Gap Selling Training · Problem-Centric™ Sales Methodology
Train Your Team
to Diagnose
Before They Pitch
Gap Selling Training is the core curriculum within ASG's B2B sales training program, built for CROs and VPs of Sales who have put their teams through Sandler, Challenger, or MEDDIC and found the win rate unchanged six months later.
Why the Number Doesn't Move After Training
Sales organizations that have spent money on Challenger, Command of the Message, or SPIN training often check the win rate six months later and find it unchanged. Those programs make reps better at presenting and handling objections. They don't change what happens earlier — in the discovery conversation where reps either diagnose the buyer's business problem or miss it entirely.
When reps skip that diagnosis, the rest of the sales process runs on assumption. They surface the buyer's stated preferences, timeline, and feature requirements, then build proposals around those. The buyer never confirmed a specific business problem. The rep never established what was causing it or what it costs the organization to leave it unresolved. Proposals built on that foundation miss more often than they close, and when they do advance, they stall in procurement because the urgency was never real.
MEDDIC tells reps what data to collect. Challenger tells reps what insight to lead with. Neither teaches reps how to run the diagnostic conversation that uncovers whether the buyer has a problem worth solving. Gap Selling training is built around that conversation.
What Is Gap Selling
Gap Selling is the Problem Centric™ sales methodology developed by Keenan and based on the bestselling book Gap Selling. It teaches sellers to diagnose before they prescribe — turning every discovery conversation into a structured examination of what's broken in the buyer's business and what fixing it is worth.
Map the Current State
Reps learn to identify what's broken in the buyer's business today — the problem, what's causing it, and what it costs the organization to leave it unresolved. That depth gives the buyer a concrete reason to act.
Define the Future State
Reps establish where the buyer needs to get — with enough specificity that the buyer can see the distance between where they are and where they need to be. That distance is where purchase urgency lives.
Sell to the Gap
The solution is introduced only after the gap is established. Because it answers a problem the buyer has already confirmed, the close is a logical outcome rather than a pressure event.
What You'll Learn
A hands-on, three-module program. Each session combines live instruction, guided exercises, and real-world application. Reps work through the framework using their actual accounts and pipeline — not hypothetical scenarios.
Building the Foundation
Learn the core principles of Problem Centric™ selling and how to see every deal through the buyer's world.
- Introduction to Gap Selling
- Sales myths that block performance
- Foundations of the Problem Centric™ approach
- Becoming a change agent for your buyers
- Defining current state and future state
- Measuring the gap between the two
- Problem identification and differentiation
- Technical vs. business problems
Creating Value
Turn discovery into a diagnostic process that builds urgency and alignment before the solution is introduced.
- Running powerful discovery conversations
- Leading the buying process with confidence
- Understanding and communicating value
- Presenting solutions through the buyer's lens
Executing the Sale
Apply the framework to real deals and strengthen performance across every stage of the sales cycle.
- Advanced discovery techniques
- Deal management and troubleshooting
- Structuring opportunities using the Gap Selling framework
- Building buyer confidence through problem-solving
How Gap Selling Compares to Other Methods
CROs evaluating sales training methodologies consistently face the same three alternatives. Each addresses a real problem in the sales process. Each leaves the diagnostic gap untouched.
Challenger trains reps to lead with a commercial insight — to reframe the buyer's thinking before the product conversation begins. The framework depends on rep instinct: can the rep identify what the buyer hasn't considered? Gap Selling starts where Challenger can't — with what's already broken inside the buyer's situation, confirmed through structured discovery, not asserted by the rep.
MEDDIC is a qualification framework. It tells reps what data to gather — pain, metrics, economic buyer — but not how to have the conversation that surfaces it. Gap Selling is that conversation. The two work together: organizations running MEDDIC often implement Gap Selling to fill the discovery gap MEDDIC requires but doesn't teach.
Sandler focuses on the rep's behavior in the conversation — the upfront contract, negative selling, reversals. It teaches reps to manage buyer resistance. It doesn't teach them to diagnose what's specifically broken in the buyer's operation or establish what that costs — which is what determines whether the buyer has a real reason to act.
Not Sure If Training Is Actually Your Problem?
Answer 12 questions about how your team sells, manages, and forecasts. Find out where revenue is leaking and whether Gap Selling training closes the gap — before you commit to anything.
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What Changes When Reps Start Diagnosing
Built for Revenue Teams Ready to Change What Happens in Discovery
Gap Selling Training addresses one specific failure: reps who run discovery without diagnosing the buyer's actual business problem. If your team's close rate is inconsistent, forecasted deals keep slipping, or proposals are getting built on buyer interest instead of confirmed buyer problems — this is the training that fixes the root cause.
Strengthen win rates, deal quality, and forecast accuracy with a unified sales methodology that changes what reps do in the discovery call — not just what they say in the presentation.
Improve team performance through structured coaching and deal inspection rooted in problem discovery. When managers and reps operate from the same diagnostic framework, pipeline reviews become specific instead of subjective.
Reinforce consistent discovery, qualification, and value articulation through certification and ongoing development tied to Buyer Input Data — not generic completion metrics.
Master the diagnostic skills that drive elite performance: higher win rates, larger deal sizes, and consistent quota attainment. The reps who diagnose best close best.
Led by Keenan and Celeste
Gap Selling Training is led by two of the most recognized voices in modern sales and certified experts in the Problem Centric™ approach to revenue growth.
Keenan
Founder & CEO, A Sales Growth Company
Keenan is the creator of the Gap Selling methodology and author of the bestselling books Gap Selling and Gap Prospecting. He has trained thousands of B2B sellers across industries and is a leading voice in problem-centric selling, featured in Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, and Entrepreneur. His training is direct, deal-specific, and built around the diagnostic skills that separate elite sellers from the rest.
Celeste
Certified Gap Selling Training Partner
Celeste is an award-winning sales leader with more than two decades of experience in corporate and enterprise sales. She has led $100M+ portfolios, built and scaled high-performing teams, and earned recognition as Director of Sales of the Year and two-time Manager of the Year. Known for her candor, energy, and practical coaching style, she combines real-world experience with deep expertise in the Problem Centric™ methodology to help sellers break bad habits and win more deals.
What to Know Before You Commit to Training
What Is Gap Selling, and How Does It Work?
Gap Selling is a B2B sales methodology developed by Keenan, founder and CEO of A Sales Growth Company. It teaches sellers to identify the buyer's current state — what is broken in their business, what is causing it, and what it costs to leave it unresolved — before building toward any solution. The gap refers to the distance between where the buyer is today and where they need to be. That gap is where purchase urgency comes from. Sellers trained in Gap Selling run discovery as a diagnostic process, not a checklist, and build proposals on problems the buyer has already confirmed.
How Is Gap Selling Different from Challenger Sale or MEDDIC?
Challenger Sale trains reps to lead with a commercial insight — to teach the buyer something they haven't considered. Gap Selling starts with what's already broken in the buyer's situation and works through structured discovery to map that problem with enough precision to build urgency from it. MEDDIC is a qualification framework that tells reps what data to gather; Gap Selling is the diagnostic method that teaches reps how to have the conversation that surfaces that data. The two work together: organizations that run MEDDIC often use Gap Selling to fill the discovery gap MEDDIC requires but doesn't teach. Full comparisons: Challenger, MEDDPICC, Sandler, Force Management.
Who Is Gap Selling Training Designed For?
Gap Selling training is built for B2B sales teams where reps are running discovery but not diagnosing the buyer's actual business problem — teams where discovery ends with stated preferences, timelines, and feature requirements rather than a confirmed understanding of what is broken, what is causing it, and what it costs the organization to leave it unresolved. It is most commonly deployed for CROs and VPs of Sales in mid-market and enterprise B2B organizations across industries including SaaS, medical devices, and cybersecurity.
What Results Can We Expect from Gap Selling Training?
Organizations that implement Gap Selling training consistently see improvement in win rates, sales cycle length, and forecast accuracy. Televerde improved win rates from 11% to 24% and reduced their sales cycle from 18 months to 89 days after implementing the methodology. Those results come from one change: reps begin qualifying opportunities only when they have identified a specific business problem with a confirmed impact, which removes the unqualified pipeline that inflates coverage ratios and makes forecasts unreliable.
Struggling to Turn Deals into Decisions?
Gap Selling Training gives reps a structured diagnostic framework for finding what's broken in the buyer's business before the proposal is built. If your team is generating pipeline that isn't closing, or closing deals that take longer than they should, that pattern usually starts in discovery.