Are You Prepared for The Buyer Revolution?
Sales Today
The way buyers buy has changed - but most sellers haven’t. In this episode, Fred is joined by Steve Knapp (co-founder of PLAN.GROW.DO) to explore what the Buyer Revolution really means for modern sales. From buyers being 83% through their journey before speaking to you… to why most sellers are preparing for the wrong conversation - this episode challenges traditional thinking and offers a more practical, buyer-led approach. Key Takeaways Buyers are further ahead than you think Your first job is to validate, not qualify Preparation must match the buyer’s reality ...
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3 Steps to Combat Struggles in Sales (and Life)
Sales Today
In this episode of the Sales Today Podcast, Fred Copestake is joined by Marc Baladi, sales and senior leadership coach, and co-host of the podcast Beyond Enough. Together, they explore a challenge many people in sales quietly face: feeling overwhelmed, behind, or not good enough - even when they’re capable and putting in the effort. Marc’s argument is simple but powerful: You are probably not struggling with capability or effort. You are struggling with cognitive load - and not knowing what “good enough” looks like. In this episode Why...
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The Overlooked Sales Tactic That Builds Trust Fast
Sales Today
In this episode, Fred Copestake is joined by Ollie Whitfield of Slingshot Content to explore a sales tactic that surprisingly few salespeople use: running webinars themselves. While marketing teams often lead webinars, salespeople can use them as a powerful way to stand out, demonstrate expertise, and create valuable conversations with prospects. The key is doing them well. Not product demos. Not long introductions. And definitely not disguised sales pitches. Instead, the best webinars focus on insight, useful ideas, and real problems your...
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The Overlooked Sales Tactic That Builds Trust Fast
Sales Today
In this episode, Fred Copestake is joined by Ollie Whitfield of Slingshot Content to explore a sales tactic that surprisingly few salespeople use: running webinars themselves. While marketing teams often lead webinars, salespeople can use them as a powerful way to stand out, demonstrate expertise, and create valuable conversations with prospects. The key is doing them well. Not product demos. Not long introductions. And definitely not disguised sales pitches. Instead, the best webinars focus on insight, useful ideas, and real problems your...
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3 Ways to Improve Your Sales Prospecting Overnight
Sales Today
In this episode of the Sales Today Podcast, Fred Copestake speaks with Alex Nicholls-Gray, founder of The Prospect Experience Company, about why the prospect experience has never been worse and what salespeople can do to fix it. With automation tools and AI making it easier than ever to send thousands of messages, buyers are overwhelmed with generic outreach across email and LinkedIn. The result? Lower response rates, more spam complaints, and prospects who ignore most messages. Alex argues that the solution isn’t sending more outreach it’s improving the experience of...
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LinkedIn Is Not a Template Factory (Here’s What Actually Works)
Sales Today
Fred is joined by Mark Young, whose LinkedIn headline says it all: “A cat person helping technical AI founders earn trust before the first call.” This episode is a lively (and refreshingly sceptical) conversation about why so much LinkedIn advice is formulaic, outdated, or simply irrelevant - especially for technical founders and specialists who need trust, not vanity metrics. What you’ll learn Why a lot of LinkedIn “best practice” is recycled templates and pseudoscience The danger of chasing quick wins like “20,000 followers in 90 days” claims (and...
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Do Salespeople Need FBI Hostage Negotiation Skills?
Sales Today
In this episode of The Sales Today Podcast, Fred Copestake is joined by Sebastian Hidalgo, co-founder of DURINDAL and creator of the SWAT method - a sales framework influenced by hostage negotiation principles. Fred admits he’s often sceptical when crisis negotiation gets blended with commercial sales, so this becomes a lively, grounded conversation: what genuinely transfers, what doesn’t, and how to use “hostage” techniques ethically to improve trust, discovery, and positioning. What you’ll hear in this episode Sebastian’s unusual origin story: becoming...
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Surprisingly simple ways to use AI in sales
Sales Today
In this episode, Fred is joined by Tom Ridley, an AI sales coach, for a refreshingly grounded conversation about AI in sales. Instead of racing through a list of tools, Tom makes a different point: AI isn’t the story - being human is. The real value of generative AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) is that it removes the admin-heavy work salespeople hate and frees them up to do what matters most: have better conversations, build stronger relationships, and help customers make sense of complex decisions. They explore how to use AI to research accounts, focus on the right...
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Ethical marketing meets ethical selling
Sales Today
In this episode, Fred is joined by Chelsea Burns - marketing psychologist, brand ethicist, and non-manipulative marketer to explore where ethical marketing and ethical selling overlap… and where they can go wrong. Chelsea introduces a practical way to draw the line between persuasion and manipulation: Agency - a person’s genuine ability to choose. From there, the conversation goes deep into real-world examples of questionable tactics, why “FOMO” can backfire, and how the brain evaluates purchases immediately after the transaction. Chelsea also shares her four...
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The secret to faster training and coaching result
Sales Today
In this episode, Fred is joined by John Richardson, Co-Founder and Director of Coaching at My Sales Coach, to explore a key question: how do you get faster, more meaningful results from training and coaching? Their answer is simple but powerful: start with the right assessment. They unpack why great coaches are always assessing (without judging), how the right diagnostics can shorten the path to meaningful improvement, and why revenue alone isn’t a useful starting point for development. John explains how My Sales Coach uses assessments to build coaching plans with focus,...
info_outlineIn this episode of The Sales Today Podcast, Fred Copestake is joined by Sebastian Hidalgo, co-founder of DURINDAL and creator of the SWAT method - a sales framework influenced by hostage negotiation principles.
Fred admits he’s often sceptical when crisis negotiation gets blended with commercial sales, so this becomes a lively, grounded conversation: what genuinely transfers, what doesn’t, and how to use “hostage” techniques ethically to improve trust, discovery, and positioning.
What you’ll hear in this episode
- Sebastian’s unusual origin story: becoming a certified hostage negotiator at 18
- The persistence it took to get accepted into training as a civilian and young applicant
- How later PSYOPs (psychological operations) training triggered an “aha” moment:
he’d been applying negotiation principles in business without realising it - Why Sebastian believes there’s a gap between negotiation books (e.g. Never Split the Difference) and practical sales structure
- Fred’s perspective: crisis negotiation ≠ commercial negotiation - and why that matters
The SWAT Method in a nutshell
Sebastian explains SWAT as a four-stage sales method designed to:
- Earn trust faster
- Create positioning in real time - not just against competitors, but against the buyer’s past failed attempts with similar solutions
The four stages are:
- Influence
- Diagnosis
- Failure Mapping
- Value Alignment (what most people would call “the close”, though Sebastian avoids that framing)
Influence + Diagnosis + Failure Mapping sit mainly in what traditional sales calls “discovery”, but with more emphasis on trust, relevance, and reducing friction.
Where the “hostage” skills show up (without the Hollywood nonsense)
Sebastian’s view: you don’t need dramatic tactics - you need fundamentals executed well.
Key transferable skills include:
- Listening (with intent - often reinforced by taking notes)
- Active listening + mirroring (what intelligence work calls elicitation: helping people talk themselves deeper into the real issue)
- Staying calm under pressure
- Reading the person in front of you (tone, pacing, reactions) rather than hiding behind slides
He also highlights the need for flexible creativity - adapting your knowledge to the buyer’s reality in the moment.
Key takeaway
The value isn’t “hostage negotiation theatre.”
It’s using proven human skills - listening, trust-building, uncovering blockers early, and positioning through relevance to make sales feel less “gross” and more like service.
Connect with Sebastian
· LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-dp-hidalgo
- Email: sebastian@durindal.com
- Website: https://www.durindal.com
Follow Fred: https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-IP6Z7zU9Rg
Watch Fred’s FREE YouTube Course: Sales Mastery for Engineers: https://bit.ly/Sales-Mastery-For-Engineers
Useful resources
- Take the Collaborative Selling Scorecard – free
Check how well your sales approach fits today’s buying environment https://collaborativeselling.scoreapp.com/