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Two sellers engaged in a discussion, emphasizing the significance of knowing the answer to 'What problems do you solve for your clients?' in strategic sales.

Gap Sell Keenan 70: What Problems Do You Solve?

We’ve done 70 episodes of Gap Sell Keenan and there remains a recurring theme. Sellers still struggle to answer what problems do you solve? This seemingly simple question stumps our guests time and time again....

A visually striking representation of sales enablement, featuring a line of matches being skillfully lit, symbolizing the ignition of strategic and powerful sales practices.

5 Ways to Rethink Sales Enablement in 2024

Acknowledging a weakness is the first step towards improvement. Our society has created a hesitancy, especially among high level professional, to admit when things aren’t going smoothly. The competitive nature...

Image: A sales call scene where a seller passionately emphasizes the shift from a traditional sales mindset to one focused on curiosity and understanding, highlighting the importance of this transformative change in the sales approach.

Gap Sell Keenan 69: Ditch Your Sales Mindset

  Gap Selling is more than a new set of tactics for a seller. It is a profound shift in sales mindset that separates the good from the great. Having read the book, following our newsletters, or watching...

Frustrated Woman Swatting Away Obstacles Like Pesky Flies - These 5 Discovery Questions Are Killing Your Calls

These 5 Discovery Questions Are Killing Your Calls

Traditional discovery questions are garbage and they’re ruining your sales processes, causing buyer fatigue, and wasting valuable sales leads from the jump.   Stop asking these discovery questions For...

Keenan, author of Gap Selling, passionately explaining the critical significance of comprehending the buyer's problem in the sales process. His engaging presentation emphasizes the role of understanding buyer challenges in effectively closing deals and achieving success.

Gap Sell Keenan 68: But What’s The Problem

  You’ve prospected well, you’ve set a meeting, you think it goes well, but the buyer disappears after. What happened? You botched it somewhere. A lot of sellers fail to effectively communicate and...

Keenan engaging with a sales representative in a competitive market, demonstrating why sales reps need to sell solutions and not products

Gap Sell Keenan 67: Selling in Competitive Markets

Selling in a competitive market can be a grind. Your prospects have been beaten down time and time again by competitors. They’ve likely chosen a competitor in the past and it’s possible, if not plausible,...

Image depicting a person attempting DIY electrical work, highlighting the importance of effective sales training

5 Signs Your DIY Sales Training Isn’t Cutting It

The success of your business largely hinges on the success and effectiveness of your sales team. An inadequately trained sales team can lead to stagnant growth, plummeting revenue, and missed opportunities....

Keenan and a salesperson engaging in a sales call, discussing how to address critical business problems, leverage sales tools, and refine their sales strategy.

Gap Sell Keenan 66: Stick to the Business Problems

If you are a problem-centric, buyer-centric, customer-centric, solution-centric, pick a fucking buzzword seller then you need to have a clear grasp of the problems you solve. While you may address numerous...

Image of Keenan in a Gap Sell Keenan episode emphasizing the importance of 'Good Selling' by stopping the practice of telling buyers what they're experiencing during a sales call

Gap Sell Keenan 65: Good Selling is Not Telling

There’s a theme developing over the last few episodes of Gap Sell Keenan. There’s a lot of telling and not a lot of asking. What separates a good selling from the average? The really good salesperson has the...

Overcoming Objections: Stop Discounting!

There is a daily discussion, dilemma, hot take, whatever you want to call it that plagues salespeople: the challenge of overcoming objections and price negotiations. ‘Should I drop my price to secure a deal?’...

Image of a person with exceptionally attentive large ears, symbolizing the art of active listening in sales. Salespeople are encouraged to emulate this profound listening skill to better understand their prospects and excel in the field.

The Sales Guide to Listening

Sales, you’re not listening. It’s recently become crystal clear to me that a really ugly pattern has managed to sneak it’s way in to most of your sales conversations. Recently is a little misleading....

Image depicting a determined salesman climbing an endless flight of stairs, symbolizing the relentless pursuit of sales success through hard work, dedication, and the sales success formula.

The Sales Success Formula

Success in sales is hard. Sometimes it’s elusive and complicated. Sales people are continuously searching high and low for the secret ingredients, the hidden shortcuts, and the newest sales tips that will...

Keenan and a salesperson engaged in a conversation about active listening and consultative selling as they discuss the principles of Gap Selling.

Gap Sell Keenan 63: Stop Selling and Listen

We can’t say this loud enough, B2B sales is changing. Relentlessly pushing products and hammering prospects with your rehearsed sales pitch is dead. Developing a successful sales approach needs to focus on...

Best Sales Books

The 8 Best Sales Books [2024]

Whether you’re new in your sales career or in search of fresh content to up your game, picking a solid sales book can be just the thing to get you back on track. Since there are endless options to choose from,...

woman thinking surrounded by sales email messages

How To Write High-Converting Sales Emails

Most of you are probably too young to remember the start of electronic communication. In those days we’d craft a generic sales email and then blast it out to thousands of contacts hoping for a response. Those...

Image: A sales conversation with the text 'disqualifying low-value lead' - Exploring Lead Qualification in Gap Sell Keenan 62

Gap Sell Keenan 62: Lead Qualification

  Lead qualification is the process of evaluating and categorizing leads based on their potential to become paying customers. It’s identifying which leads are genuine fits for your product, show interest,...

Image: A woman envisioning a stack of money in her dreams - What are you really selling

What Are You Really Selling?

You’re Not Selling a Product Let’s get one thing crystal clear: if you can’t articulate what you’re selling, you might as well be walking blindfolded through a maze. Selling is not a guessing game, it’s...

Image: Salesperson vs. Sales Leader - Illustrating the Distinct Roles - Not All Great Salespeople Make Great Sales Leaders

Not All Great Salespeople Make Great Sales Leaders

Not all great salespeople are cut out to be great sales leaders. It’s comparing apples and oranges. In this post, I want to unravel the reasons some people who excel at selling don’t necessarily shine when...

Sales Success & The King Midas Affect

Sales Success & The King Midas Effect

How is King Midas Related to Sales Success? What do you touch that turns to gold? An answer to that simple question is the key to your success in sales, business, relationships and . . .  shit let’s just say...

Preparing for a Discovery Call What You Need to Know

Preparing for a Discovery Call: What You Need to Know

Strategies for Discovery Call Prep Discovery calls are the lifeblood of a sales professional’s success. There’s a reason every guru and influencer hammers on the importance of a discovery. Discovery calls are...

Risk to Reward A Sales Case Study

Risk to Reward: A Sales Case Study

How a Calculated Sales Risk Paid Off One of the top selling Tequilas in the world doesn’t allow the word tequila to be used when referring to it’s product. Yes, it’s on the bottle, but that’s pretty much the...

Sales Strategy Lessons From My 14 Year Old Self

Sales Strategy Lessons From My 14 Year Old Self

The Sales Strategy that Made a Skatepark a Reality This is how my feisty 14 year old self accidentally Gap Sold my town into building a skatepark. Buckle up! Because I’m going to walk you through my...

The Gap In Sales Training

The Gap In Sales Training

Sales Training or Sales Education? Sales training, we’ve all been through it. In almost every case it’s about teaching us something new. I’m a fan of sales training because I’m a fan of learning. Anytime I or...

Shitty Company Culture Fire The CEO

Sh*tty Company Culture? Fire The CEO

Building and Sustaining Company Culture: Leadership’s Role A company culture starts at the top. I’ve been in companies with phenomenal cultures where I bled the company red and I’ve worked at companies...

How Government Mandates Shape The Sales Landscape

How Government Mandates Shape The Sales Landscape

The Influence of Government Mandates This week, I’m going to talk about government mandates.  Mandates are a BIG deal and affect every business in the country.  Knowing the mandates that govern your customers...

Inventory Turn What Salespeople Must Know

Inventory Turn: What Salespeople Must Know

The Ultimate Sales Guide to Inventory Turn and Inventory Velocity   I’m gonna take a break from economic indicators this week. Parts 1 through 4 of this series can be found below: Profit and Loss...

Deceptive Sales Tactics The Lie

Deceptive Sales Tactics: The Lie

Deceptive Sales Tactics Exposed I was a victim of the “lie” sales technique the other day and it pissed me off. I pulled into a gas station to fill up. While I was standing next to my car, a young man about 25...

Selling Change: Embracing Customer Discomfort

Selling Change: Embracing Customer Discomfort

Selling Change Sales is predicated on change. Anyone disagree with me on this?  The whole point of selling or buying is change is required or desired. You want a new car, the company needs new design software,...

Your Customer's Company Culture Why it Matters

Your Customer’s Company Culture: Why it Matters

How Customer Company Culture Can Influence Sales “No companies, vendors, suppliers or anyone wishing to do business with [company] can contact directly or speak to anyone about their products or services, nor...

The Key Requirement To A Sales Qualified Lead

The Key Requirement To A Sales Qualified Lead

Understanding Sales Qualified Leads What qualifies as an opportunity and how do you identify a sales qualified lead when it comes along? Decision criteria can be all over the place depending on the individual...

Capital Expense Vs. Operating Expense

Capital Expense Vs. Operating Expense

Impact of Capital Expenses and Operating Expenses Over the last three weeks we talked about the 3 key financial statements; the income statement, the balance sheet and the cashflow statement. Today we’re going...

5 Keys to a Healthy Sales Organization

5 Keys to a Healthy Sales Organization

Nurturing a Healthy Sales Organization for Long-Term Success Sales is hard. I say it all the time. In particular, running, leading and building sales teams is hard. But, just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we...

Balance Sheets Exploring their Hidden Sales Secrets

Balance Sheets: Exploring their Hidden Sales Secrets

Decoding Balance Sheets for Sales Growth Last week, we went through the Profit and Loss Statement.  This week we’re going to tackle the balance sheet.  The balance sheet and the profit and loss statement go...

Sales Assumptions - Their Power and Why they Matter

Sales Assumptions – Their Power and Why they Matter

Assumptions in Sales: Risks, Rewards, and Best Practices Too often people make the assumption, that in sales assumptions are bad. That is a bad assumption. Assumptions are great. We need to make assumptions....

What Makes You Different - red figure in a crowd of black figures

What Makes You Different?

Unveiling Your Unique Value: What Makes You Different at What You Do? We all wear different hats and bring something different and unique to the table. Whether it’s a salesperson, a teacher, a doctor, a...

Gap Sell Keenan 59 Banner: Process Questions Can Only Take You So Far - Selling to Problems Vs Outcomes

Gap Sell Keenan 59: Problems Vs Outcomes

Why Focusing on Problems vs Outcomes, Drives Sales Success   The Dangers of Outcome Selling If you’ve been tuning in to the Gap Sell Keenans for a while, you’ve surely notice how much Keenan loves to ask,...

Gap Selling vs Sandler Sales Training - woman holding apple and orange, making comparison

Gap Selling vs Sandler Sales Training

All Sales Training Is the Same, Right? Sandler Sales Training has been a staple of the sales training world for decades. What was once a prominent methodology, the Sandler methodology has lost a step or two as...

Sales Tools: Why You Must Be Cutting-Edge to Succeed

Your sales strategy needs the latest sales tools. The Importance of Sales Tools For any professional, their tools are the heart and soul of their craft, allowing them to executer their work with precision....

business man running up stairs avoiding obstacles representing 9 Painful Actual Stages of the Sales Process

9 Painful Actual Stages of the Sales Process

One of the first things that’s taught to new sellers is the stages of the sales process. Many new hires walk through the door and the first question they’re asked is what are the 7 stages of the...

The Value of Trust in Sales Processes - climbers holding each other over a cliff

The Value of Trust in Sales Processes

The value of trust in sales processes cannot be underestimated. Relationships are a key factor in the business world. The sales world has been captivated by the notion of how relationships affect sales success...

Can You Pass The Question Test

Can You Pass The Question Test?

Would you like to take a question test that measures your ability to ask questions and improve your chance to win the sale?   Can you have a conversation by only asking questions? Do you think you...

sales strategy plans help sales teams reach their goals

Sales Strategy Plans: 10 Must Have Elements

If the account vision is the compass of account management, then sales strategy plans and account plans are the ship. Sales strategy plans are where the execution happens. It’s the engine to successful account...

Intellectual Curiosity and The Why in Sales

Intellectual Curiosity and The Why in Sales

If you’re going to become successful at Gap Selling you need to start asking why. Getting to the why in sales is a crucial skill of a talented Gap Seller.   Why?   Kids are great at asking why. They...

Account Vision: The Key to Growing Your Accounts

Account Vision: The Key to Growing Your Accounts

The secret to successful account management lies in developing the account, not just selling to it. At the center of that development is account vision.   Unlike hunting and territory management, the...

Trust the Process 5 Benefits of a Sales Process

Trust the Process: 5 Benefits of a Sales Process

Do you track everything and make adjustments constantly? You should be. Personal and professional growth increases exponentially when you have specific goals you’re working towards. To reach those goals...

Buyer's Motives Get Inside Your Buyer's Head

Buyer’s Motives: Get Inside Your Buyer’s Head

Change is at the center of selling — period! No change, no sale. I’m on the record of saying this a thousand times. There will be no sale without a motivation to change. Therefore, to understand selling and to...

How to be a Better Seller Give a Shit

How to be a Better Seller: Give a Shit

If you want to learn how to be a better seller, start here: give a shit! This is the story about a salesman who missed one crucial aspect of selling – he put his needs and wants before his clients....

Selling in a Recession Shrink Your ICP - updated

Selling in a Recession: Shrink Your ICP

Look, selling in a recession is tough. Every salesperson in the world is looking at their quota and trying to figure out how they’re going to hit their numbers when companies are tightening their budgets....

Recession Proof Feature Dumps are Useless - updated

Recession Proof: Feature Dumps are Useless

Selling in a recession is hard. Period. Companies are becoming extra cost conscious, they’re evaluating every aspect of their business for things to cull. Becoming recession proof requires you to stop...

How to Sell in a Recession

How to Sell in a Recession – What You Need to Know

Learning how to sell in a recession is hard. Unfortunately, when it comes to selling during a recession conventional wisdom is failing most salespeople. Much of the advice is hollow and not useful to achieving...

a problem identification chart - the key to increase sales in 2024

How To Increase Sales in 2024

Do you know what problems your customers might have, probably have or most certainly have? When you reach out to a customer or prospect, do you have a good idea what problems they are challenged with BEFORE...

4 Must Have Elements of a Sales Coaching Cadence

4 Must Have Elements of a Sales Coaching Cadence

Sales coaching is the most valuable element of a sales team. If you don’t buy into this, you can stop reading. This post is about getting the most out of coaching your people, why sales coaching is important,...

Social Selling - How To Use LinkedIn Properly

Social Selling – How To Use LinkedIn Properly

Last week we talked about why it’s vital to not use LinkedIn as a cold selling platform. A bunch of you didn’t agree and wanted more on the right way to use LinkedIn and social selling to further your sales....

The 3 Key Elements to Effective Sales Coaching

The 3 Key Elements to Effective Sales Coaching

Sales coaching has one purpose and that is to make the salesperson better. It’s that simple. Coaching is about analyzing what a salesperson is doing in order to enhance their skills and improve their...

The 5 Sales Leadership Styles

The 5 Sales Leadership Styles

There is nothing more important than the sales leader when it comes to driving revenue and creating successful sales organizations. Sales teams live and die on the strength and ability of its leaders. There...

Discovery Fatigue is Real

Discovery Fatigue is Real

I want to talk about something I’ve seen a lot of and I want to set the record straight. Discovery fatigue.   The other day I was reading a LinkedIn post where someone was talking about you must...

Gap Selling Lessons From Wolf of Wall Street

Gap Selling Lessons From Wolf of Wall Street

Gap Selling Lessons From Wolf of Wall Street: At this point most, if not all, of us have seen this scene from Wolf of Wall Street. It’s cheesy, sleazy, gross, manipulative, pick an adjective. But, there...

How To Know When A Deal Is Ready To Close

How To Know When A Deal Is Ready To Close

I’ve spent a lot of time with a lot of sales people and one of the biggest problems I see is rarely, too rarely, do sales people know when a deal is ready to close.   Unfortunately, sales people rely on...

coaches don't play

Coaches Don’t Play

This one is real simple – Coaches don’t play. Coaches coach, players play.   Back in 2011, the New England Patriots and New York Jets were scheduled to meet in the playoffs. In the week...

Sales Culture Needs to Change

Sales Culture Needs to Change

Listen up we need to change the sales culture. It’s a complete shit show.   I had a dude reach out to me the other day and he said something like “I don’t know you but I’ve been following you,...

Enough! You’re Not An Entrepreneur

Enough! You’re Not An Entrepreneur

I’ve gotta get this shit of my chest. You’re not an entrepreneur.   I fucking love all the opportunity that is out there today. It has NEVER been a better time to start a business, to go out on your...

How To give Value In your Cold sales Emails

How to Give Value in Your Cold Sales Emails

We’ve got work to do. Grab a pen, take notes, and let’s get down to it.   Your cold sales emails, cold calls, and outreach suck. Here’s why and here’s how to fix it. This is the...

How to Handle a Price Objection in Sales

How to Handle Price Objections in Sales

I want to take a second to talk pricing, price objections, dealing with pushback, and dealing with negotiation on price.   Listen, you don’t owe your buyer a price. I know a lot of times buyers come...

How To Be More Buyer-Centric In Your Discoveries

How To Be More Buyer-Centric In Your Discoveries

I often get asked by people – how do I get better at understanding my buyers? How do I become more problem-centric? How do I become more buyer-centric? How do I get the information that helps me do...

8 Reasons Great Leaders Let People Fail

8 Reasons Great Leaders Let People Fail

Sales leaders – do you let people fail? How comfortable are you letting failure happen? Are you OK letting your sales manager make a mistake? Are you OK letting the sales rep lose a deal? What do you do...

Budget Vs. Affordability - Know The Difference

Affordability Vs. Budget – Know The Difference

There’s a difference between affordability and budget. To be a good salesperson, sales team, or sales leader you must know the difference. af-ford-a-bil-i-ty – noun — the state of being cheap enough that...

The Best Sales Training

5 Keys to the Best Sales Training

The Best Sales Training or Just Sales Training? Sales training has been around for about 75-100 years. In spite of its longevity, the jury is still out, as many organizations wonder does sales training...

The #1 Most Common Sales Mistake

The #1 Most Common Sales Mistake

I’m going to share with you why salespeople are losing the deals they’re losing, why the deals get stuck, why they can’t overcome objections, and why they don’t close. I’m going to...

What a Killer Deal Strategy Looks Like

What a Killer Deal Strategy Looks Like

Getting your prospect engaged, getting them on the proverbial hook is critical to selling. Prospecting is the holy grail of sales and it get’s a lot of attention as it should. To most of us, finding and...

Order Takers Vs. Order Makers

Order Takers vs. Order Makers

In sales there are order takers and order makers.   Order takers are reactive. They listen and respond to customers requests. They respond to RFP’s. They give the customer what they ask for.   Order...

Sales Myths - Likability

Sales Myth – People Buy From People They Like

Sales myths and catch phrases are thrown around in trainings and casual conversations constantly.   If another person marches out the tired old sales myth “people buy from people they like.” I’m going to...

good buyer

Be a Good Buyer (Note to Buyers)

I’m going to flip the script today. This blog normally helps sales people and sales leaders be better. This post is gonna go a different route. Today, I’m gonna help the buyer be a good buyer....

WHAT TO DO WHEN A PROSPECT GOES DARK

What To Do When a Prospect Goes Dark

There is nothing more frustrating to a sales person than when a client goes dark. Your last conversation was killer, you both agreed that your solution made sense. The prospect said they needed to share it...

bookings vs revenue

Bookings vs. Revenue in Sales

So many salespeople think there is no difference between booking and revenue. Many may not even have heard the word “bookings.” For most transactions, there is no difference. Bookings and revenue...

scale a sales team

How to Scale a Sales Team in the 21st Century

Growth is what it’s all about in the world of business, especially in SaaS and technology. But growing effectively is key to successfully scale a sales team.   We all want to get big. We all want to...

Tell Your Customer "No"! During Prospecting

Tell Your Customer “No”! During Prospecting

Here’s the deal. When you’re prospecting, leads can be demanding, They will ask for a lot, but it doesn’t mean you have to say yes every time.   Can you tell your customer or prospect...

11 THINGS GREAT SALESPEOPLE DON’T DO

11 Things Great Salespeople Don’t Do

There always seems to be lots of ideas and discussion around what great salespeople do. I think it’s just human nature to evaluate success and emulate it. We take inventory of what the successful are...

Sales Training for Cyber Security & Insurance

Sales Training for Cyber Security & Insurance

The Problem with Traditional Sales Training for Cyber Security & Insurance When it comes to problem-centric sales training for cyber security and insurance, traditional sales training methods and companies...

skill of learning

The Skill of Learning

Today, I want to talk to you about is learning. Just to cut to the chase – not enough time is spent on breaking down the skill of learning. Yes, learning is a skill. If you think learning happens...

SALESPEOPLE_ DON’T BE THE CUSTOMER’S BITCH

Salespeople: Don’t Be the Customer’s Bitch

You are not the customer’s bitch. You are a great sales person.   A great sales person isn’t a go-fer, they are keenly in-tune to a customer’s problems and how to solve them. A great...

GAP SELLING VS SANDLER SALES TRAINING

Gap Selling vs Sandler Sales Training

All Sales Training Is the Same, Right? You’ve experienced it. It’s the same old tired approaches to the same old sales challenges, with each company attempting to add their own little...

Gap Selling: The End of Average

End of Average: Average Value is No Value

As Gap Selling has crossed the milestone of 50,000 copies sold, we are highlighting some of our favorite books to compliment your Gap Selling journey.     Today’s book highlight goes to The End of...

The 4 Types Of Discovery Questions

The 4 Types Of Sales Discovery Questions

The Importance of Effective Sales Discovery Questions Too many salespeople fail at discovery calls, a critical phase in the sales funnel in b2b sales. In fact, the discovery call is undeniably the most...

lucidchart

Lucidchart and Gap Selling – Boom!

Lucidchart and A Sales Growth Company teamed up to help layout the Gap Selling process and make it easier to leverage with your sales team.   Using Lucidchart’s amazing tool, it’ even easier to...