John Rowell shares how meticulous preparation transforms the sales game. He emphasizes the importance of understanding a buyer's needs before making a call, turning cold outreach into warm connections. Effective prep builds trust, allowing for authentic conversations. By comparing sales to elite athletics, Rowell highlights that top performers obsessively prepare to hit their targets. The podcast underscores how a structured approach enhances efficiency and confidence, leading to meaningful relationships in sales and entrepreneurship.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Preparation Builds Confidence
Build your daily activities into a defined process to move faster and prepare better.
Spend focused time pre-call researching buyer needs, pain points, and relevant success stories.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Make Every Call Warm
Don't call them cold calls; warm calls require research to connect personally.
Prepare by understanding the individual, company, industry, and have relevant proof points ready.
insights INSIGHT
Sales as High-Performance Sport
Sales performance parallels elite athletes' preparation and focus.
Like a pro quarterback knowing plays, sales reps must dissect every detail before calls.
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In this short segment of the Revenue Builders Podcast, we revisit the discussion with John Rowell, co-founder of Pinned Golf and a former enterprise sales leader, to explore the timeless value of preparation in both sales and entrepreneurship. Rowell breaks down how his enterprise sales discipline shaped his startup success, sharing tactical wisdom on transforming cold calls into warm connections, creating repeatable processes, and winning buyer trust from the very first interaction. Whether you’re a rep, a sales leader, or a founder, this is a playbook for showing up like a pro.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
[00:00:44] Preparation Builds Confidence: Rowell shares how structured pre-call prep creates clarity and control in high-stakes sales interactions. [00:01:06] Hypothesize Before You Call: Great reps make educated assumptions about the buyer’s needs before they ever get on the phone. [00:02:21] Preparation Is the Message: How you prep shows who you are and how you'll show up for the customer. [00:02:57] Cold Calls Shouldn’t Be Cold: Transform outreach by researching industries, personas, and proof points before dialing. [00:04:09] Sales Is a High-Performance Sport: Like elite athletes, the best reps obsessively prepare to perform at their peak. [00:05:31] Preparation Builds Trust Early: First impressions matter—showing up prepared signals reliability. [00:06:24] Presence Over Performance: When you're prepped, you can truly listen and be present instead of trying to sound “interesting. [00:07:29] Process Equals Speed: Rowell unpacks how process-driven sales teams outpace the competition by removing guesswork and bottlenecks [00:08:34] Apply Process to Entrepreneurship: From startup KPIs to sales funnels, the mindset of structure translates directly to building a business.
QUOTES
[00:00:44] “Process equals speed. If you can build what you're gonna do every day into a defined process, you're gonna move faster.” [00:01:46] “I saw 50-year-old President’s Club winners still taking time to read 10-Ks before calls. That prep never stops being valuable.” [00:02:57] “They shouldn't be cold calls. They should be warm calls because you should figure out ways to make them warm. [00:04:09] “If you're an enterprise rep, that’s your NFL. You should be prepping like Patrick Mahomes watches film. [00:05:55] “Preparation allows you to be present, not scrambling to sound interesting. [00:06:45] “When you’re prepared, you’re not performing. You’re just being yourself—and that’s when trust is built. [00:08:34] “Dialing in a process and measuring success—whether in sales or startups—gives you repeatable wins.”
Revenue Builders