Sandler - Praxis Growth Advisors, Inc.

08/26/2026

The Mid-Year Reality Check!

Is your pipeline healthy enough to deliver the results you're expecting this year?

Learn how to identify hidden gaps, qualify better opportunities, and build a pipeline that supports predictable revenue.

🔎 Ready to take a closer look?
RSVP at: https://bit.ly/4wI5jX7

Sandler

08/25/2026

Connection and trust are not the same thing. Most sales training treats them like they are.

Connection is fast. A good conversation, some rapport, you've got it in five minutes.

Trust takes longer. It's earned through follow-through, consistency, and actually doing what you said you'd do.

The reps who build both quickest do four things:

🔹They listen more than they talk. Data now points to a 55/45 split, prospect talking more than the rep, not the old 70/30 rule.

🔹They match the prospect's mood instead of running their own energy over the top of it.

🔹They use stories, not just features and benefits.

🔹They ask emotionally based questions. Frustrated. Worried. Stuck. Those words open people up faster than any technical question ever will.

Where does your sales process lean too hard on connection and skip building trust?

08/20/2026

Most salespeople think their pitch is forgettable because it needs better facts.

It's actually the opposite problem.

A Stanford study found that when people hear a mix of story and data in the same conversation, only 5% remember the data 10 minutes later. 63% remember the story.

Your specs, your stats, your feature list? Barely sticks.

Your story? That's what your prospect carries into the next meeting, the next budget conversation, the next "who should we go with" discussion.

Here's the framework we teach: Before, Pain, Solution, After.

🔹What was the situation before you got involved?
🔹What was the specific pain?
🔹What did the solution actually do? Not what it is.
🔹What changed afterward, in numbers or in how it felt?

Keep it short. Keep it generic enough that the prospect sees themselves in it, not someone else's company.

What's stopping your team from using more stories in their sales process?

Sandler

08/13/2026

What's the difference between selling and negotiating?

• Selling is the why.
It's the value you build, the pain you uncover, the business case you help a champion make to their own leadership.

• Negotiating is the how.
It's the mechanics of getting a deal signed on terms that work for both sides.

Here's where teams get it wrong. They treat these as sequential, separate events. If you haven't sold the person across the table, if they don't feel the issue, take responsibility, and trust the solution, you have no basis for negotiation.

There's a 3-step framework I help clients to incorporate in creating their Sales Playbook for Winning the Negotiation.

✅ Acknowledge - Validate the request without moving. "I understand. You want to see this without the extra charge."

✅ Redirect - Ask questions to find the real issue underneath the stated one. Is it truly dollars, or is it timing, budget cycle, or a bridge between vendors?

✅ Offer - Propose a single, specific concession in exchange for something of equal value. One at a time.

Want to talk through it?

08/07/2026

If your buyers expect a discount...
You trained them to ask.

Read that again.

Every time a salesperson says ... "Let me see what I can do."
..without asking another question, they teach the buyer that price was flexible all along.

That doesn't build trust.

It destroys value.

The best negotiators don't defend their price.

They defend the value the buyer already admitted they need.

If your first response to price pressure is to lower the price, you're not negotiating.

You're surrendering.

When was the last time you challenged a discount request instead of rewarding it?

Sandler

07/21/2026

There's a difference between a consultant, a partner, and an advisor.

• A consultant hands you information.
• A partner helps you implement it.
• An advisor looks past today's problem and helps you plan for what's next.

Executives don't want another vendor. They want someone to think a few steps ahead with them.

Which one are you showing up as in your next executive conversation?

Sandler Training

07/07/2026

Deals with executive involvement happen at nearly twice the rate of deals without it.

Yet most sales teams still wait until late in the process to try to get in front of the C-suite. Usually it’s right when the deal is already shaped by people who can't say yes.

The earlier an executive is part of the conversation, the faster (and bigger) the deal tends to move.

What's stopping you from trying to get there sooner; comfort level, access, or something else?

https://bit.ly/4vgdysS

Sandler Training

06/22/2026

Sellers spend a lot of time perfecting their pitch.

Right words. Right story. Right proof points.

And the prospect still went cold.

Prospects aren't just listening to what you say — they're reading how you show up.

• Your tone.
• Your energy.
• The confidence (or anxiety) behind every word.

A polished script can't mask hesitation. And a rough script can't hide confidence.

The salespeople who close consistently aren't the best talkers. They're the ones who know how to read a room, disrupt a prospect's expectations at the right moment, and adapt their style on the fly.

That's not a personality trait. It's a skill. And it's trainable.

Here’s the question worth asking …

🤔 When your last deal went quiet, was it really about the pitch?

06/03/2026

Deals fail to close and it has nothing to do with pricing, competition, or objections.

It's because the buyer never developed a compelling business case for change.

Many sales conversations jump from, "We have a problem."

Directly to, "Here's our solution."

What's missing? The financial and operational impact sitting in between.

Sellers should spend time helping buyers understand:

✔ Current state
✔ Desired future state
✔ The measurable gap between the two

That's where urgency lives.

That's where executive alignment happens.

And that's often where deals are won or lost.

What business metric has the biggest influence on buying decisions in your industry?

How Top Sales Teams Quantify Customer Pain: The Missing Middle -https://bit.ly/43fad1E

05/06/2026

The Death of the Sales Pitch
🚫 Stop teaching your sales team how to "present." Start teaching them how to co-author.

If a prospect expresses concern about implementation or cost, and the rep's instinct is to defend the product, the deal is leaning towards a "no decision."

The pro move? Co-authored solution design.

Don't assume the answer to an objection; put the burden on the prospect.

"If you were to move forward with us, how would you change that process to ensure it doesn't fail like the last one?"

When the prospect builds the solution, they own the outcome.

When your team builds it alone, they own the resistance.

❓How many deals were lost last quarter because the prospect felt like they were being "sold to" rather than "solved with"?

https://bit.ly/3PseRWJ

Sandler Training

Master elite sales training in Massachusetts. Eliminate prospect stalls and objections with strategies to drive Boston revenue growth.