Topical Guide
This week's insights to leave you and your team optimistic, disciplined, and successful
Hey there friends -
What started as a weekly curation of the top podcasts, articles and insights I’ve read or listened to that week, morphed into a topic-themed compilation, carefully packed and written for your amazement each week.
But today is different.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going “Topic-less” to showcase a few unrelated tidbits of pertinent, yet powerful insights I’ve found helpful in my role as a sales leader lately.
My hope is that you find something intriguing or interesting like I did.
So - here it goes. In this week’s edition of Stretch Weekly -
Ryan Holiday gives us 25 Habits That Will Guarantee You Success
Dave Kennett shares the top 30 things Top AEs have in common
And don’t miss this week’s theme-less snippets that will leave your team happy, optimistic, and disciplined to achieve greatness.
THANKS for reading!!
-Grant
And lastly - as always, if you find this newsletter valuable- subscribe or share it with someone who might as well 👊.
STRETCH SHARES
Discipline is Destiny: 25 Habits That Will Guarantee You Success
Ryan Holiday is a great follow. His books “The Obstacle is The Way”, “Stillness is the Key”, and latest book “Discipline is Destiny” have all climbed to the top of the best-seller lists for a reason. His Daily Stoic podcast is equally engaging and insightful.
In this post - Ryan talks about Who we are, the standards we hold ourselves to, the things we do regularly — in the end, these are all better predictors of the trajectory of our lives than things like talent, resources, or anything else.
A few favorites:
4. Manage the load.
7. Make little progress each day.
8. Be kind to yourself. (also #11 - Be Hard on Yourself)
10. Practice.
Get back up when you fall.
23. Get the little things right.
24. Beware perfectionism.
Top AEs Have These 30 Things in Common
Dave Kennett runs a sales coaching business called Replayz where he consumes Sales rep videos/calls and provides coaching/feedback. To date - Dave’s company has coached thousands of reps over the past 4 years and has identified the top 30 things the Top AEs have in common.
My favorites:
2) They build trust quickly
6) They’ve practiced handling objections in role plays so much that it becomes muscle memory in a live call
10) They hunt down the pain and the circumstances surrounding the pain, without it sounding like they are playing 20 questions
18) They are totally OK losing/qualifying out the deal and going to the next one
24) They create deal momentum by asking for the next meeting during their call
28) They are coachable
STRETCH SNIPPETS
😄 Gary V says: Optimism is one of the biggest differentiators between managers who build successful teams and ones who don't. Optimism leads to trust, which is imperative when you’re training people. When you make your employees “earn your trust” instead of giving it to them up-front, they will move more slowly.
💪 Sahil Bloom’s thread on discipline over motivation is a must read. Two truths he has observed time and again: 1) Discipline and consistency create momentum. 2) Momentum creates motivation.
👀 Scott Leese talks about going from Full cycle AE to Sales Manager in ~ 7 months, and from Sales Manager to VP Sales less than 2 years later. Steal his list of things he got right to make that happen.
👉 Caught in a negotiation with Procurement? Check out Chris Orlob’s experience landing a whale by focusing on pain, and solving quantifiable business problems.
🦄 Interesting perspective from Jason Lemkin on why he moved from Salesforce to Hubspot for his CRM. Having used both, and understanding his use case - can’t say anyone would argue him on this.
🧠 Mindset
-Gary Vaynerchuk
Thanks for reading!
My hope is if you find this valuable, consider sharing it with friends (or signing up if you haven’t already).
— Grant 👋
About stretch vp: confessions, learnings, and insights from sales leaders in SaaS
Compiled and aggregated from a network of sales leaders in SaaS, Stretch VP showcases learnings, insights, and experiences as well as best practices to overcome common hurdles, obstacles, and setbacks in your quest for excellence as a sales leader in SaaS.
Are you a VP, Director, thought leader, or content producer in the SaaS space? We’d love to have you contribute. Just reply to this email and I’ll be in touch.
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