Recapped 🎯

During my sales career, I discovered that only about 10% of my sales were driven by situations where customers were experiencing true business pain. True Business Pain = Urgent Issues that Must result in Action. The rest? They're motivated by Challenges and Opportunities that have a dramatically different sense of urgency to the customer and require a completely different approach to selling and problem solving. Challenge = Important Issues that Should result in Evaluation Opportunity = Interesting Issues that May result in Consideration This insight transformed how I sold and how I now help companies build selling skills to accelerate revenue growth. When we stop obsessing over "finding the pain" and start understanding the full spectrum of buyer motivation, everything changes. Using my P/C/O framework to shift their sales approach and mindset, one of my clients has grown from $10M to $40M in bookings in just over 24 months. Key moments for Venatas in 2024: → Appointed as Go To Market Advisor at Recapped while maintaining our core consulting practice. I'm now working on the front lines of AI as a force multiplier for sales teams. → Developed and implemented the P/C/O framework (Pain/Challenge/Opportunity) that's now helping dozens of sales organizations better understand and serve their customers. → Participated in my 10th consecutive quarterly business review for a key customer, witnessing their evolution firsthand. → Evangelized the "Stop Selling and Start Solving" model, equipping sales teams with the skills they need to win customer trust and business by helping them solve real business problems. Three posts that resonated most with our community: "Stop Selling and Start Solving" 70% of buyers would prefer not to work with salespeople - until we show them we can solve real business problems https://lnkd.in/gbTCH9f9 "The P/C/O Framework" Why assuming everything is pain-driven kills deals - and what to do instead https://lnkd.in/g9XpskzC "LAARC: Moving Beyond Canned Responses to Sales Objections" Why objections aren't about WHAT customers object to, but WHY https://lnkd.in/gqCRENKE Looking ahead: The market is demanding a fundamental shift in how we sell. In 2025, I'm focused on helping more organizations move from traditional selling to consultative problem-solving, while expanding our impact through the adoption of technology like Recapped.io that facilitates customer collaboration during the sales process and uses AI to instantly score deal health and coach reps on what to do to improve their chances of winning. To every sales leader navigating this evolution: Your willingness to challenge conventional wisdom and embrace change will define your success. The future belongs to problem solvers.

Last week I posted about a “pain matrix” for buyers, and got blown up with requests. So here’s a quick step-by-step video to overcome internal selling struggles. One of the hardest aspects of selling is actually helping your champion to sell internally for you. Most purchases require consensus from a committee now, and each persona cares about something completely different. They don't care about your product - they care about their own unique problems. So how do help you build consensus? One way is to use this easy hack. Here’s how I built a pain matrix for Gong using Anthropic and Recapped 🎯 that speaks to each persona in less than two minutes. Comment ‘prompt’ and I’ll share the customizable prompt with you. How are you enabling your champion to sell internally for you?

"Why?" is your most powerful word during discovery. Here's an example from a recent call: ↳ "I'd like to better implement Mutual Action Plans for our team" ↳ "Interesting. I'd hate to assume, but why?" ↳ "We're trying to create a more standardized sales process with MEDDPICC, and I personally had a lot of success with Action Plans" ↳ "Why is that important?" ↳ "I've been listening to a bunchhhhh of calls, and we're disqualifying deals too quickly. But there's also a huge opportunity to better understand our prospects business. Some of our reps are rushing to the demo stage, and it's hurting our conversion rates" ↳ "Why do you think that's happening?" ↳ [Prospect opens up with a 5 minute monologue on why this is important, why it's hurting their business, and why fixing this simple thing would drive huge results down-funnel] Great. Here's how we can help in a few days. -- I'll never forget my first big sales training - Selling Through Curiosity with Barry Rhein. I remember thinking "this is too simple, no way it'll ever work" But it does work. Really really f***ing well. It's so easy to overthink discovery - "Am I asking the right question?" - "What question should I ask next?" - "How can I stump them with a 'gotcha' question?" I'm guilty of this myself sometimes. But something that never fails - just being curious about the other person's life and their problems. What's something that works for you guys?

How many stakeholders are involved in the typical B2B buying process? What if the ACV is $10K or less? WAY more than you think! As hard as it is to sell in this environment, it is even harder for our buyers to buy. I recently had the good fortune of chatting with Mark Fershteyn of Recapped 🎯 about this very dilemma. With this reality, the complexity is inevitable. The chaos is not going away. So what's the answer? Collaboration. Flipping the sales process "Outside-In" to facilitate a buying process. Are you taking steps in your company to make this happen? If so, what are you doing? How are you doing it?

Your prospect has already seen 5 demos this week. Here's how to make yours the only one they remember.. Most sales training focuses relentlessly on product knowledge. We're taught features, benefits, competitor battlecards, and objection handling. So naturally, that’s what we do in discovery calls. But that’s backwards. The best discovery calls aren't about your product at all. Successful discovery follows a different pattern. Here’s how Steve Reid trains sellers with a repeatable 7-step framework: 1. 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗴 - Start by asking thoughtful questions about their business. Not the typical "what keeps you up at night" stuff. Ask questions that make them think differently about their challenges. 2. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 - Play back what you heard, but not as a mindless summary. Share the story they just told you about their Objectives, Obstacles, and Urgency. 3. 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗼𝘀𝗲 - Show you understand how solving this problem connects to their bigger business goals. 4. 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 - Map your relevant capabilities to their specific challenges. Notice we still haven't talked about product features. 5. 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗻𝗮𝗽𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘁 - Finally, after earning the right, show your solution - but only the parts that matter to their situation. 6. 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 - Understand how they'll actually make this decision. Not just who signs, but how they'll evaluate success. 7. 𝗡𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀 - Get mutual commitment on specific actions, not vague "I'll follow up next week" recap emails. The first four steps have nothing to do with your product. Instead, they're about understanding the customer's world deeply before you say a word about your solution. Think about going to a doctor: You walk in with symptoms. A good doctor won't immediately prescribe medicine. They ask questions. They listen. They might have seen these exact symptoms a hundred times this month. But, they still let you describe what's wrong in your own words. They only talk about treatment options after they understand your situation. And when they do, you trust their recommendation because they earned the right to make it. What if your doctor cut you off mid-sentence and recommended their most popular medicine? They'd instantly lose all credibility. But that's what a lot of us are guilty of. We're eager to prescribe before we understand the symptoms. This approach is harder, but the results speak for themselves. - Deals close faster - Win rates go up - And you stop wasting time on deals that were never going to close. The irony is that by talking about your product less, you end up selling more. Sometimes the counterintuitive approach is exactly right. Get Steve's entire framework for free in the comments. What do you think?