Art & Science of Complex Sales The Three Incorrects │Steve Reid
In this episode of The Art and Science of Complex Sales, Paul Fuller is joined by Steve Reid, CEO and founder of Venatas. With over three decades of experience in marketing, sales, and revenue leadership, Steve brings deep experience in helping venture-backed and scaling companies build buyer-led, high-performing sales organizations. Together, they explore why so many go-to-market teams underperform and what it really takes to fix it.
The Three “Incorrects” Holding Sales Teams Back (10:32) Steve identifies three root causes of underperformance:
- Incorrectly assessing the team: Companies overestimate their reps’ true selling competencies and set unrealistic targets.
- Incorrect selling process: Most processes are built around what sellers want to do, not how buyers actually make decisions.
- Incorrect training: 80% of training is product-focused, leaving reps unable to conduct strong discovery or build business cases that win internal buy-in. By addressing these “incorrects,” organizations can finally achieve sustainable, predictable growth.
Designing for a Buyer-Led Journey (20:41)
Modern buyers want autonomy. They will engage with salespeople only when those sellers help them make confident decisions. Steve explains how sales teams can shift from CRM-driven checklists to buyer-focused conversations, helping customers connect product value to strategic business outcomes and navigate internal consensus.
Buying Isn’t Linear, and Your Pipeline Shouldn’t Pretend It Is (29:07)
Buyers don’t move from stage one to stage five during their buying journey. Instead, they loop, pause, and revisit decisions. Steve argues that the most effective sellers embrace this nonlinearity, using trust, credibility, and strategic influence to guide the process rather than forcing buyers into a fixed process.
From Training to Transformation (39:57)
Workshops don’t change behavior, reinforcement does. Steve highlights how lasting transformation requires an integrated system of ongoing coaching, deal reviews, enablement alignment, and process refinement over time. Listen to the full conversation with Steve Reid to learn how to build a truly buyer-aligned sales organization that replaces outdated assumptions with clarity, capability, and measurable results.