The Gold Standard of Sales Performance
Breaking Sales
The same drive that gets you into the conversation can sabotage you once you're in it. That's one of seven behaviors Dan and Pam have consistently seen in the highest performers they've coached, many of them earning seven figures a year. Some will sound familiar. Some won't. And one might change how you react the next time a prospect tells you the conversation is going well. I rechecked every line against the transcript, and nothing else overlaps. The only exception is "seven figures," which is unavoidable since it's the episode's premise. Follow and subscribe to our YouTube channel:...
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The Cost of Avoiding Discomfort with Jason Moser
Breaking Sales
If you’re in sales, you may have noticed a familiar pattern: a hard question you soften before you ask it, a prospecting call you keep pushing out to tomorrow, or an observation you don’t make because saying it feels risky. It’s easy to chalk these behaviors up to busyness or a lack of discipline. Usually, the root cause is something else entirely. In this episode, Dan sits down with Dr. Jason Moser, a clinical psychologist and researcher at Michigan State University, to talk about what's actually happening in those moments, and why avoiding them tends to make things worse, not...
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Your Value Doesn’t Matter Yet
Breaking Sales
Sales professionals can spend enormous energy making sure a prospect understands their value, and it still isn't enough to move the deal. In this episode, Dan and Pam explore why that happens, and why demonstrating value is the wrong focus entirely. A prospect’s brain reacts to change the same way it reacts to any perceived threat — and without a reason to think past the present moment, staying where they are will always feel safer than making a change. If you've ever been tempted to lean harder on your value or expertise when a deal started to stall, this episode is for you. Follow and...
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The Skill That Rewrites How You Handle "No"
Breaking Sales
What if the thing holding back your performance isn’t a problem with your abilities, but with how you think about the moments you’re dreading? The outreach you avoid, the questions you hesitate to ask, the “no” you’re bracing for before you pick up the phone — these are all examples of how your brain is wired to focus on what could go wrong instead of what could go right. But there’s a skill that can help you change how you think about these situations: cognitive reframing. In this episode, Dan sits down with Ayelet Fishbach, a motivation scientist at the University of...
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Biases Dominate Your Prospect’s Decision Process
Breaking Sales
Prospects don't enter sales conversations with a blank slate. They bring years of experiences, assumptions, loyalties, and fears that shape how they evaluate every option in front of them. Those biases influence the prospects willingness to change and how they filter your ability to help them change. In Part Two of their conversation, I and Pam explore why trying to convince someone they're wrong often strengthens the very beliefs you're trying to change. We discuss how, instead, great sales professionals create the kind of conversation that helps prospects examine those beliefs for...
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Why We Stick to What’s Not Working with Annie Duke
Breaking Sales
You probably don’t think of yourself as resistant to change. But when something has worked for you before, it's easy to assume that’s the reason for your success — and that habit makes it hard to notice when a different approach might actually work better. In this episode, Dan sits down with cognitive scientist, author, and former professional poker player Annie Duke. Together they explore what’s really going on when someone won’t let go of an approach that’s not serving them — whether that’s a sales professional or a prospect — and what it takes to move past it. If you’ve...
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How you start does have a cost!
Breaking Sales
The opening minutes of a prospect meeting carry more weight than many sales professionals give them credit for. It can dictate whether you are starting from a position of strength or from behind. From that very first moment forward the prospect is trying to determine one thing: What does this person actually want from me? The question is - do you want your prospects thinking about where you’re trying to take them, or how you will use their answers to advance a sale? Or do you want their energy and effort focused on answering your questions with honesty? All of this is determined...
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The Work Nobody Sees with Coach Urban Meyer
Breaking Sales
There is a pattern that often appears in sales organizations: someone isn't performing, and the response is frustration, blame, or eventually, a conversation about whether they still belong on the team. What rarely happens is an honest look at whether that person was ever actually set up to succeed — whether they had the development, environment, and preparation to perform when the stakes were high. In the 200th episode of Breaking Sales, Dan sits down with three-time national championship-winning college football coach Urban Meyer for a conversation about what high performance actually...
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Why You Choose to Play It Safe with Roy Baumeister
Breaking Sales
There's a reason so many smart, capable sales professionals consistently avoid doing the things they know they need to do and taking the risks they know they need to take. It’s not laziness, and it’s not a lack of motivation. As it turns out, it’s rooted in something far more fundamental about how the human mind works. Roy Baumeister is a decorated social psychologist who has spent decades researching topics like loss aversion, self-control, and the outsized weight of negative experiences. In this episode, Roy joins Dan for a conversation that digs into why it’s so tempting to...
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Is Development Fatigue Real?
Breaking Sales
Plenty of sales professionals will tell you they’re committed to their own development. But when you ask them what they’re actually doing, how much time they’re putting in, or whether it’s paying off, the answers are all over the map. In this episode, Dan and Pam explore what real professional development requires — and what separates it from the kind that feels productive but doesn’t actually help you improve. They take an honest look at why so many people experience fatigue in the process, and what that fatigue might be telling you when it shows up. This conversation is for...
info_outlineSales professionals can spend enormous energy making sure a prospect understands their value, and it still isn't enough to move the deal. In this episode, Dan and Pam explore why that happens, and why demonstrating value is the wrong focus entirely. A prospect’s brain reacts to change the same way it reacts to any perceived threat — and without a reason to think past the present moment, staying where they are will always feel safer than making a change. If you've ever been tempted to lean harder on your value or expertise when a deal started to stall, this episode is for you.
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