Episodes

  • Almost everything modern sales teaches is backwards | Richard Spanier

    Almost everything modern sales teaches is backwards | Richard Spanier
    Jun 30 2026
    Introduction Most sales conversations about underperformance start with the wrong question. Is the messaging wrong? Is the tech stack outdated? Is the lead generation broken? Richard Spanier, author of Trust: Sales 2030 — A Field Guide to Frictionless Buying, argues that almost every assumption modern sales operates on, quotas, champions, gated content, CRM accuracy, pipeline stages, gets the buyer's reality backwards. In this episode of TheInquisitor Podcast, Marcus Cauchi presses Richard on what a genuinely frictionless buying process looks like in practice, and why he believes the systems most sales leaders rely on are built to manage the illusion of control rather than the reality of how people buy. Why This Conversation Matters Sales has spent decades optimising the seller's side of the transaction: better scripts, better cadences, better personalisation at scale. Richard's argument is that none of this addresses the underlying problem, which is that buyers do their own research, reach their own conclusions, and resent being pushed through somebody else's process. If that's true, a huge amount of sales infrastructure, from quotas to lead scoring to discovery calls, is solving the wrong problem. This conversation matters because it asks sales leaders to consider a genuinely uncomfortable possibility: that activity-based management is not just inefficient, it is actively corrosive to the thing buyers say they want most from a seller, which is trust. Guest Introduction Richard Spanier has spent 45 years in and around sales, 30 of them selling directly in the telecommunications equipment industry and 15 consulting. He has just published Trust: Sales 2030 — A Field Guide to Frictionless Buying, which sets out his case for redesigning the buying experience around the buyer's own momentum rather than the seller's targets. Major Discussion Points Sales has a trust problem, not a tech problem. Richard traces his thinking back to a client who rejected the standard personalisation playbook outright, which started him investigating why buyers were resistant in the first place. His conclusion: trust is being lost in the basic dynamic of a seller pushing and a buyer resisting. Frictionless by design. Rather than a faster funnel, Richard proposes redesigning the buying environment itself, including landing pages that let buyers build their own picture of a solution using their own inputs, with no email gate and no follow-up surveillance. Compensation built around the team, not the individual. Richard's proposal: take the profit on a deal and split it equally among everyone who touched it, from CSR to AE to sales engineer to manager. Marcus pushes this further, arguing that 20-account pods with deep account research outperform sprawling 200-account territories. Risk, not pain, is the real decision driver. Both Marcus and Richard argue that most sales methodologies focus on the supply side (pain, budget, authority, need) while ignoring the functional, social and personal risk the buyer is carrying internally, long after the seller has left the room. CRM and pipeline data are largely fiction. Richard estimates CRM accuracy at around 20 to 25 percent. Marcus argues even that may be generous, pointing out that CRM exists primarily to give management an illusion of control rather than to help sellers sell. Referrals: systematise or not? A genuine disagreement. Richard is sceptical that referrals can be systematised, arguing they have to be earned rather than requested. Marcus pushes back, describing how multi-threading and mapping a customer's wider ecosystem can make referral generation deliberate rather than accidental. Recommending the competition. Both agree that being honest about when you are the wrong vendor, and pointing the buyer elsewhere, builds more long-term trust and referral value than trying to win every deal. Practical Takeaways Stop gating content behind forms. If something is genuinely useful to a buyer, give it to them without an email capture.Track what the buyer has done in the last fortnight, not what the seller has done. Buyer-initiated movement is the real signal.Build smaller, deeply researched account pods rather than broad, shallow territories.When you are not the right fit, say so and point to who is. It is more likely to generate referrals than trying to win regardless.Stop letting "champion" stand in for "decision maker." A champion who will not defend you in the room they cannot bring you into is not a champion. Memorable Quotes "I was gobsmacked... the solutions I saw for personalisation were clumsy." "Commission breath... what is more emblematic of distrust than that?" "Stop calling a friendly contact a champion." "It's like turning the Queen Elizabeth around in the Thames." "Don't embrace rejection. You learn from it. You don't embrace it. How crazy is that?" Books and Resources Mentioned Trust: Sales 2030 — A Field Guide to Frictionless Buying by Richard SpanierManaging Up by ...
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Graphic Sales: How to Build a Prospecting Playbook With Peter Cleary and Tom Stearns

    Graphic Sales: How to Build a Prospecting Playbook With Peter Cleary and Tom Stearns
    Jun 8 2026
    What this episode is about Most salespeople are pointed at targets without being taught to think about them. That gap — between knowing who to call and understanding why it matters — is what Peter Cleary and Tom Stearns set out to close with their book Graphic Sales: How to Build a Prospecting Playbook. The book is unusual. It teaches through illustrated comic strips drawn from real sales disasters, using the Aesop's Fables principle: story first, lesson second. The goal isn't to lecture. It's to help salespeople recognise themselves, laugh at the madness, and do the work better. What Marcus, Peter, and Tom cover Ideal Customer Profile as a foundation — not a filter. The ICP chapter opens the book because everything else depends on it. ICP isn't just demographic targeting. It's understanding the four to six data attributes that signal your solution is genuinely right for a specific buyer — and then thinking critically about what those signals mean in context. Why AI won't solve poor prospecting judgement. Tom shares a cautionary story: he built an AI-assisted prospecting tool for a team, fed it the right signals, and watched conversion rates fall. The problem wasn't the data. It was that automating the research broke the reps' critical thinking. They stopped trusting the information because they hadn't processed it themselves. They started dialling without thinking. Conversion rates recovered only when the reps were given time to verify and reason about the signals themselves. Pre-call planning is a non-negotiable. Hundreds of touchpoints go into booking a meeting. Showing up without reviewing the notes, researching the company, and forming a hypothesis is a dereliction of the role — not just poor practice. The post-call debrief most organisations never do. Standardised post-call analysis is almost universally absent. Marcus describes his red-teaming process: everyone hears the call, debriefs individually, and lessons feed directly into the next pre-call plan. It's how losses become assets rather than embarrassments. Multi-threading vs single-contact selling. SDRs are frequently incentivised to book a meeting with one person and move on. The result is account executives walking into rooms they don't understand, recapping conversations the buyer has already had. Tom and Peter describe pod structures where SDRs and AEs share long-term account ownership — so the knowledge doesn't evaporate at handoff. Meeting buyers where they actually are. Marcus introduces a staged buying journey framework — from centre of dissatisfaction through passive and active looking, to deciding — and maps this against persona data. A buyer who started a new role four weeks ago is in a different conversation than one who looks like they're planning their next move. Timing, relevance, and personal value determine whether a rep gets championed internally. Honesty, pipeline integrity, and what managers actually owe their organisations. Tom shares a pipeline audit story where redefining stage criteria caused the pipeline to drop by two-thirds — and the leadership committee was relieved. Peter and Marcus discuss the cultural cost of managers who manage upwards rather than telling the truth to the people who need to act on it. Key quotes from the episode Marcus: "Haste is different from speed. Most people prospect with haste." Tom: "I don't even care about your product in the first week of onboarding. We're going to focus entirely on your buyer's world." Marcus: "Buyers don't hate being sold to. They hate being sold to badly. And more often than not, the problem isn't laziness or stupidity — it's lack of self-awareness." About the book Graphic Sales: How to Build a Prospecting Playbook by Peter Cleary and Tom Sterns. Available at all good bookstores. About The Inquisitor Podcast Hosted by Marcus Cauchi. Produced by Principled Selling. The show examines what commercial dysfunction actually looks like from the inside — and what honest, buyer-centred selling requires.
    Show More Show Less
    45 mins
  • Why Isn't ChatGPT Recommending My Business? - with Matt Gaskin

    Why Isn't ChatGPT Recommending My Business? - with Matt Gaskin
    Jun 1 2026

    In this episode of The Inquisitor Podcast, Marcus speaks with returning guest Matt Gaskin about a shift most businesses still haven’t recognised properly:

    AI search is changing how buyers discover and evaluate suppliers.

    Matt argues that your website is no longer just a marketing brochure. It is now a trust and credibility signal for AI systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, xAI Grok, and Perplexity AI.

    The conversation began after Matt shut down his Google and Facebook ads because they generated huge amounts of noise, poor-fit enquiries, and almost no conversions. That forced him to ask a difficult question:

    “If a real buyer asked AI who to recommend in my market, would my business even appear?”

    The answer was no.

    What followed was a six-month investigation into how AI systems evaluate businesses online, what creates trust signals, and why many websites unintentionally confuse both buyers and AI models.

    Marcus and Matt explore:

    • Why visibility and recommendation are not the same thing
    • How unclear messaging creates “entity drift” and confuses AI systems
    • Why FAQs, buyer answers, case studies and authority signals matter more than flashy design
    • The risks of generic “we serve everyone” positioning
    • How businesses accidentally train AI to attract the wrong customers
    • Why many websites are still built for Google’s old SEO model rather than AI recommendation engines
    • The hidden technical and strategic problems that stop businesses appearing in AI-generated shortlists
    • What founders, sales leaders and marketers should audit immediately

    Matt also explains why smaller specialist firms can still outperform larger competitors in AI search by being clearer, more specific, and more useful.

    This is not a conversation about gaming algorithms.

    It is a conversation about clarity, trust, buyer intent, and whether your digital presence genuinely reflects the value your business provides.

    If you suspect your marketing generates activity but not meaningful opportunities, this episode will probably make you uncomfortable in all the right ways.

    connect with Matt Matt Gaskin | LinkedIn

    connect with Marcus Marcus Cauchi | LinkedIn
    Show More Show Less
    49 mins
  • Why Private Equity Accountability Is In Crisis - Jay Weiser's Expert Guide to Reform and Solutions

    Why Private Equity Accountability Is In Crisis - Jay Weiser's Expert Guide to Reform and Solutions
    May 25 2026
    In this episode, Jay Weiser joins the podcast to discuss the "accountability crisis" in Private Equity (PE). They explore a common, costly cycle: boards replacing CEOs or CROs when performance dips, only to realize later that the underlying system, not the individual leader, was the true constraint. Jay shares insights on how boards can move beyond "theatrics" and "polished dashboards" to identify fragile revenue, align incentives, and foster a culture of "brains-in" engagement. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Takeaways The Visibility Trap: Leaders are often replaced because they are the most visible element of a company; however, the invisible systems—how decisions are made, how information flows, and how incentives are aligned—are what truly dictate results.The High Cost of Churn: Repeatedly swapping out C-suite leaders leads to extended hold periods and significant loss of enterprise valueInformation Friction: By the time data reaches the board, it has often been polished, filtered, and aggregated to the point that critical signals of failure (like high churn or poor sales quality) are hiddenRevenue Quality vs. Volume: Not all revenue is created equal. "Fragile revenue" from customers who are a poor fit for operations or customer success erodes multiples and makes exit stories harder to defend.The Power of Shared Ownership: Jay highlights the "Ownership Works" model, where creating a broad-based employee ownership pool can improve culture, reduce turnover, and increase exit multiples by as much as 1.5 times. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actionable Questions for Boards & Leaders To move from "passive oversight" to "active insight," Jay and Marcus suggest asking these uncomfortable but necessary questions: Would this deal survive diligence? If a buyer knew exactly what was "under the hood" regarding customer satisfaction and operational hurdles, would they still buy?Is the customer actually using the product? Don't just look at sales volume; look at activation, adoption, and time-to-value.What did we learn this week that makes our plan less certain? Reward the people who raise risks early rather than those who try to "rescue" a failing deal at the last minute.Are we "prosecuting the person" or the "argument"? Ensure the culture allows for constructive challenge without individuals feeling attacked or silenced. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leading Indicators to Watch Customer Activation/Adoption Rates: Are they sporadic or consistentTime to Value: How long does it take for a customer to report they received the value they intended?Incentive Alignment: Are salespeople paid for volume alone, or is compensation tied to customer duration and team success?The "So What" Test: Does the information in the board pack actually inform a decision, or is it just "history" you can't act on? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Featured Quotes "If you're swapping out the leader, but the system stays the same, you're going to get the results that the system allows to be produced." — Jay Weiser "Boards don't make bad decisions because they're stupid. They make bad decisions because confidence in the story outruns the evidence." — Marcus Cauchi -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Jay Weiser LinkedIn: Jay WeiserEmail: jay@jayweiser.comWebsite: Uncover. Unlock. Unleash.℠ Growth and Value | Jay Weiser Consulting Marcus Cauchi's Closing Advice: Before you back the next plan, test the evidence behind it. If you want to know where value is fragile or real, reach out for a five-day evidence check.
    Show More Show Less
    51 mins
  • Reed Nyffeler on Leadership, Legacy, and the Long Game

    Reed Nyffeler on Leadership, Legacy, and the Long Game
    May 19 2026
    Most leaders say they're playing the long game. Their decisions tell a different story. In this episode, Marcus Cauchi sits down with Reed Nyffeler — entrepreneur, operator, franchise builder, and author of Lead Exponentially — for an honest conversation about the structural and psychological forces that keep leaders trapped in short-term thinking, even when they know better. Reed has spent 20 years building businesses across the security and franchising industries, scaling through other leaders rather than despite them. He's also made the mistakes worth learning from — keeping underperformers too long, needing outside capital, and watching what happens when ego replaces judgment. This conversation goes well beyond the usual leadership content. Marcus and Reed dig into ego as a performance constraint, the mechanics of trust (and its measurable absence), what distinguishes stewardship from control, and how organisations systematically destroy value while believing they're protecting it. What You'll Hear in This Episode The vacation vs. the lunchtime decision Reed's analogy for why most leaders run their businesses like a hungry person looking for the nearest restaurant — rather than someone planning a trip to a destination they've already chosen. The four mental positions leaders occupy Wrong and alone. Right and alone. Wrong together. Right together. Why "right and alone" is more dangerous than it sounds, and what it does to leadership judgment. Conflict avoidance as structural risk The difference between conflict worth having and conflict not worth the effort — and what happens when leaders consistently confuse the two. Reed's road infrastructure analogy is one of the cleaner illustrations of compounding organisational dysfunction you'll hear. What pressure actually reveals Under pressure, most leaders revert to protecting their ego rather than making the right call. Marcus connects this directly to the mechanics of sales forecasting — the commit culture fiction, CRM as seller-centric fantasy, and the 90% of committed deals that don't close when or how anyone said they would. The extraction problem Where growth stops being about value creation and becomes about value extraction — from customers, from staff, from the brand itself. Southwest Airlines and Patagonia as case studies in opposite directions. Trust as a measurable asset Marcus has spent seven years working out how to measure trust. Reed has spent 20 years building businesses on it. The questions they both agree matter: Do people believe in your judgment? Do you do what you said? Do people feel safe telling you the truth? Do they believe you care more about the right outcome than protecting yourself? Outside capital and how to enter it wisely Reed needed outside capital — he didn't want it. What he did differently was enter with a clear exit plan and structure financing that let him grow faster as an asset than the capital was growing as a claim. Practical thinking for anyone considering investor relationships. Stewardship vs. control vs. consumption Three distinct leadership orientations. The consumer takes resources. The controller distributes them on their terms. The steward creates more. Reed's cookies analogy is the simplest version of this distinction you'll find anywhere. What leaders miss when developing other leaders The difference between directing and developing. Why telling people what to do creates followers, not leaders — and why the "why" and "how" have to come first. Referenced in This Episode Lead Exponentially — Reed NyffelerTransform Through Purpose — Reed NyffelerBrand New (forthcoming, summer 2026) — Reed NyffelerSouthwest Airlines, Chick-fil-A, Apple, Patagonia, Amazon, Google — as case studies in differentiation, drift, and durable brand buildingSteve Jobs / BlackBerry — on designing the product customers don't yet know they wantOracle mass layoffs — on value extraction vs. value creationMartin Luther King Jr. — on credibility earned through action, not instruction Key Takeaways Leaders are governed by emotion when they should be governed by outcome. Asking "what does the business need?" rather than "what do I want to do?" is a discipline, not a personality trait.Ego is only ever satisfied in the short term. Any decision made primarily to protect perception — in a forecast, a performance conversation, or a customer relationship — is a decision borrowed against the future.Trust has a measurable absence. You may not be able to put a precise number on it, but you can watch it leave through customer attrition, underperformance tolerance, and a culture where it's safer to massage the numbers than tell the truth.Stewardship means creating more opportunity, not distributing a fixed amount of it. The franchise model either extracts from its franchisees or invests in them. The same is true of any organisation at every level.
    Show More Show Less
    53 mins
  • From Farm Boy to Financially Free: Ron Kmetovicz on Multiple Revenue Streams, Ghost Accounts, and Why Your Emotions Are Your Biggest Market Risk

    From Farm Boy to Financially Free: Ron Kmetovicz on Multiple Revenue Streams, Ghost Accounts, and Why Your Emotions Are Your Biggest Market Risk
    May 18 2026
    What if financial independence isn't a number — it's a system? In this episode, Marcus sits down with Ron Kmetovicz — engineer, entrepreneur, and author of Ghost Money the Book — to dig into what financial independence actually looks like, why most people sabotage themselves before the market gets a chance to, and the deceptively simple strategy Ron has used across three generations of his family. At 78, Ron has weathered the dot-com crash, multiple market corrections, and decades of financial noise. His verdict? The strategy is simpler than the finance industry wants you to believe — and the biggest risk isn't the market. It's you. What We Cover Redefining financial independence — why it's not a number ($2 million, $5 million) but a structure: multiple revenue streams that don't all depend on the same thingThe ghost account — Ron's core concept: a separate savings vehicle you start building in your teens, contribute to consistently, and largely ignoreWhen to start — why Ron targets 8th to 10th graders and what a 16-year-old saving 20% of a part-time wage can realistically accumulate before finishing high schoolThe 60/40 strategy — why a balanced fund (60% stocks, 40% bonds), consistently funded monthly, beats most active trading approaches over a lifetimeS&P 500 ETFs explained — what they are, why Ron recommends them for those who can tolerate volatility, and what the long-run return data actually showsWhy you shouldn't pick individual stocks — unless you have the mathematical and business training to do fundamental analysis, individual stock picking is a losing gameThe dot-com crash as a case study — what happened to investors who bought at the peak, how long recovery took, and why those who stayed the course still came out aheadBehaviours to abandon — Ron's frank take on the seven deadly sins as financial destroyers: greed, sloth, gluttony, lust, wrath, envy, and prideFear, panic, and missed opportunity — the emotional triad that drives people to sell at the bottom and buy into the bubbleOwning your home outright as a revenue stream — why Ron counts a mortgage-free home as a genuine component of financial independenceThe equity release trap — who benefits when you unlock your home equity (hint: not you), and the generational wealth implications for millennials and Gen ZWhat people are really chasing — the conversation gets honest about the difference between managing money and managing anxiety, status, and fear through moneyStaying the course — why discipline, not strategy, is the variable that separates those who get there from those who don't Key Takeaway Financial independence isn't about hitting a magic number. It's about building multiple revenue streams — starting as early as possible, saving consistently, investing simply, and having the discipline to stay in when everything in you wants to get out. Ghost Money: The Pathway to Financial Independence eBook : Kmetovicz, Ronald: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
    Show More Show Less
    55 mins
  • Andy Weins: The Words Your Sales Team Uses Are Costing You Deals

    Andy Weins: The Words Your Sales Team Uses Are Costing You Deals
    Apr 20 2026
    Most sales leaders invest in process, technology, and training. Almost none of them invest in the one lever that silently controls all three: the language their people use — out loud and in their own heads. Andy Weins has spent 20+ years in the military as a mass resiliency trainer, built a business from scratch, and studied the neuroscience and psychology of how the words we choose wire our behaviour. In this episode, he and Marcus Cauchi go deep on the specific phrases that signal avoidance, underperformance, and self-sabotage, and the language patterns that drive ownership, execution, and results. If you lead a sales team or run a company, this is not a soft conversation about mindfulness. It is a diagnostic tool. By the end, you will recognise the exact words your team uses when they are not going to close the deal, and you will know what to replace them with. Why This Matters Every sales team has what looks like a pipeline problem, a skills problem, or a market problem. Often it is a language problem in disguise. When your salespeople say "I just wanted to follow up," they are signalling low value before they have even started. When they say "I should call that account," they are parking it indefinitely. When they say "we need more leads," they are frequently deflecting accountability for what they already have. The language your team uses in CRM notes, forecast calls, and customer conversations is data. It tells you who is owning their number and who is performing learned helplessness. This episode gives you the framework to hear that signal clearly. Key Themes and Takeaways 1. Blame, Excuse, and Denial: The Three Default Failure Modes Andy opens with a concept drawn from Brené Brown's work on shame: when there is a gap between what we want and what we have, the brain defaults to one of three responses — blame, excuse, or denial — because they require the least cognitive effort. In sales, this shows up as: Blame: "The prospect went dark." "Marketing isn't generating quality leads." "The economy is tough."Excuse: "I didn't have time to prep." "The deck wasn't ready."Denial: "I didn't really want that account anyway." The correction Andy offers is deceptively simple: ask "Where is my DNA in this?" Even if you are 1% responsible for a poor outcome, claiming that 1% shifts you from passenger to driver. For sales leaders running deal reviews, that question, where is your DNA in this?, is worth installing as a standard. 2. "Just" and "But": The Two Words That Kill Credibility Before You've Started Marcus flags two words that most people use dozens of times a day without realising their cost: "Just" — minimises what follows. "I'm just calling to check in" communicates low value, low confidence, and low intent. Andy's framing: just justifies the nonsense that's about to happen. Train your team to remove it entirely from outreach language. Not "I just wanted to reach out" — "I'm calling because..." "But" — cancels everything before it. "Great work on that proposal, but..." means the compliment is noise. Two conflicting ideas, only one of which is true: the one that comes after but. In coaching conversations with reps, this matters. In customer conversations, it is fatal. These are not stylistic preferences. They are trust and credibility signals that prospects and internal stakeholders pick up subconsciously. 3. The Difference Between a Desire and an Expectation — and Why It Determines Whether You Hit Target Andy draws a sharp distinction that has direct application to how sales leaders manage their teams and how salespeople manage their customers: An expectation is what you want from someone else. It sets you up for resentment, conflict, and passivity — because other people are not here to meet your expectations. A desire is what you want. It is owned. It creates agency, because the question that follows is what are you willing to do to get it? In sales management, the difference sounds like this: Expectation: "My reps should be hitting 80% of quota by Q2."Desire: "I want a team hitting 80% by Q2. What am I prepared to do to coach, structure, and resource them to get there?" The second version puts you back in the problem. That is where leverage lives. 4. "Need" vs "Want": Why Needs Create Victims and Wants Create Agency Drawing on Dan Sullivan's 10x Is Easier Than 2x, Andy argues that needs are a trap. When you say "I need a six-figure salary" or "we need more pipeline," you are constructing a prison: a world where survival is contingent on something outside your control, which justifies inaction when that thing doesn't arrive. Wants work differently. "I want more pipeline" immediately opens the question: what are you willing to do to generate it? The conflict becomes internal — which want is greater, your want for comfort or your want for results? — and internal conflict is where growth happens. For founders: audit the language in your strategy meetings. Count how many times ...
    Show More Show Less
    49 mins
  • Ryan Berman - Risk to Relationship in B2B Sales, Procurement Strategy and Total Cost of Ownership

    Ryan Berman - Risk to Relationship in B2B Sales, Procurement Strategy and Total Cost of Ownership
    Apr 17 2026

    In this episode of The Inquisitor Podcast, Marcus Cauchi and Ryan Burman discuss procurement in B2B sales, buyer psychology, total cost of ownership, and how sales teams can build trust with procurement instead of fighting it.

    The discussion reframes procurement as a risk management function rather than a price cutting function.

    Ryan explains that successful sales teams focus less on persuasion and more on aligning with how procurement evaluates suppliers, especially around risk, reliability, and total cost of ownership.

    This episode is relevant for sales leaders, account executives, and commercial teams working in complex B2B sales environments where procurement plays a key role in decision making.

    Key Topics Covered

    * Procurement in B2B sales and how it influences buying decisions

    * Buyer psychology and how procurement evaluates supplier risk

    * Total cost of ownership (TCO) vs ROI in procurement decisions

    * Sales and procurement alignment in enterprise and mid-market deals

    * How to build trust with procurement teams in B2B selling

    * Why co-creation improves sales outcomes compared to traditional pitching

    * Common sales mistakes when dealing with procurement teams

    * How procurement manages risk, continuity, and supplier reliability Key

    Takeaways

    Procurement is focused on risk management

    Procurement teams prioritise reducing operational and commercial risk, not just lowering costs.

    Buyer decision making is driven by risk

    Suppliers are evaluated on whether they reduce uncertainty or introduce it.

    Total cost of ownership matters more than ROI

    Procurement considers long-term costs including quality, supply chain stability, and maintenance.

    Co-creation improves sales success Building solutions with procurement leads to stronger alignment and higher win rates.

    Trust is the deciding factor Buyers prioritise predictability and reduced internal risk over lowest price.

    Key Insight for Sales Teams

    In B2B sales, every deal must satisfy three buyer needs:

    * Functional, does the solution work

    * Social, how it impacts internal stakeholders

    * Emotional, whether it reduces personal and career risk

    Ryan Burman is the founder of Pitch to Procure and creator of the First to Pitch methodology. He helps sales and procurement teams improve alignment, negotiation outcomes, and supplier relationships in complex B2B sales environments.

    Key Quote “The first transaction is not the win. The first transaction is the test of trust. Pass that test and even if you don’t get a deal, you can get a customer for life.” Marcus Cauchi

    Ryan Berman | LinkedIn

    Marcus Cauchi | LinkedIn
    Show More Show Less
    44 mins