In this episode of In The Call, Howard Steinberg explains why the traditional discovery call no longer works. Today's buyers come prepared — they've done the research and know their options — and the sellers who win aren't the ones who control the conversation, but the ones who respect the buyer's time and truly listen. Howard makes the case that modern sales is about insight, curiosity, and real dialogue.

In this episode:

• Why today's buyers show up more informed than ever
• Why controlling the conversation is the wrong goal
• How listening first and leading with value builds trust
• Why trust — not persuasion — is what actually wins deals

Connect with Howard Steinberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hsteinberg/

🎙️ In The Call — Real conversations about what happens when the camera's on and the stakes are high. Subscribe for weekly episodes with sales leaders who've been in the room. 👉 Learn more about Nayak: nayak.ai

For the first time on In The Call, two seasoned buyers pull back the curtain on what's actually happening on their side of the table. Christine Templin has spent her career buying and evaluating engineering and operations tools for Fortune 100 companies including Apple, Twitter, and NTT America. Heather Hansma brings her own deep experience from the buyer's seat, evaluating and purchasing tools for Fortune 100 companies including Wells Fargo and Twilio. Together, they break down the frustration, the signals, and the moments a deal is silently lost.

In this episode:

• Why feature dumping kills deals before they start
• What happens internally when a buyer doesn't feel heard
• The reliability and uptime conversation that should have been simple — and wasn't
• What it actually takes to earn a buyer's trust

Connect with Christine Templin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinetemplin/

🎙️ In The Call — Real conversations about what happens when the camera's on and the stakes are high. Subscribe for weekly episodes with sales leaders who've been in the room. 👉 Learn more about Nayak: nayak.ai

In this episode, we sit down with Eytan Urbas to unpack what's actually happening on the revenue side of the house as AI reshapes the sales landscape. We dig into why complex, bespoke sales processes still demand real human judgment, empathy, and relationship-building — and why the current AI moment is less "gold rush" and more picks and shovels.

In this episode:

• Why ghosting isn't rejection — it's data
• The "indefinite maybe": the quiet cycle-killer hiding in your pipeline
• Why hard questions from prospects are intent signals, not objections
• Why great questions — not a great pitch — are what win deals

Connect with Eytan Urbas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eurbas/

🎙️ In The Call — Real conversations about what happens when the camera's on and the stakes are high. Subscribe for weekly episodes with sales leaders who've been in the room. 👉 Learn more about Nayak: nayak.ai

In this episode, Jean sits down with Jeff Wishner, Director of Business Development at Judge Learning Solutions, to dig into what it actually takes to build relationships in an era where silence is the default response.

In this episode:

• Why persistence isn't annoying — it's necessary
• Why ghosting isn't personal, and how to make yourself worth responding to
• Why doing your research before you hit send is the difference between deleted and replied
• What to do when your outreach is getting ignored

\

Connect with Jeff Wishner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffwishner/

🎙️ In The Call — Real conversations about what happens when the camera's on and the stakes are high. Subscribe for weekly episodes with sales leaders who've been in the room. 👉 Learn more about Nayak: nayak.ai

In this episode, Nayak CEO Jean Templin sits down with Bob Healy, Chief Commercial Officer at Prelude Solutions and a sales veteran who literally took Jean door-knocking back when SDRs still hit the pavement. They dig into what's changed, what hasn't, and where AI fits into the modern sales motion.

In this episode:

• The science vs. art divide in sales, and where AI plays a role
• Why post-call review tools are just the beginning
• Real-time coaching vs. retrospective feedback
• Emotional intelligence as the irreplaceable edge
• Bob's take on the tools in his current stack (including Nayak)

Connect with Bob Healy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobhealey/

🎙️ In The Call — Real conversations about what happens when the camera's on and the stakes are high. Subscribe for weekly episodes with sales leaders who've been in the room. 👉 Learn more about Nayak: nayak.ai

In this episode, we dig into how AI is changing the sales conversation from both sides of the table — reps showing up more prepared than ever, and buyers doing the same. Patty Matwijeci makes the case that the real unlock isn't AI replacing the rep, it's AI clearing the busywork out of the way so the rep can actually sell.

In this episode:

• How AI helps reps walk into calls more prepared
• How AI is changing buyers too — and raising the bar on both sides
• Automating the CRM updates nobody misses
• The real ingredients of a trusted buyer relationship: showing up, listening, honesty, matching tone, and being human
• Why feedback is objective, not subjective — and why rejection is data, not a verdict

Connect with Patty Matwijeci: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattymatwijec/

🎙️ In The Call — Real conversations about what happens when the camera's on and the stakes are high. Subscribe for weekly episodes with sales leaders who've been in the room. 👉 Learn more about Nayak: nayak.ai

In this episode, Nayak COO Heather sits down with sales advisor, CRO, author, and rapper David Morse to break down what it actually takes for founders to run a great first sales call. Founders selling for the first time face a unique set of challenges — no brand recognition, no proof points, sometimes not even an established category for what they're selling — but prospects are often more willing to take a meeting with a founder than a typical salesperson.

In this episode:

• Why founders sometimes have an edge over traditional sales reps — and how to use it
• The three buckets of sales mistakes founders make: talking, asking, and arguing
• How to open a call without centering yourself in the story
• How to handle demo requests the right way
• A simple way to turn objections into trust
• Why disqualifying a bad-fit deal is a win, not a loss

Connect with David Morse: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yodavidmorse/

🎙️ In The Call — Real conversations about what happens when the camera's on and the stakes are high. Subscribe for weekly episodes with sales leaders who've been in the room. 👉 Learn more about Nayak: nayak.ai

Heather Hansma sits down with NYU Associate Professor Emily Balcetis, author of Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World, to unpack the psychology behind one of the most frustrating experiences in sales, recruiting, and relationships. 70% of salespeople say they've been ghosted by a prospect. 70% of companies say the same about job candidates.

In this episode:

• What ghosting really is, psychologically speaking
• Early behavioral signs that someone may be about to ghost
• The role of wishful thinking and base rates in how we read signals
• Why tough questions and price pushback often signal investment, not disengagement
• How to stress-test a relationship or deal without being confrontational

Connect with Emily Balcetis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Balcetis

🎙️ In The Call — Real conversations about what happens when the camera's on and the stakes are high. Subscribe for weekly episodes with sales leaders who've been in the room. 👉 Learn more about Nayak: nayak.ai

Reading a buying signal has always been part instinct, part pattern recognition — knowing when someone's ready, what channel they prefer, what they actually care about. That's gotten harder as meetings have moved from in-person to video, and it's especially unforgiving for salespeople masking fatigue, distraction, or neurodivergence behind a "performative" role. But there's an upside: AI can now shoulder some of that cognitive load, turning scattered data into clear, repeatable signals about who to reach out to and how.

Anne and Jean get tactical about exactly how. Anne walks through her go-to move: exporting your LinkedIn connections and having Claude analyze and stress-test your ideal client profile (ICP), comparing your own description of your ICP against the data, sorting prospects into groups, and even simulating how each group might respond to a DM. She pairs that with her "Dossier Extreme" prompt, a standing routine that builds an increasingly enriched profile on every prospect or donor over time. Jean shares his own version of the tactic, clustering inbound leads against his ICP and uncovering that his business was skewing toward larger accounts and an unexpected healthcare vertical. They also dig into Moxie, the AI platform Anne is building to prioritize donor outreach using real relationship and propensity data instead of outdated, one-dimensional wealth ratings.

The through-line for the whole conversation: know your people better than the data everyone else is using. The best salespeople and fundraisers don't let AI replace the relationship — they use it to strip out the guesswork, surface the right next move, and build in the small follow-up habits that get lost under pressure.

What you'll learn:

Why sales and fundraising run on the same skill , reading buying signals and why that's gotten harder on video How to export your LinkedIn data and use AI to validate or challenge your ICP Anne's "Dossier Extreme" prompt for building enriched, ever-growing prospect and donor profiles Why traditional wealth-rating data is outdated — and what to track instead Inside Moxie: an AI tool that prioritizes outreach using leading indicators, not lagging ones How She Leads AI's free "Social Saturdays" build AI skills and community for women in the field

Watch to learn how AI can sharpen your prospecting, your donor relationships, and the way you read the room — whether that room is in person or on Zoom.

Connect with Anne Murphy: LinkedIn: search "Anne Murphy" + "She Leads AI" She Leads AI (free Social Saturdays, every Saturday 10am–12pm Pacific): sheleadsai.ai

#AI #SalesTactics #Fundraising #Prospecting #ICP #AIforSales #SheLeadsAI #InTheCall