time figuring out how to automate tasks and handle logistics. Sure, there are tools for that. But it's not a good use of your time to become an automation expert. It's a better use of your time to partner with someone who can handle that AND the strategic work.

"Her time is too valuable to be handling all of those basic logistics," Paige says about one of her clients. "It's not a good use of my time to figure out how to automate all of those various tasks. It's a great use of my time to partner with someone like Debbie who can automate that but also handle a lot of the strategic partnership stuff."

This isn't about delegation. It's about multiplication.

The leaders who get this early are the ones who scale faster. They're not waiting until they "deserve" support. They're betting on themselves by investing in the partnership that lets them focus on what actually drives growth.

New Episode Out Now: Paige McPheely on scaling human connection in a tech-driven world, why the EA relationship is the most intimate professional partnership you'll have, and how to get the match right.

Listen now. Link in comments.

10/10/2025

Most Leaders Still Think Executive Assistants Just Schedule Meetings
They don't.

Paige McPheely sees it every day at Base HQ Many leaders come in thinking an EA manages their calendar, inbox, and expenses.

That's the box they've put this role in.

"You would be amazed, or perhaps you wouldn't, that how many people come to us and are not really sure what an executive assistant can do," Paige told me. "And this realization of like, oh they can do more than scheduling things on my calendar and managing my inbox and doing my expenses. Yes. They can do so much more and it's such a relief that people feel."

The world's top leaders already know this. Jeff Bezos kept John Connors as his executive assistant for 19 years. In 2019, Bezos publicly credited him: "He thinks ahead, sweats the details, and makes things fun. You're a big reason I'm able to be busy and not go nuts"

Before that, Bezos invested heavily in developing Hiatt, who later became Chief of Staff to Google 's CEO Eric Schmidt

These aren't just administrative hires. They're strategic partnerships.

But here's where it gets interesting.

Paige talks about the things you can't put in an ROI calculator.

- The stress relief from one conversation with the right EA.
- The better night of sleep that follows.
- The compounding effect the next morning when you show up as a better leader, partner, parent.

"You're showing up as a better leader, as a better partner, as a better friend, as a better parent and there's a ripple effect from that," Paige says. "And it's not, can't always say it's only because of the executive assistant, but I think it can be a pretty massive part."

- How many decisions are you making on four hours of sleep?
- How many conversations are you having while your brain is running through seventeen things you forgot to do?
- What's that costing you?

This Monday 13th Oct, Paige and I break down scaling human connection in a tech-driven world, the misconceptions about EAs, and why getting the right match is the most intimate professional relationship you'll ever have.

If you've been wondering whether an EA could change your life and not just your calendar, this conversation is for you.

.

10/09/2025

Customer Storytelling: The Status Quo Killer

"The beauty of a good story is taking that customer on that journey from, is this a nice to-do, or is this a must-do? You know, actually, no, now I've talked about it, I really understand I can't afford to stay where I am, because the impact and the implications of that are just too severe."

In today's episode of the Force & Friction Podcast, VP of Sales Brad Parker drops truth bombs about why deals die and how to resurrect them.

Brad's journey from West End stages to 25 years of sales mastery has taught him one brutal reality: most salespeople are fighting the wrong battle.

The Gartner Gut Punch:
Research shows the large majority of deals that don't close fail because customers simply choose not to make a decision. They stick with the status quo.

The Framework Fallacy:
SPIN, MEDDIC, SPICED - Brad calls BS on relying on frameworks alone. The real work happens when you get under the skin of your customer.

The Three Questions That Matter:
What they need to do, why they need to do it, and why they need to do it now.

The Story Superpower:
When customers get cold feet or buyer's remorse kicks in, you bring that story back to the surface and remind them why they started this conversation in the first place.

Key insights from this episode:

- How to transform "nice-to-do" into "must-do" through compelling narratives
- Why understanding customer challenges, goals, and objectives is everything
- The art of making staying put feel more painful than changing
- How to use storytelling to combat decision paralysis

The Bottom Line:
You can't force a customer to make a decision. But you can tell a story that makes staying where they are feel impossible.

Episode live now - link in comments.

ForceAndFrictionPodcast

10/07/2025

The Fire in the Belly: Why Accountability Isn't Enough

"I prefer to talk about responsibility because accountability is something that you do to someone. What I'm looking for is somebody who's gonna hold themselves responsible." - Brad Parker

In our upcoming episode of the Force & Friction Podcast, VP of Sales Brad Parker reveals why the best salespeople can't be managed into greatness - they have to want it themselves.

Brad, whose journey from West End stages to sales leadership spans 25 years, has discovered a critical distinction that changes everything about hiring: the difference between accountability and responsibility.

The Accountability Trap:
Most managers focus on external accountability - checking dial counts, chasing proposals, monitoring activity. But this creates dependency, not excellence.

The Responsibility Advantage:
Brad looks for people who hold themselves responsible to their manager, their team, and their business without someone looking over their shoulder.

The Leaderboard Test:
Here's where it gets interesting. When someone finds themselves at the bottom of the sales leaderboard, their reaction reveals everything:

- Some see it as demotivating and down tools, feeling embarrassed
- Others see it as an extra boost to push themselves up

The Hiring Filter:
Brad's interview process focuses on one thing: "Does this person have that fire in their belly? That desire to be the best with or without support, with or without training?"

The Foundation:
Self-accountability and self-responsibility aren't just nice-to-haves, they're the starting point for great salespeople.

You can't teach someone to want to win. But you can identify who already has that drive.

Episode drops Thursday 09th October - discover how to spot the fire in the belly and build a team of self-driven sales professionals.

10/06/2025

"Did You Make Money?" The Question That Ends Every Marketing Debate

Our new episode of the Force & Friction Podcast is now live, featuring demand generation revolutionary Irina Jordan, Head of Demand Gen at Chowly, who's challenging everything marketers think they know about success metrics.

This week, Irina delivers the brutal truth that's making the entire marketing community uncomfortable: "Sales is all about the money. You can be as cute as you can be and as awesome you can be with your lovely collateral and your lovely booth.

- Did you make the money?
- Did they meet the quota?
- Did they book enough demos?
- Is the sales cycle improving?"

The Reality Check:
If you're not getting positive answers to those questions, MQLs are useless.

The Revenue Marketing Revolution:
Irina champions revenue marketing as a discipline that demands attention, but she goes further. She believes every company must have a strong brand because "you will not have sustainable and nourishing and self-feeding demand gen without the brand."

The Controversial Choice:
While the marketing community debates whether you should ever report to a Chief Revenue Officer, Irina does exactly that. "He is a sales guy by training and I love it." Her north star is simple: how does what she does augment and help the revenue team as a whole?

The MQL Placebo Effect:
"MQLs are just placebos where you're like 'I sent an email, so many people clicked through.' Did you make money? If the answer is no, you're going in circles."

This isn't just anti-MQL rhetoric, it's a complete reimagining of marketing's role in revenue generation.

Listen now to discover how to build demand generation that actually drives revenue.

Link in comments. https://buff.ly/omhFjVY

10/03/2025

The Trust Equation: How to Earn Your Place on the Revenue Team

"My main prerequisite is to earn the trust and respect of the revenue team as a whole, and my sales team in particular."

In our upcoming episode of the Force & Friction Podcast, Irina Jordan Head of Demand Gen and at Chowly, reveals the secret to breaking down the marketing-sales divide that destroys so many companies.

Irina, who has built her career on the radical principle that MQLs are lazy and variable comp drives alignment, shares her blueprint for becoming an indispensable part of the revenue team.

The Integration Formula:

- Part of daily and weekly sales huddles
- Active in sales Slack channels
- Responsive to intel requests
- Transparent, direct communication

The Symbiotic Relationship:
Irina's approach creates a dynamic where "they define my success as well as I define their success." No more marketing vs. sales battles. No more lead quality arguments.

The Cultural Foundation:
At Chowly, direct communication isn't just encouraged, it's measured in performance reviews. Irina embraces radical candor, which sometimes creates cultural shock but drives productive feedback and true teamwork.

The Variable Comp Validation:
Her compensation is tied to SQLs defined by the sales team, creating real-time validation of whether she's doing the right things at the right time with the right budget.

This isn't just alignment, it's integration. It's the difference between being a vendor to sales and being a partner in revenue.

Episode drops Monday 10/06/25 and discover how to revolutionize your demand generation approach and earn your seat at the revenue table.

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