Steven Connolly

I’ve run many deal reviews over the last few weeks. Three of the deals were “stuck.” My advice for “unsticking” each was the same: “Make the next step easier for the prospect.” Sellers have to remember: 99% of your prospect’s job is not related to buying your product. 100% of your job is helping them buy your product. So you should do all you can to make every step as easy as possible for your prospect. A common time deals get “stuck” is right before a trial or a proof-of-concept. The most common reason deals get stuck at this stage is sellers wait for the prospect to finalize the trial/POC criteria. Think about all the work this creates for your prospect: - Schedule internal meetings to discuss requirements - Document requirements, and determine outcomes - Circulate document internally to get feedback/sign-off from anyone that missed the meeting(s) Add in vacations/busy schedules and these few steps could easily take weeks. A better route is making the next steps easier for your prospect - here's how we did it for our “stuck” deal: 1) Built our recommended PoC requirements and outcomes I told the AE to review the discovery and demo transcripts to make sure we cover customer mentioned required capabilities and tie to customer stated metrics. Then, I told them to add in additional required capabilities we know they’ll need to be successful, along with the outcomes they drive. Ideally, at least a few of these would be required capabilities we know our competition struggles to provide. 2) Position us as experts + make prospect’s job easier Once our recommended proof-of-concept approach was built, we sent to the prospect with a note: “We’re looking forward to kicking off your proof-of-concept. We’ve done a ton of these so we built out an initial template you can use as you build out your requirements - we made sure to include everything you mentioned as being essential in prior conversations + what we’ve seen necessary for customers with similar goals. Feel free to add/remove from this starting point, but hopefully this saves you some time. How’s your calendar next week to discuss this template + any necessary revisions?” Sure enough, this approach got the prospect engaged again. Take 30 minutes this week to review “stuck” deals in your pipeline. For each deal, write out: - What is the next step the prospect has to take? - What part of it can you do for them? And I bet you see a few “stuck” deals get moving again as you make it easier for your prospects to evaluate your solution. If you found this post helpful, you’ll love the AE Operating System. Templates, scripts, prompts, and more for every part of the deal cycle to help you sell more - the same tactics I've taught my teams to 2x our deal size, increase our win rate, and more than triple the percentage of reps hitting quota. Hundreds have already jumped in - and early feedback has been incredible. If you don't have your access yet, you can join at hitmyquota.com!

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You know that rule of sales that says don’t demo in the first meeting. It’s wrong. Very wrong. If you think a demo is a meeting you do after discovery, you are missing out. A demo is a tool you can use anytime you want. A demo is not a meeting. A demo is not what you do after discovery. A demo is not your 2nd meeting. A demo DEFINITELY is not a sales stage. A demo is not a thing that wins deals. A demo is not a monologue. A demo is not a chance for you to show off cool features. So, what is a demo? A demo is a tool that you give a buyer to get something in return which should create enough excitement and belief in your ability to solve a business challenge that the buyer is willing to do the hard work of an evaluation. 🔨 Tool You can demo in the first meeting, in the last meeting, in any meeting. Shoot…get Consensus and demo while you sleep.  You can use tools different ways, at different times. 🎁 Give/Get A demo can be used to: - get information (discovery) - get better pricing (negotiate) - get an intro (multi-thread) - create belief (champion building) - connect dots (value communication) When you confine it to a meeting, you lose so much of its power! 🤩 Excitement A demo allows people to see how your product creates value. If you do it well, they get excited bc they see a path out of their pain. Excitement doesn’t win deals on its own, but it helps! 🙏🏼 Belief 70% of people learn visually. Learning creates knowledge. Knowledge creates belief.  The more knowledge, the more belief. The more belief, the more likely you win the deal. 🟰 Solution to Business Challenge Connect your product to a real business challenge and win the deal. This is the most critical part. Don’t show them how to use your product, show them how to overcome with it. 👷🏼 Work of an Evaluation Your buyers have a job. They are busy. Evaluating products is a means to an end, and nobody likes mean(ies). Doing an evaluation takes resolve and hard work. You gotta help them understand why they’d do that. The best sellers know that demos are  - 2 min videos - 45 minute of a relevancy marathon - done async - done in a meeting - done once for an audience - completely redone for another audience - a library of product functionality that sizzles They are winning bc they use the demo as their secret sauce. P.S. This pic is of "The Cauldron" that simmered sauce for 8 hours, using all the Korean Long tomatoes my wife grew this summer. DELICIOUS!

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STOP doing what 99% of salespeople do I've helped scale 2 startups to $10M+ ARR... And trained thousands of sales reps across 500+ enterprises. Here's what I've noticed: Most reps are stuck using outdated techniques from 2010. They pitch features ❌ They chase prospects ❌   They wonder why deals fall through ❌ Meanwhile, the top 1% are using these psychological triggers: 𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 Stop asking "Are you interested?" Start saying "When we move forward..." The brain defaults to agreement when presented with inevitability. 𝟮. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗦𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 After stating your price, shut up. The first person to speak loses. Silence creates psychological pressure that closes deals. 𝟯. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 "This might not be right for you..." triggers loss aversion. People want what they can't have. Use scarcity as your secret weapon. 𝟰. 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 Don't just say "other clients love this." Say "3 Fortune 500 CEOs told me this exact solution saved them $2M last quarter." Specificity sells. 𝟱. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 "Imagine walking into your office 6 months from now, knowing you solved this problem..." Paint the picture. People buy the future, not the present. The brutal truth? The difference between average and elite isn't talent. It's psychology. Which skill will you try first? ⬇️ ♻️ Repost to help your network and follow Gaurav Bhattacharya for more. P.S. If you're building/leading a revenue team & want early access to our agentic AI that triples pipeline, comment "Agentic".

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Please, for the love of revenue, stop opening your pricing call by pulling up the proposal and running through the price. You’re not a waiter dropping the check at the table. If the prospect says, “We just want to review the price,” that’s your signal to slow down and give context to the conversation. Every pricing call should start by confirming: - current challenges or problems to be solved - desired outcome for their business - how your product or service is going to deliver the outcome for them Once you are aligned on these three things, you can move forward with showing the price. This is especially important when a new evaluator joins the call. For example, you have been working with a champion who gets to the point where they want to see the price. You schedule the call to review the commercial terms. They invite the CFO or the economic buyer. That CFO has no context for value that you are going to deliver. They haven’t felt the pain you’ve been unpacking over the last few weeks. That's your job to give them the right context. Price only makes sense when you understand the current challenges and desired outcomes. That’s why I always start pricing calls the same way: “Before we jump into numbers, I just want to make sure we’re aligned on the goals of this partnership. Can we quickly revisit the challenges you’re solving and the outcomes you’re targeting? I want to make sure the proposal maps to that.” It’s a hard thing to say no to. And it does two important things: It gives you a chance to reinforce the value. It opens the door for new information or things the buyer hasn’t told you yet, but that will matter in the decision. I have lost many sales opportunities in my career by rushing to show the pricing. I thought moving fast meant being efficient. But I skipped the context. So the next time you have a pricing call, slow down. Frame the conversation. Align on the value of the partnership. Then move on to the commercial terms. ______ If you need help structuring that conversation, I’ve got an executive summary template that makes this easy. Comment "Summary" and I'll send it to you.

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Almost 4 out of 5 B2B sellers missed quota in H1*. Yet they will nearly all use a swiss army knife of sales tech tools, each promising to 'improve win rates', 'revenue success' and 'x10 pipeline velocity'. More tools, more AI, more time selling to the right prospects (in theory), but less quota attainment. The problem is not those tools. Many are great with strong ROI. But the ROI is capped by sales skill and competency. A more productive underperformer is still an underperformer. Investment in tech for productivity and insights comes easy. Improving skills? Coaching? "Isn't that our managers role?" How many organisations are already resigned to 2026 seeing stats like this? Budget planning conversations already planning to reduce organisation revenue goals, because the data says its harder. Tech has not solved underperformance and it won't in 2026 either. *77%, Ebsta (now part of Fullcast) and Guy Rubin's superb benchmark data. Follow if you're not already.

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