How Victim Mentality Sabotages Performance
Breaking Sales
How do you respond to pressure and repeated rejection? Most sales professionals can spot a victim mentality in their colleagues instantly: the rep who blames the CRM, the veteran who insists the territory is cursed, the coworker who always has an excuse for missed quota. But recognizing when you're the one deflecting responsibility? That's where it gets difficult and uncomfortable. In this episode of Breaking Sales, Dan and Pam explore how victim mentality creeps into sales performance—not as a permanent character flaw, but as a natural response to the demanding pursuit of...
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Staying in the Game When Conversations Go Sideways
Breaking Sales
What separates the sales professionals who consistently close deals from those who accept rejection too easily isn’t charisma, product knowledge, or years of experience. It’s conversation resilience: the ability to maintain composure and curiosity when discussions take unwelcome turns. In this episode of Breaking Sales, Dan explores this critical skill. Through his personal story of landing his first coaching client after sixteen months of failures, Dan demonstrates how conversation resilience converted apparent rejection into a closed deal. You’ll discover what it actually...
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The Cost of Poor Preparation
Breaking Sales
What happens to your brain when a prospect says something you didn't expect to hear? In this episode, Dan and Kristie explore why even seasoned sales professionals can freeze up or panic when conversations take unexpected turns, and the specific preparation process that prevents it from happening. You'll learn why conversation resilience isn't about personality or experience, how top performers build mental frameworks before important meetings, and why the same principles apply whether you're in a high-stakes negotiation or making prospecting calls. This episode challenges the assumption that...
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What Do You Actually Mean By That?
Breaking Sales
Why do prospects choose competitors even when you clearly have the superior solution? In this episode, Dan and Pam uncover a critical gap that's costing sales professionals deals every day: the failure to understand what prospects actually mean by the descriptive words they use. Through real client examples and personal experiences, they reveal how making assumptions about terms like "innovative," "strategic," or "creative" leads to wasted time, missed opportunities, and lost trust. You'll discover why this seemingly simple skill creates such powerful results, the psychology behind why...
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Stop Forcing Sales Conversations
Breaking Sales
What if the secret to higher closing rates isn't better techniques, but better preparation? In this episode, Dan and Kristie break down one of the most common mistakes they’ve observed in client calls: professionals who force conversations instead of letting them unfold naturally. Drawing from extensive study of recorded sales calls, they reveal why experienced salespeople often jump too quickly to solutions, pepper prospects with lazy leading questions, and ultimately sabotage their own success. You'll learn the specific preparation techniques that build confidence to trust the conversation...
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Are You Tracking Performance or Just Hoping for the Best?
Breaking Sales
What if your sales success has more to do with luck and timing than actual skill? In this conversation, Dan and Pam tackle the uncomfortable truth that many sales professionals are operating in the dark—putting substantial effort into their pipelines without tracking the metrics that reveal whether their efforts are actually working. Pam shares her humbling story of going from a top performer to nearly losing her job when her boss moved her from a high-performing territory to the company's worst neighborhood. The result? Two months without a single sale and a harsh wake-up call that...
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Are All Nos Equal?
Breaking Sales
Are you proud of the nos you're getting? Most sales professionals celebrate any rejection as progress, but here's the uncomfortable truth: there are nos you should feel accomplished about, and then there are nos that are filled with regret. In this episode of Breaking Sales, Dan and Pam break down the critical difference between an easy no and a hard no. You'll discover why making prospects work hard isn't about being difficult—it's about being responsible, and why your role isn't to solve for prospects, but to help them figure out if there's anything worth solving for. Dan and Pam...
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Stop Making Outreach Decisions Based on How You Feel
Breaking Sales
What separates high performers from everyone else when it comes to prospecting? It's not their message, their experience, or their market. It's how they think about the activity itself. Most sales professionals make the critical mistake of allowing their feelings in the moment to dictate whether they follow through on their prospecting commitments. They convince themselves that how they feel right now—tired, unmotivated, or overwhelmed—should determine whether they make those calls or send those emails. But here's the uncomfortable truth: your best client is still out there, and they're...
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Choose Your Pain Wisely
Breaking Sales
Pain today or pain tomorrow. That should be the mantra for anyone trying to achieve or create something new and different in their life. Mark it #1 for sales professionals trying to achieve at a high level. High performance demands you pick your pain. Most sales professionals avoid the daily discomfort of prospecting, asking tough questions, and taking risks—only to experience crushing long-term regret when they miss their numbers. In this episode, Dan explores why avoiding short-term discomfort creates exponential long-term pain, how to redefine relationship selling beyond the...
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Stop Selling Today's Pain; Start Selling Tomorrow's Vision
Breaking Sales
What if the biggest factor in whether someone makes a change isn't their current pain? Most sales professionals are obsessed with the present. They dig into problems, poke at pain points, and highlight what's broken today. But Dan and Pam reveal what they're missing: human beings don't change because of where they are. They change because of where they're going. This episode explores future narrative—the art of helping prospects think beyond today's chaos and into tomorrow's clarity. You’ll hear a real client story about navigating internal politics, the psychology of regret...
info_outlineWhy do prospects choose competitors even when you clearly have the superior solution?
In this episode, Dan and Pam uncover a critical gap that's costing sales professionals deals every day: the failure to understand what prospects actually mean by the descriptive words they use. Through real client examples and personal experiences, they reveal how making assumptions about terms like "innovative," "strategic," or "creative" leads to wasted time, missed opportunities, and lost trust.
You'll discover why this seemingly simple skill creates such powerful results, the psychology behind why prospects become more engaged when you make them think critically, and the mindset shift required to resist the urge to jump into solution mode when you think you have the answers.
This isn't about asking more questions. It's about asking the right questions that help prospects define what's actually worth solving for.