Salespodder

Latest — 16 Sep 2026

Setting Career Direction

I read a piece knocking on my open door recently suggesting the typical approach to job application details were tired and no longer apt. Albeit undercut through insistence on using 'young people' as sanitised labelling. Lazy, patronising institution-speak othering that ignores actual differences between any youngsters within quite

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In the Market for a Big Idea?

Amid the perma-swirl of structural changes, product/market realignments and new brooms sweeping in, my most typical commission is New Product Rescue. Most scenarios share a foundation of all-things-to-all-buyers. Yet especially with genuinely 'new' wares, not all buyers are created equal. For instance, I nearly always illuminate with

Rebooting Bid After Air Traffic Control Meltdown

This week saw yet more chaos from UK airspace shutdown. Third time in three years. All seemingly caused by 'flight processing' issues. This latest calamity, directly affecting 2,100 flights over two days, reportedly caused by a local military aircraft inputting 'spurious' flight data. Eerily similar

Death of a GTMman

This title above is possibly my favourite comment of 635 replies I scrolled through on a tweet bemoaning the latest generational attempt to rebrand the Sales dept. Just like Arthur Miller's iconic Willy Loman, I've lived through a fair few of such revamps in my selling

California Roll Switcheroo Selling Lesson

The California roll is an excellent example of encouraging people to try something radically new. In 1970s America, sushi wasn't very popular. It just felt too alien - seaweed was something the kids played with on a beach, not a food stuff. So trying to get people to

The Quick Call Trap

It's generally a bad sign when people use the adjective "quick" to describe something they want you to do. Have a "quick call" for example. It means it will be unpleasant and thus not lasting long is a feature. — Paul Graham (@paulg) August 22,

Slot Grope Protection

A couple of fellow sellers running significant shows of their own alerted me to the ballooning of this latest most unsavoury digital direct mail tactic. A wholly unsolicited calendar invite appears in your schedule. Blocking off a specific, freshly allotted slot. The event titled with brazenly cold-call bombast. You cancel

What Big Four Consultant Cliff Edge Means For Us

Here's a screenshot of the FT splash 1 Sep '26. Ouch, that pull quote; "The traditional consultant as we know them today will have to change. Fewer and fewer will be needed." Not many a tear shed, I grant you. Then behind the gleeful comeuppance

Setting New Starters Up To Fly Or Fall

It was largely with indifference I casually read of Apple's handing of the baton. No-one seems untouched by their astonishing rise these past three decades. Bursting from the Jobs re-reign. Treading water perhaps, albeit of the most sun-blessed azure kind, yet growing twelvefold since through Cook. Now there&

When To Use Excessive Colour

I was thinking about how I recognize AI writing, and one big tell is excessively colorful verbs. A handful of journalists might write that a proposal "drew" 100 votes, but any normal person will just say "got". — Paul Graham (@paulg) August 19, 2026 I've