A buyer said “new focus” and the rep asked about code.

That is a technical follow, not a strategic follow, and it does not help us tell the story. It is one of 13 moves named on this page, all of them off real calls with the companies replaced in brackets. Every week I take one sentence off one real call, name the move, and give you the sentence that was sitting right there instead, in your register and not mine. Seven minutes. Then you say it out loud before the episode is over.

Episode 1

BuyerI'm responsible within our division for processes, methods, and tools and data management in the R&D organization... since this year, the new focus is processes, methods, and tools and data management within the development organization.

RepUnderstood. So does that also mean that your team also writes software or code?

Episode 1, “Understood.” Seven minutes. Unlisted YouTube embed replaces this slot. Click to play, rel=0.

Episode 1. “Understood.” The most expensive word in discovery. Seven minutes, Tuesday mornings.

Watch the show on YouTube·Play the audio feed on your commute

Send me one of my calls

Upload the file first. I listen to the whole thing myself and send you the minute, the name of the move, and the words that were available instead. I read every one myself, so tell me what to look for and I will answer the thing you actually want to know.

What happens in the seven minutes

Two lines off a real call, read cold, before I say my own name. No music, no welcome. A buyer says something, a rep answers, and I stop the tape. Real company, name changed. Every company, product, person, and buyer name is replaced with a bracket before I play a second of it.
Before I correct anything I say what that rep was doing right. He was trying to find out if this was real, so he reached for the question he already knew how to handle. I do this too when I am nervous about whether a conversation is going anywhere. I am not saying it to be critical. We all do this.
The move gets a word. Technical follow. The preamble. Dodging money. Countering instead of following. Asking permission from somebody who already gave it. You have a hundred words for what a deal did: it slipped, it went dark, it is in commit. You have almost none for what you did. Nobody ever gave you those.
Then you say the better line out loud, twice, and once against pushback. There is real dead air on the tape while you do it and I tell you I am waiting. The second one is where your mouth stops fighting it. Reading a line does nothing. Your mouth has to have been there once before it can go there under pressure with a VP looking at you.
I tell you what it is going to feel like before you feel it. It is going to feel like you did not say enough. That feeling is the move working.
Then one call already on your calendar this week. Not a habit in the abstract. A specific call where somebody is going to say a new focus, a new priority, we are rethinking something, and you already know what your whole turn is.
Four weeks out of five I grade a miss. The fifth is somebody getting it right, graded exactly as hard. A win examined at the same resolution is still the same knife, pointed at a different body.
Your call software is right, by the way. The answer really is on the tape. It just is not a percentage, and nobody has ever told you which sentence did it.
I grade the conversation, never the person. The miss is almost always a skill nobody ever named for you.

The named moves

13 moves off real calls. One of them has an episode.

Every episode names one move and the move gets a card here with the tape under it. The cards run ahead of the episodes, because these are calls I already coached and already wrote up. Every company, product, person, and buyer name is replaced with a bracket before anything gets published: [company], [buyer], [the product]. I keep the pattern and the words and throw away who it was.

It searches the quoted lines, the name of the move, and the redo. Try “new focus” or “budget” or “thanks for sharing.”

Adding a card is a human decision. Every quoted line here came off a real recording or a typed call analysis.

Send me a call

Send me one call and I will find the minute it turned.

One recording or transcript from a real call. I listen to the whole thing myself, with a notepad, then I send you back a short video: the line, the name of the move, and the words that were available instead, in your register. Free. If it is good, I will ask whether I can run it on the show, and you can say no.

Send the one that still bothers you, and please do not send a good one. Twenty to forty minutes is ideal.
No recordings allowed at your company? Paste what you say to open a call. It is a thinner X-ray and it still shows bone.
I listen to the whole thing myself. Not software. Me, with a notepad.
You get the quoted line, the named skill that was missing right there, and the redo in your own words, not mine. I send it back as a short video so you hear me say the line, not just read it.
Tell me what to look for. What do you want me to know as I review this? Give me anything in particular to watch for, or a mystery you want solved. That one box is the difference between a grade and an answer.
And the question I care most about. What did you say to yourself in the car after that call, and what would you have said instead. Your words, not a summary.
Nothing goes to your manager and I do not call your VP. If you want to forward it, that is yours to do.
I read every one myself. Ten to fifteen minutes each, which is the whole reason this is worth sending. The form never closes, and everyone who sends gets an answer back from me.

What happens to your names

Before I do anything with it, every company, product, person, and buyer name gets replaced with a bracket. [company]. [buyer]. [the product]. I keep the pattern and the words and throw away who it was. That is my existing practice on every transcript on this site. Nothing you send runs on the show unless you say yes after hearing it, and one email from you kills it with no reason needed. I do not forward it, I do not use it in ads, I do not send anything to your manager, and I do not feed it to anything that trains on it.

Send me one of my calls

Send the recording or the transcript, and tell me what to look for. The read comes back as a short video from me.

If you run the team

You can name your top three and your bottom three right now. You cannot name the skill that separates them.

Somebody probably sent you this page. What the show does to one sentence, I will do to your bench. Send me one call each from three of your reps, put their names on the rows, and in five business days I will send you back one page: the timestamp, the sentence, the skill each one is missing, and the words that were available instead, in that person's own register. Plus the line that decides your next ninety days, which is whether it is three separate habits or one move on all three. There is nothing to book. You forward three files and you get a page. Tell your reps this from me: I grade the conversation, never the person.

Send me three of my reps' calls

Three different people, one call each, with a name on each file. There is nothing to book. Your page comes back in five business days.

And if you are the one carrying the number and you just thought of your boss, this is the part to send her. Nothing you sent me goes with it and nothing she sends me comes back with your name on it.

Send this page to your sales leader

It opens an email with this page's link and one sentence already written. Change whatever you want before you send it.

Go look at your calendar right now.

You have a call this week where somebody is going to say a new focus, a new priority, a new mandate, we are rethinking something. First discovery call, second call, the QBR, it does not matter. Somebody says it in almost every one. You already know what your whole turn is. Why. One question. Then silence. Do not stack a second question on it and do not explain why you are asking. Count how long they talk. I will bet you it is over ninety seconds.

And if you want me to do this on your call, send me one.

Send me one of my calls

Everyone who sends one gets an answer back from me. Names and companies get replaced in brackets before I play a second of it.