The Little Things
How small sales skills shape big buying decisions.
You don't become a top seller in one big leap. You find one little gap, fill it with a new skill, and move on to the next. Which is exactly what this book walks you through, on the deals already sitting in your pipeline.
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Open the preview (PDF)One tip: read the Prologue and Chapter 1 tonight, then bring one live deal with you into Chapter 4. That's where the work starts.
Slope, not intercept
Kora's interview didn't go well, and she knew it. She'd clung to her script, so I told her the role wasn't the right fit. A few days later, she sent me this:
She'd taken my feedback, run a live demo with a real prospect, and recorded the whole thing. I hired her. Two quarters later, she led the team at 130% of her quota.
Slope, as it turns out, is something you can build.
Little things become big things
At first, it won't feel like anything is changing. Every little step forward won't be visible on its own, but it shows up in the aggregate.
Every chapter lays out the work I'm going to ask you to do, in your existing day job, with the active deals in your pipeline today.
The setup, plus Part 1: Something to say
Sixty pages: the three short chapters that frame the book, then the first three skill chapters, each with the exercises to run this week.
- PrologueSlope, not interceptWhy I told Kora no, and what changed my mind a few days later.p. 6
- Ch. 1Step by little stepWhat actually creates slope in a seller's career, and what doesn't (your tech stack, for one).p. 12
- Ch. 2Sailing through your next quarterWayfinding, and the tacit skills that matter more the bigger your deals get.p. 17
- Ch. 3Skills versus SKILLsBuilding your own apprenticeship with AI, without handing over the judgment that's yours.p. 22
- Part 1: Something to say
- Ch. 4What's the point?"No points to raise? No point in meeting." How to show up with a point of view worth an executive's time.p. 27
- Ch. 5How to map a business modelWhat a closed makeup counter in 2020 teaches you about the story an executive actually wants to tell.p. 44
- Ch. 6Practicing by analogyHow case interviews became the best sales training I never had, plus AI drills you can run on your own.p. 56
15 more chapters coming in the full book
- 07Splitting the future two ways
- 08Working up and down the pyramid
- 09Naming, framing and positioning basics
- 10Finding tasty little nuggets
- 11How to keep someone's attention
- 12Asking "hard things in a soft way"
- 13Winning competitive deals with the problem, not product
- 14How to co-create the business case buyers
- 15Mapping the "shadow org chart" to find influence
- 16Writing through, not to your champions
- 17Ghostwriting for executives
- 18The Gospel: turn skeptics into believers
- 19Unsticking stalled deals with genuine urgency
- 20Working backwards
- 21Expansion: taking a second bite of the apple
Builds on Selling With and Brief & Brilliant
But you don't have to read those two first. This book is more like going to a concert: anyone can go and have a blast, even if they've never heard the artist. And if you have, you'll get even more out of it.
"Nate balances the big ideas around messaging and the art of selling with an extremely process-driven approach. There are no other sales resources out there like this."Jason BayCEO @ Outbound Squad