Two Tall Guys Talking Sales Podcast Por Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey arte de portada

Two Tall Guys Talking Sales

Two Tall Guys Talking Sales

De: Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey
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"Two Tall Guys Talking Sales," where Sean O'Shaughnessey and Kevin Lawson discuss a single sales topic. Kevin and Sean together have about 60 years of experience in professional selling. This podcast helps people in sales, sales leadership, and business leadership or company owners realize the maximum value of their company by improving their revenue generation capability. This podcast is designed to help those people enhance their companies' sales management practices, methodologies, processes, teams, and messaging. Sean O'Shaughnessey and Kevin Lawson are Fractional Vice Presidents of Sales. They operate their own companies separately but have partnered for this podcast to advise salespeople and SMB companies on successful strategies and methodologies. Kevin is the CEO of Lighthouse Sales Advisors. Lighthouse Sales Advisors is a sales leadership solution provider for small businesses. Lighthouse helps business owners navigate the potential pitfalls around sales growth, sales turnaround, or scaling up by leveraging sales acumen and decades of experience to build effective sales teams. https://www.lighthousesalesadvisors.com/ Sean is the CEO of New Sales Expert. He helps company owners realize the maximum value of their company by improving their revenue generation capability. He helps owners enhance their sales management, methodologies, processes, teams, and messaging.2024 Economía Gestión Gestión y Liderazgo
Episodios
  • Pipeline Hygiene, Forecast Accuracy, and Sales Success in Q2

    Pipeline Hygiene, Forecast Accuracy, and Sales Success in Q2
    Apr 7 2026
    In this episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey turn an informal B2B Sales Lab office-hours conversation into a sharp discussion on pipeline hygiene, forecast accuracy, and the habits that separate serious sellers from hopeful ones. What starts as a conversation about cleaning up Q2 quickly becomes a broader lesson in sales management, business acumen, and personal accountability. They dig into why sloppy CRM data creates bad decisions, why aspirational close dates damage credibility, and why real sales success still comes back to disciplined sales processes and direct customer contact. For sales professionals, sales leaders, and anyone responsible for revenue generation, this episode is a practical reset. Key Topics Discussed Why pipeline hygiene matters right now (02:11) Kevin opens with a blunt point: whether you are ahead, behind, or exactly on plan, now is the time to clean up your pipeline. Dead leads need to be removed, stalled opportunities need clear next steps, and unrealistic deals need to be moved to a timeline that reflects reality. This is more than administration. It is the foundation of reliable sales management and cleaner revenue management. The danger of aspirational forecasting (08:08) Sean and Kevin take aim at one of the oldest problems in selling: the fantasy close date. They explain why putting deals into the quarter just to make the pipeline look healthier undermines trust, makes leadership harder, and creates unnecessary scrutiny. Good forecasting is not about optimism. It is about judgment, honest messaging, and the discipline to call a deal what it is. How to handle slipped deals before they slip again (06:00) Sean breaks down what a slipped deal really means. If an opportunity slips once, it may be explainable. If it slips twice, the seller needs to challenge the underlying need, timing, and pain more aggressively. That turns the conversation from passive deal chasing into value selling, where the seller must re-establish why the problem matters now. What accurate CRM ownership really signals (10:38) Sean makes the standard clear: if your name is on the deal, the record should reflect your best understanding of reality. That includes dates, scope, amount, risks, and notes. He also draws an important distinction between uncertainty and carelessness. Missing information can be understandable. Failing to document what you do know is not. This is where disciplined sales processes and professional credibility meet. How strong sellers earn trust and promotion opportunities (14:27) The conversation shifts from data quality to career trajectory. Sean argues that sellers who forecast accurately, exceed quota, and help others improve naturally build the reputation that leads to advancement. Kevin reinforces that when a manager asks you to teach the rest of the team how you work, that is one of the clearest signals that your approach is working. The KPIs that actually move performance (17:55) As they wrap up, Kevin and Sean focus on useful performance indicators. Not vanity metrics. Not activity for activity's sake. They emphasize developing new relationships, preparing for meetings, asking for next steps, requesting the order, requesting referrals, and increasing one-to-one customer conversations. The point is simple: better sales strategies come from better behaviors, repeated consistently. Key Quotes Kevin Lawson (08:26) "Aspirational close date is absolute garbage." Sean O'Shaughnessey (10:38) "Your name is on the deal… I expect it to be an accurate representation as you understand it." Sean O'Shaughnessey (19:13) "The metric that always works, always, always works is if you're talking to a customer, you're probably doing good things." Kevin Lawson (17:04) "He really cares about how many people he helped get to President's Club." Additional Resources B2B Sales Lab Sean and Kevin refer throughout the episode to the B2B Sales Lab community, a peer environment for salespeople, sales leaders, and sales professionals who want to sharpen execution, exchange insight, and improve sales success through practical discussion. Previous episode featuring Joe English (16:53) Kevin references the March 31 episode with Joe English, particularly around leadership, development, and the idea that strong leaders measure success by how many people they help reach top performance. A Significant Actionable Item from this Podcast Run a hard review of every open deal and lead in your CRM this week. Remove dead opportunities, reset unrealistic close dates, document the real blockers, and assign a next step with a deadline. Then identify every deal that has slipped more than once and ask a tougher question: what is the real business pain of not solving this now? That one exercise improves messaging, strengthens forecast credibility, and gives you a cleaner base for revenue generation in the quarter ahead. Summary This episode is a useful listen for anyone who wants a...
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    22 m
  • Joe English Helps the Two Tall Guys Understand How to Build Profitable Growth with Better Sales Management and Sales Processes

    Joe English Helps the Two Tall Guys Understand How to Build Profitable Growth with Better Sales Management and Sales Processes
    Mar 31 2026
    This episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales digs into a question that sits underneath almost every stalled growth story: why do good companies with solid offerings still fail to scale profitably? Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey sit down with Joe English of 360 Consulting to unpack what separates random sales activity from a real growth system. The conversation moves past personality-driven selling and into the mechanics of sales management, sales processes, messaging, and execution. Joe makes the case that revenue generation becomes fragile when a business depends on heroics, and durable when leaders build repeatable systems around the right customers, the right value, and the right internal structure. For leaders focused on sales success, business acumen, and profitable scale, this episode is a sharp discussion of how to turn growth into an engineered outcome instead of a hopeful one. Key Topics Discussed 00:43 – Profitable growth versus growth for its own sake Sean frames the central issue: many companies have decent products and some good processes, yet still are not growing at the rate their model demands. Joe responds by arguing that growth matters only if it produces EBITDA and bankable outcomes, not just top-line growth. 01:42 – The four pillars of a repeatable growth system Joe outlines the foundation he uses with clients: go-to-market, people, process, and execution. His point is straightforward—sales success is not driven by charisma alone. Sustainable revenue generation comes from combining the art of selling with disciplined system design. 04:15 – Why ICP, value selling, and sales processes come first When Kevin asks what Joe looks for first, Joe explains that his advisory process starts by clarifying the ideal customer profile, then refining the company's value propositions, and then documenting the actual sales process. That sequence matters because weak positioning and vague targeting often lead to poor execution downstream. 06:23 – The danger of selling the wrong value Sean raises a common market mistake: companies often describe their offering one way while customers actually buy it for a different reason. That disconnect creates weak messaging, confused sales conversations, and slower growth. Joe agrees and argues that many firms try to be all things to all buyers instead of owning a specific problem they solve exceptionally well. 08:07 – Change management and getting people to adopt better selling habits The conversation shifts into change management, where Joe says the hardest part of any transformation is people. His approach is to help individuals understand how structure, tools, and clearer expectations make them better and more efficient rather than simply creating management overhead. 10:39 – Why sales is often not the strongest function in a growing company Sean asks whether owners truly think their job is to make salespeople great. Joe's answer is nuanced: most owners do want success for their people, but they often only know how to systematize the function they personally came from. In many firms, that means operations is stronger than sales, and sales management becomes an afterthought until growth stalls. Key Quotes Kevin Lawson (00:00) "Success is determined by the eyes of the beholder." Joe English (01:42) "Growth is super important for any business, right? You're growing or you're shrinking." Joe English (03:29) "It has to be profitable growth. It can't just be growth for growth's sake." Joe English (05:38) "How do we have conversations and tell stories to clients that are relevant to them, not us pitching?" Sean O'Shaughnessey (06:23) "You're not actually talking about what the value is that the customer gets from your product." Joe English (09:55) "We're here to make you better because if you are successful in your role, that just makes everybody else more successful." Additional Resources Joe English, 360 Consulting DFW - Joe@360consultingdfw.com Jim Collins' Good to Great - https://a.co/d/05TQ0K3d A Significant Actionable Item from this Podcast Audit whether your company's messaging matches the value your best customers actually receive. That sounds simple, but it is usually where revenue management starts to break. If your team describes the product one way while customers buy it for another outcome, your sales strategies, value selling, and sales processes are all built on a false premise. Start with three questions: Who is our best customer? What problem do they uniquely hire us to solve? What does our sales team say that proves we understand the problem better than our competitors? That exercise forces sharper messaging, stronger sales management, and more reliable revenue generation. Summary If you care about sales success beyond motivational noise, this episode is worth your time. Kevin, Sean, and Joe English get into the real mechanics of profitable growth: ideal customer profile discipline, stronger messaging, better sales processes, ...
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    18 m
  • How to Use AI and 10-K Reports to Uncover Sales Insights That Win More Deals

    How to Use AI and 10-K Reports to Uncover Sales Insights That Win More Deals
    Mar 24 2026
    This episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales tackles a problem most B2B sellers know they should solve but rarely do: how to turn a customer's annual report into practical sales insight. Sean O'Shaughnessey and Kevin Lawson argue that modern selling requires more than relationship instinct and product knowledge. It requires stronger business acumen, sharper messaging, and a willingness to use AI as a real thinking partner. In a compact but highly practical discussion, they show how sales professionals can use a company's 10-K, executive commentary, and AI prompts to uncover priorities, hiring plans, risks, and revenue direction. The result is a smarter approach to discovery, stronger value selling, and more relevant conversations, all of which improve revenue generation and long-term sales success. Key Topics Discussed Why sales in 2030 will not look like sales in 1990, 2000, 2010, or even 2020 (00:00) Sean opens with a direct challenge to outdated sales practices, arguing that the pace of change is forcing sales leaders and front-line sellers to rethink how they prepare, learn, and compete. AI versus automation and why both matter to modern sales management (02:00) Kevin draws an important distinction between workflow automation and artificial intelligence, explaining that while this episode focuses on AI, many companies can improve sales processes immediately by exploring both. How to use a customer's 10-K annual report as a sales intelligence asset (03:22) Sean lays out a practical method for finding and downloading annual reports, then reframes them as a powerful source of insight for discovery calls, QBRs, and strategic account conversations. How to prompt AI to extract selling insight without making assumptions (07:38) Kevin shares a simple but effective prompting structure that positions AI as a senior analyst tasked with identifying the company's top priorities, using only exact language from the report and transcript. How to tailor prompts to your offer, industry, and customer problems (10:29) Sean expands the technique by showing why sellers should add their own elevator pitch, industry context, and solution focus so the AI can return insights that are actually useful for sales strategies and revenue management. Which business questions matter most when mining annual reports (12:00) The conversation moves from theory to execution as Sean suggests high-value questions around projected revenue, hiring plans, geopolitical pressures, tariffs, fuel costs, and lawsuits that could affect a company's direction. Key Quotes Sean O'Shaughnessey (00:00) "How you sold in 1990 and 2000 and 2010 in 2020 is not how you're going to sell in 2030." Kevin Lawson (02:20) "I want AI to be a thinking partner alongside of me." Kevin Lawson (09:00) "It's so important to understand why it's not just because we don't have the time. It's because the company we're calling on, the prospect is telling us in no uncertain terms what they're about to do." Sean O'Shaughnessey (12:00) "You can get an immense amount of data about your client, about your prospect by just having AI, your AI assistant, your AI intern to figure all that stuff out." Additional Resources B2B Sales Lab Sean and Kevin reference the B2B Sales Lab as a community for salespeople, sales leaders, and business owners who want to exchange ideas, strengthen sales management capability, and improve how they grow revenue. Company Investor Relations Pages Sean recommends starting with the customer's own website to locate investor relations materials and annual reports. SEC Filings / 10-K Reports Kevin specifically notes that sellers should focus on the 10-K annual report rather than confusing it with an 8-K or 10-Q. A Significant Actionable Item from this Podcast Take one target account this week and download its most recent 10-K annual report, plus the executive transcript, if available. Then upload those materials into your preferred AI platform and ask it to identify the company's top five strategic initiatives, expected risks, hiring priorities, and revenue direction using only what is explicitly stated in the source material. This is a meaningful discipline because it strengthens business acumen, improves messaging, and gives you a more credible point of view before your next call. Done consistently, it can elevate both individual sales success and the overall quality of your sales processes. Summary This episode is a strong listen for any seller, sales leader, or business owner who wants to stop showing up underprepared to important customer conversations. Sean and Kevin take a dense, intimidating source of corporate information and turn it into a usable framework for better discovery, better value selling, and smarter account planning. If you want sharper sales strategies, stronger revenue generation, and a more practical way to use AI in the real world of B2B selling, this episode gives you a concrete place to start. B2B Sales Lab is a private, ...
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    18 m
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