In this episode, Mark and Alex break down qualification and why it comes down to two things: fit and value. Get those right and your win rates, deal sizes and retention all climb. Get them wrong and you end up with a bloated pipeline full of deals living on hope. They get into treating qualification as a continuous two-way process, the "should we be talking, should we keep talking" test, digging past the business case to the personal stakes that actually drive a decision, and the criteria that tell you whether a buyer is genuinely worth your time, including Alex's four questions for deciding where your effort should go.

Plus why the value of what you sell is only ever what the buyer says it is, and why "we don't need it for a few months" is often a red flag.

Useful if your pipeline is full of deals that never close, your team keeps asking for closing training, or you're pouring time into opportunities you were never going to win.

Modern sales thinking for SME leaders.

In this episode, Mark and Alex share their best experience and approaches to handling objections professionally, in a way that doesn't manipulate buyers into buying but instead seeks to add value to their thought process, and leaves both parties feeling good about it.

Useful for anyone selling or leading a sales team to get this sort of mindset across to your team.

Modern sales thinking for SME leaders.

In this first episode, Mark and Alex each bring their own list of the personality traits that predict who succeeds in sales, and compare notes for the first time.

They get into belief in cause, resilience under knockbacks, the discipline to do the unglamorous work, a real drive to learn, and the rapport that makes a buyer open up. Plus why your best people are rarely the ones chasing the money, and why the smartest person in the room is usually your customer.

Useful if you're hiring, moving people into sales, or auditing a team to see who would benefit from coaching.

Modern sales thinking for SME leaders.