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97. How to hire sellers that take full ownership of their number
23:31||Ep. 97How do you hire sellers that take full ownership of their number? Sean Malkin leads the enterprise sales team at RTB House. He has spent about 12 years in ad tech and built out four different teams, and he's now hiring for 2027.When Sean joined RTB House 18 months ago, he sat down with the MD and looked at what had gone wrong in the past. The pattern was sellers from really great companies, big names, that hadn't worked out. What they wanted instead was "more perseverance over polish".James shares the mis-hire that taught him "experience doesn't always equal success". At Staff Circle they had raised 3 or 4 million, and an enterprise AE from an HR tech business that had raised hundreds of millions applied. They skipped some of the steps, paid him more than they should have, and he really struggled. Staff Circle still grew from 10 or 12 customers to 175 during the pandemic, and James had never sold HR tech before.JOIN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS (FREE) The full interview, plus free courses on sales leadership, discovery, cold calling and more, lives in our members area. It's completely free to join: https://learn.therevenueenabler.com/join?invitation_token=6f06d808423fed4f1419011bf64fe55dea1a6530-29b980f5-f825-4e5f-9867-3efc524f7276In this episode:Sean's order when he hires: mindset first, then characteristics and skill set, and the industry and product as the nice to haveWhy he looks for two years plus at each company when enterprise sales cycles run eight, nine months, a year and a halfThe one question that tests for ownership: "When did you fail?" There are only two answers. You look externally or you look internally.The self-awareness test: "What was the last piece of constructive feedback that you had from a manager?" Last week a candidate gave him silence for 10, 15 seconds.Why James asks a candidate who says they're top for win rate to send a screenshot from SalesforceCase studies built with Claude, and why James now says "just show me a prompt or show me the agent that you built"James's stage two interview at BT: the elevator's out, 50 floors of stairs, three managers playing three stakeholders and 15 minutes to prepSean's answer to "how do you think I did?" at the end of an interview, and his second chance questionWhy Sean never reads CVs but always reads LinkedIn**Mentioned** Follow Sean Malkin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanmalkin8/ RTB House is hiring an account exec for 2027: https://www.rtbhouse.com/careers Amp It Up by Frank Slootman (the book Sean recommends to any sales leader) Business Wars (the podcast Sean got into during COVID) Field Notes, James's other podcast @fieldnotespodcast **Work with The Revenue Enabler** Sales Performance Blueprint: find out which skills are costing you commission and get a personalised 90-day plan to close the gaps. therevenueenabler.com/blueprint Send us 3 calls. We'll show you where your team is losing deals. therevenueenabler.com/team-training Subscribe to Hit Your Numbers for more conversations like this one.
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96. Win the Day: Habits and Money Rules for Sellers
33:00||Ep. 96The best salespeople don't rely on motivation. They build systems that make winning the day almost automatic.In his third appearance on Hit Your Numbers, Mark Burrett joins James Bissell for an honest conversation about the habits behind consistent performance, and then something most sales content never touches, what to actually do with the money once you've earned it.Steal one habit and one money rule and put them to work this week.JOIN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS (FREE)The full interview, plus free courses on cold calling, discovery, demos and more, lives in our members area. It's completely free to join: https://learn.therevenueenabler.com/join?invitation_token=6f06d808423fed4f1419011bf64fe55dea1a6530-29b980f5-f825-4e5f-9867-3efc524f7276KEY THEMESWhy systems beat motivation for consistent performanceSelf-awareness and having an honest dialogue with yourselfTreating prospecting discipline like a daily habitKeeping lists short so nothing gets lostThe 33% rule: long-term, liquid and fun moneyTaking control of pensions and setting clear financial goalsMORE ABOUT JAMESJames Bissell, two times VP of Sales and founder of The Revenue Enabler.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bissell1/Website: https://www.therevenueenabler.comMORE ABOUT MARKMark Burrett, Growth Director at HubWorx, back for his third appearance.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markburretthubworx/The money discussion is shared from experience, not financial advice. Do what's right for your own situation.New episodes every week on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.#sales #salestips #salestraining #salesmotivation #b2bsales #salescoaching #habits #productivity #personalfinance #salesleadership #saassales #mindset #moneytips #prospecting #hityournumbers
95. Mastering Onsite Workshops to Build Consensus and Win Complex Deals
38:22||Ep. 95Most sellers try to win complex deals over video calls with one or two contacts. The best ones get everyone in a room.In this episode of Hit Your Numbers, James Bissell sits down with Laura McDonald, who spent seven years selling one of the most complex, multi-threaded products in the noisy AI analytics space at ThoughtSpot, and just closed on 305% of her annual number.Laura breaks down how she uses onsite workshops to read the politics in the room, qualify her real champion, and build the cross-functional consensus that moves big deals forward. You'll get two real examples, one that closed and one that showed her early it never would, plus her exact playbook for planning the session, running the room and mapping the power base behind the org chart.If you sell into committees and your deals keep stalling, this is the edge. Steal one idea and use it on your next deal.JOIN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS (FREE)We hold some of the best bits back for members. The full interview, plus free courses on discovery, demos, cold calling and more, lives in our members area. It's completely free to join: https://learn.therevenueenabler.com/join?invitation_token=6f06d808423fed4f1419011bf64fe55dea1a6530-29b980f5-f825-4e5f-9867-3efc524f7276KEY THEMESWhy in-person workshops reveal the politics video calls hideQualifying your real champion, not just your nicest contactPushing for the onsite early as a gate in your processOne-to-ones before the room so nothing surprises youGiving every stakeholder a role and a moment to speakThe org chart versus the invisible power baseMORE ABOUT JAMESLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bissell1/Website: https://www.therevenueenabler.comMORE ABOUT LAURALinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-mcdonald-79b814130/New episodes every week on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.#sales #salestips #salestraining #b2bsales #salesleadership #enterprisesales #salescoaching #closing #saassales #dealstrategy #multithreading #consensusselling #meddpicc #hityournumbers #salespodcast
94. How the top 1% make cold calls
37:02||Ep. 94Gabe Lullo's team has run 4,800 cold calling campaigns across 1,600 B2B companies. If anyone has earned the right to teach cold calling, it's him.In this episode of Hit Your Numbers, James Bissell gets Gabe back for a full masterclass on how the top 1% actually book meetings. They cover the anatomy of a great cold call, why you have to sound like your buyer, the questions that earn instant credibility, and a brilliant way to close the call by selling a subject matter expert.They also tackle the classics: the "three things" trap, "send me an email", and "we're already doing this with someone else".James said he finished this one so fired up he wanted to fly to the US and spend a day cold calling with Gabe's team. Steal one idea and use it on your next call.JOIN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS (FREE)We hold some of the best bits back. The full interview, where Gabe shares the real secrets behind their recipe, plus free courses on cold calling, outbound email, discovery and more, lives in our members area. It's completely free to join: https://learn.therevenueenabler.com/join?invitation_token=6f06d808423fed4f1419011bf64fe55dea1a6530-29b980f5-f825-4e5f-9867-3efc524f7276KEY THEMESWhy nobody is really "sales-resistant"Sounding like your buyer, not like a scriptThe who, how, what order most teams get backwardsLeading questions that build credibility fastSelling the expert to kill no-showsTaking list building off your SDRs so they can sellMORE ABOUT JAMESJames Bissell, two times VP of Sales and founder of The Revenue Enabler.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bissell1/Website: https://www.therevenueenabler.comMORE ABOUT GABEGabe Lullo, CEO of Alleyoop, running cold calling and prospecting at scale for B2B teams.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lullo/New episodes every week on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.#coldcalling #sdr #outbound #salesprospecting #b2bsales #salesdevelopment #coldcall #saassales #salestraining #objectionhandling #salestips #bookmoremeetings #gtm #hityournumbers #salespodcast
93. Two sales leaders forecast the sale deal and got different results
30:52||Ep. 93Less than 11% of businesses have truly deployed AI. Most have handed everyone a ChatGPT licence and called it a strategy.In this episode of Hit Your Numbers, James Bissell sits down with Matt Bruce, founder of Moree, to unpack where AI genuinely moves the needle in sales today, and where teams are wasting their time.They get into pipeline inspection, forecasting accuracy, the intelligence layer every business needs before it automates anything, and the quick wins that hand hours back to your reps and leaders every single week.If your forecast is guesswork and your reps are drowning in manual CRM admin, this one is for you. Steal one idea and put it to work this week.JOIN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS (FREE)We don't release the full interview here. The extra large version, plus free cold call, discovery, demo, business case and sales leadership training, lives in our members area. It's completely free to join: https://learn.therevenueenabler.com/join?invitation_token=6f06d808423fed4f1419011bf64fe55dea1a6530-29b980f5-f825-4e5f-9867-3efc524f7276KEY THEMESWhy an AI licence is not an AI strategyGetting forecasting consistent before you automate itFixing data capture so it's "one version of the truth"Using AI as a guided selling system, not a Thursday deal reviewBuilding the intelligence layer that makes AI write and think like youAuditing manual work to find the hours hiding in your weekMORE ABOUT JAMESJames Bissell, two times VP of Sales and founder of The Revenue Enabler.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bissell1/Website: https://www.therevenueenabler.comMORE ABOUT MATTMatt Bruce, founder of Moree, helping companies drive pipeline and revenue with AI.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-bruce-33b4863/https://moree.io/New episodes every week on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.#salesAI #forecasting #pipelinemanagement #b2bsales #salesleadership #revenueoperations #saassales #salesenablement #aiinsales #salesprocess #gtm #hityournumbers #salespodcast #crm #salescoaching
92. 60% of B2B buyers suffer from buyers remorse
32:00||Ep. 92Jake Newbury gets pitched more than his own customers do. And nearly every pitch opens with 15 minutes of what could go wrong if he doesn't buy. He already knows the risk. So does your buyer. This episode is about what to do instead.🔒 THIS IS THE FREE EDITION. The full conversation between Jake Newbury and James Bissell is available on our members platform, free to join, alongside a full sales course and a library of sales resources. Create your free account to unlock the complete episode: https://learn.therevenueenabler.com/join?invitation_token=6f06d808423fed4f1419011bf64fe55dea1a6530-29b980f5-f825-4e5f-9867-3efc524f7276Jake Newbury is Head of Sales at SEP2, a UK cybersecurity managed security services provider. He started as a cold caller in his parents' loft nearly 10 years ago and now runs the sales and marketing functions across a 100-plus person business, with a sales team of 25. In his second appearance on the podcast, he and James Bissell get into value engineering: finding what the buyer's business is trying to achieve, what the champion wants personally, and showing them how you get them there.It's a tactical, honest conversation about selling outcomes over fear, and building a business case the CFO can't say no to.KEY THEMES- Why FUD selling is lazy, and what to replace it with- Value engineering: business outcomes over features and fear- How cybersecurity can drive revenue, not just reduce risk- Why you get delegated to the person you sound most like- Enabling your champion to speak the CFO's language- Honesty and authority: putting the PO date on the table early- Why being willing to walk away wins more enterprise deals- The two-word response that gets buyers trashing their current tool- Connecting every capability back to a business outcome to rig the game- How AI search is changing how buyers find vendorsMORE ABOUT JAMES- Host: James Bissell, founder of The Revenue Enabler- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bissell1/- Website: https://www.therevenueenabler.comMORE ABOUT JAKE- Guest: Jake Newbury, Head of Sales at SEP2- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakenewbury/
91. How the top 1% of sellers run discovery calls
39:17||Ep. 91If your discovery calls create activity but no momentum, this episode is the reset. Most reps leave discovery with a list of things the buyer wants and a pipeline full of deals that were never real.This is the Free Edition. The full, unedited conversation between Kevin "KD" Dorsey and James Bissell lives in Behind Closed Doors, our members-only content, where you can watch the complete recording and hear every question and answer in full. Create a free account to unlock it: https://learn.therevenueenabler.com/join?invitation_token=fb0b994baab003bc6b714ffbc3282b9a73e129b4-1c9c314c-2a97-4fdf-bffb-535222cdd806Kevin "KD" Dorsey has built startup sales teams for 16 years, trained Snowflake, HubSpot, Atlassian, and Databricks, and unusually for a trainer, still does the job. He joins James Bissell to break down the three mistakes that inflate pipeline and kill deals: asking questions you could have Googled, confusing qualification with discovery, and collecting wants instead of getting problem agreement.They go deep on KD's bucket question, how to make it safe for a buyer to admit the problem, and how tonality makes it land as a poll rather than a trap. Plus how to turn a stated want into a lack, why you should make the status quo undesirable instead of pain-selling, and how to earn the next step with a "might make sense" agreement.If you want discovery that produces urgency, clarity, and a clean next step, start here.In this episode:- The three discovery mistakes that inflate pipeline and kill deals- Why qualification is not discovery, and the difference that matters- Turning a stated want into a lack to reach problem agreement- Make the status quo undesirable, and why pain-selling backfires- The bucket question and the psychology that makes buyers open up- Tonality: landing a question as a poll, not a trap- Suggestive leads and showing you know the buyer's world- Using AI to build a discovery hypothesis, and why customers come first- The six things to capture before earning a next step- Selling through questions and the "so that" frameworkGet free access to the full Behind Closed Doors recording: https://learn.therevenueenabler.com/join?invitation_token=fb0b994baab003bc6b714ffbc3282b9a73e129b4-1c9c314c-2a97-4fdf-bffb-535222cdd806Connect with Kevin "KD" Dorsey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kddorsey3/Connect with James Bissell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bissell1/Hit Your Numbers, all episodes: https://www.therevenueenabler.com/podcast