In this episode, Marcus is joined by Alan Versteeg, a coach and sales performance specialist with years of experience helping companies unlock what's really holding their teams back.

Together, they explore 9 critical truths most sales leaders overlook, and the hidden leverage points that can transform your results without overhauling your tech stack or doubling your headcount.

What you'll learn:

• Why your middle managers are your most underused asset, and how to activate them

• How on-the-job coaching delivers a 72x return when done right

• The dangerous illusion of control CRMs create, and what to focus on instead

• How shifting from managing individuals to managing the sales environment changes everything

• Why asking basic questions like “Why do we prospect?” can unravel deeper issues in your sales process

• How to identify the handbrakes slowing growth, often hidden in plain sight

• Why failure is your most powerful tool, if you build the right culture around it

• The key difference between managing tasks and driving impact

• And how changing perspective can make the difference between short-term wins and long-term performance

If you're a CRO, VP of Sales, or leading a team in a mid-market organisation, this episode is packed with practical, thought-provoking insight you won't get from dashboards or sales playbooks.

Connect on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanversteeg/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcuscauchi/

Get Personal Sales Insights

https://bit.ly/NewSellingAptitudeTest

Triage Your Pipleline

https://bit.ly/PipelineTriageAudit

Or https://bit.ly/TalkWithUsNow

🔍 What if selling wasn’t about ‘closing’ but about making it effortless for customers to buy?

This episode dismantles outdated, wasteful, and buyer-hostile sales tactics, replacing them with Lean principles, built on respect, trust, and ruthless efficiency. Matt Gaskin joins Marcus Cauchi to challenge sales dogma, expose hidden inefficiencies, and lay out a high-performance, humane approach to selling.

🔥 Sales teams waste 60–80% of their time on the wrong work. Want to fix that?

❌ Chasing bad-fit leads that will never buy. ❌ Lying to customers, overpromising, hiding flaws, forcing urgency. ❌ Measuring the wrong things, activity instead of meaningful progress.

💡 Lean sales isn’t about doing more. It’s about removing everything that doesn’t serve the buyer.

• Every sales process either builds trust or triggers alarms.

• Objections = proof buyers don’t feel safe yet.

• The question isn’t "How do we close more?" but "How do we make it safe to buy?"

🛠️ Sales is like sculpting: chip away everything that doesn’t belong. 🔍 What’s slowing down decisions? What’s making buying harder? Remove it.

• Salespeople should own their process like engineers own Lean manufacturing.

• Leadership’s job: remove roadblocks, not create more.

• Sales, finance, marketing, and operations must work as one system.

✅ Track mistakes. Learn weekly. Improve constantly. ✅ Eliminate what’s not working instead of ‘trying harder’. ✅ Most sales teams repeat bad habits instead of evolving. Be different.

🚀 Better qualification = less wasted effort 🚀 Smarter targeting = more trust, faster deals 🚀 Process built for buyers = salespeople who love their job

💡 The best sales teams don’t ‘sell’, they create clarity, eliminate doubt, and let customers step forward.

✅ Audit your sales process. Where are you creating friction? ✅ Start a Failure Log. Track bad outcomes, tweak, and improve weekly. ✅ Kill bad-fit leads early. Prioritise buying intent over quantity. ✅ Get outside the sales bubble. Spend time with customers and frontline teams. ✅ Ask this question daily: “What conditions make it easy for customers to say YES?”

💡 “Most sales teams are optimised for busywork, not outcomes. What would your process look like if your only goal was to make buying effortless?”

Connect on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcuscauchi/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-gaskin-a530b020/

Books

Jeffrey Liker - The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership https://amzn.to/4i1qPPk

Podcast Ryan Tierney - https://www.leanmadesimple.com/podcast

What if influence wasn’t about tactics and persuasion but about truth, trust, and genuine human connection?

In this episode, Brian Ahearn, Chief Influence Officer at Influence People and faculty member at the Cialdini Institute, unpacks the fine line between influence and manipulation, a crucial distinction for sales leaders and C-suite executives who want to drive sustainable growth without sacrificing integrity.

🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: ✔ The Ethical Imperative: Why real influence is about honesty, natural principles, and mutual benefit. ✔ Relationships Drive Results: How liking, trust, and connection influence decision-making (backed by Gallup’s research). ✔ The Seven Persuasion Principles: A masterclass in ethical influence, from reciprocity to social proof. ✔ Beyond Product Pushing: Why customers "rent an outcome" (like peace of mind in insurance), not just buy a product. ✔ Long-Term Wins: How nurturing relationships, not short-term wins, creates exponential business growth. ✔ The Power of Pre-Suasion: Setting the stage for influence before the conversation even begins. ✔ Avoiding Cognitive Dissonance: Why understanding customer values first leads to easier, natural sales.

💡 Key Takeaways for Leaders & Sales Teams: 🔹 Stop chasing transactions; build relationships. Influence is a long game. 🔹 Teach your sales team ethical persuasion. Trust beats manipulation every time. 🔹 Understand your customer’s real job. They aren’t buying your product; they’re hiring a solution. 🔹 Use persuasion principles the right way. No fake scarcity, no coercion, just natural, human influence. 🔹 Invest in self-awareness. Mastering influence starts with mastering yourself.

📩 Connect with Brian Ahearn: 👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfahearn/

👉 Website: InfluencePeople.biz

📚 Recommended Reads: 📖 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Dr. Robert Cialdini 📖 Influence PEOPLE, Persuasive Selling, The Influencer – Brian Ahearn

🚀 Final Thought: If you strip away the scripts and sales techniques, could you still influence with integrity? If not, what needs to change?