Even the most prominent voices in Sales were crap at Sales once.
Join bestselling Author, Founder and Sales Coach Mark Ackers as he speaks with successful Sales professionals about their early Sales struggles, and how they overcame these challenges to become the people they are today.
You paid for the sales training, the team left the room buzzing, and by Monday nobody was doing anything differently. Most sales enablement teams have watched that happen, and most leaders book another workshop anyway.
In this episode, Becky Abraham sits with Mark Ackers to talk about why sales training and new sales methodologies so rarely stick, what sales enablement actually does day to day, and what she learned helping more than 40 companies roll out the Challenger Sale. She also gets into why reps don't want enablement or their own manager as their coach, why introverts can be very good at sales, and what AI sales tools are doing to how sellers think.
📥 HAVE YOUR SAY. Take the State of Sales Coaching in 2027 survey (https://bit.ly/4jjEBBi) (prizes up for grabs)
Who this episode is for:
You've run sales training or a kickoff and can't see what changed afterwards
You've bought into a sales methodology and the team has quietly gone back to the old way
You lead or work in sales enablement and want to prove it's more than sending training invites
You're an introvert in sales and you've been told the job is built for extroverts
Key takeaways:
A one-day workshop builds energy and goodwill, but behaviour doesn't change unless the system around it reinforces the change
Becky doesn't care which sales methodology you choose - how you roll it out matters far more than what you roll out
Reinforcement means managers know what good looks like and look for it in every deal review, call prep and CRM note, for six to 12 months
In the MySalesCoach 2026 State of Sales Coaching survey, 66% of reps wanted an external coach and fewer than 5% wanted sales enablement - what are Beckys thoughts on this as an enablement leader?
Sales managers tend to do and tell rather than coach, because their number is tied to the rep's number
Introverts can do well in enterprise sales because they want to go deep, and they often need a few seconds to process before they answer
AI works in the probable and humans work in the possible (a line Becky credits to Alan Verstig of Growth Matters) - a seller earns their place by bringing the implementation story the buyer can't get from research
🔗 Connect with Mark Ackers (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markackers/) on LinkedIn
🔗 Connect with Becky Abraham (https://www.linkedin.com/in/beckyabraham/) on LinkedIn 🔗
🔗 Follow MySalesCoach (https://www.linkedin.com/company/mysalescoach-com) on LinkedIn
Like, leave a comment and subscribe for more!
Brought to you by MySalesCoach. www.mysalescoach.com (https://www.mysalescoach.com)
📥 Download the Modern Revenue Leader's Sales Coaching Manual: https://bit.ly/4nyx5m2 (https://bit.ly/4nyx5m2)
9 Sept 2026
I never coached my team. Now I lose sleep if i miss a session | EP29 | Brett James
Most sales leaders think they're coaching their team. A lot of them are managing it and calling it coaching.
In this episode, Brett James sits with Mark Ackers to talk about the sales coaching techniques he runs every week and the difference between coaching and managing a sales team - call playback, specific-segment role play, asking questions instead of giving answers, and where the line sits between coaching a deal and hero managing it. He's also honest about what that intensity has cost the people who worked for him, and about the cancer diagnosis that changed how he leads.
📥 Download the Modern Revenue Leader's Sales Coaching Manual: https://bit.ly/4nyx5m2
Who this episode is for:
You lead a sales team and suspect you're doing too much of the selling yourself
You can't stop taking over your reps' calls and you know it isn't helping them
You want practical sales coaching techniques you can run this week, not theory
You've been promoted for being the best seller and nobody has taught you how to coach
Key takeaways:
Managing people and coaching people are two different jobs - Brett ran a sales team for years without realising coaching was even a thing
Call playback is the technique that flipped it for him, and he'd been recording calls for years before anyone suggested reviewing one with a rep
Keep pipeline one-to-ones separate from coaching sessions, because run together the deal always wins and the skill never gets touched
Ask questions rather than hand over answers - Brett makes himself go last, on the basis that a rep who works it out remembers it
Stop role playing whole calls and role play one specific moment instead, like the close of a demo, and call it practice rather than role play
Hero managing is stepping in to win the deal for your rep, and Brett is honest that he still does it because he wants the deal
Ask people how they are before you open the pipeline - it's the smallest change he made and the one he wishes he'd made years earlier
🔗 Connect with Mark Ackers (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markackers/) on LinkedIn 🔗 Connect with Brett James (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-james1/) on LinkedIn 🔗 Follow MySalesCoach (https://www.linkedin.com/company/mysalescoach-com) on LinkedIn
Like, leave a comment and subscribe for more!
Brought to you by MySalesCoach.
www.mysalescoach.com (https://www.mysalescoach.com/)
8 Jul 2026
What Nobody Tells You About Becoming a First Time Sales Manager | EP28 | Callum Mackay
Most people get their first sales management role because they were good at selling and good at putting themselves forward. Nobody warns them it's a different job - or that the drive that got them there can be the same thing that burns them out.
Callum Mackay moved into management early in his career, building and leading sales teams through startup and scale-up environments. He's honest about the whole arc - the buzz of a first sale with a team he built, the imposter syndrome running at 250%, and the year of stress that ended with him being signed off work.
📥 Download the Modern Revenue Leader's Sales Coaching Manual: https://bit.ly/4nyx5m2
🎯 Who this episode is for:
You've just stepped into your first sales management role and it's harder than you expected
You're a strong performer thinking about management and want to know what you're walking into
You lead sales managers and want to understand the pressure they're actually under
You've felt work stress creep into your body and want to hear someone talk about it honestly
In this episode, Callum sits with Mark Ackers to talk about the first-time sales manager role and why so few people are prepared for it - the shift from selling to leading, being a coach instead of a hero manager, managing up when the numbers are down, and protecting your mental health while still carrying a target. It's an honest conversation about the parts of sales leadership that don't make it into the job description.
💡 Key takeaways:
Putting yourself forward before you feel ready is a career skill - but without healthy boundaries, that same drive is what burns you out
You can think management is about people and coaching, and be blindsided by the numbers, forecasting and diagnostic side that's actually half the job
Feedback is a gift - avoiding difficult conversations early doesn't protect anyone, it just delays the damage
If you could win every deal yourself you wouldn't need a team - being a coach means letting people make mistakes, even when it costs a deal
Visibility is real: in the office people see your effort, and when you're remote you have to deliberately share what you're doing or it doesn't count
No job or career is worth your mental or physical health - Callum was signed off work with stress and is honest about what got him there and what got him out
Focusing on what you can control, box breathing, walks and talking to someone are simple things that pulled him back from the edge
🔗 Connect with Mark Ackers on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markackers/) 🔗 Connect with Callum Mackay on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/callum-mackay-revenue-expert/) 🔗 Follow MySalesCoach on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/mysalescoach-com)
Like and subscribe for more! www.mysalescoach.com (https://www.mysalescoach.com/)
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Spotify
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 46 / 100
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Quality
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0
YouTube
82
Engagement
32
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