Key habit: always ask the next question

Deals keep slipping through the pipeline? As Q4 pressure builds, many sales teams find themselves pushing deals forward without fully understanding what is stalling them.

Bob Kocis, author of The President’s Club Mindset, joins the episode to share why deals stall and what top performers do differently. 

Drawing from decades of experience in sales technology and executive leadership, Bob shares a practical framework built around three questions that help sales reps regain control of their pipeline and close with confidence.

Meet Bob Kocis

·  Bob Kocis is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Aptean and the author of The President’s Club Mindset: Inside the Winning Strategies of Tech’s Most Successful Salespeople.

·  His career spans senior leadership roles across the tech industry, including Chief Revenue Officer at Continuum Managed Services, Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Customer Excellence at Ansys Inc., and Senior Division Vice President at PTC.

·  Bob is widely recognized for helping organizations build strong sales cultures where top performers thrive, teams navigate complex go-to-market models, and revenue growth becomes predictable through discipline and execution.

The Three Critical Questions to Prevent Slippage

·  Bob introduces a simple but powerful framework centered on three questions every seller and manager should revisit throughout the sales process.

o   First, why is the customer buying anything at all? This requires uncovering the true business problem, not just surface-level interest. Agenda-free listening helps reveal the real motivation behind the deal.

o   Second, why are they buying from us? Sales reps must clearly articulate their unique value and help the customer envision success. This goes beyond features and focuses on meaningful differentiation.

o   Third, why should they buy right now? Without a compelling event, deals drift. Building a mutual action plan creates urgency and gives internal champions a roadmap they can share.

Bob Kocis’s Main Advice

·  Stay curious and keep asking better questions. When deals are grounded in these three fundamentals, forecasting improves, confidence grows, and pipeline slippage becomes the exception rather than the rule.

“I like this idea of agenda-free listening, right? Where you’re really listening intently and you don’t actually have an agenda, so you’re really hearing what they’re saying.” — Bob Kocis

Resources

Get Bob’s book: The President’s Club Mindset 

Connect with Bob Kocis on LinkedIn

Join The Sales Mastermind at thesalesevangelist.com/mastermind.

Check out Blue Mango Studios for podcasting production. 

Sponsorship Offers

1.  This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.

With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.

2.  This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.

Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.

3.  This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.

Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.

Credits

As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.