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TOGETHER WITH PROSPEO
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THE INTERVIEW
WEDNESDAY
STATE
OF SALES
The State of Sales right now….
IN THE HOT SEAT
Charles Kirkman
Director - New Business Sales @ ZoomInfo | Nasdaq: GTM
It's the most change I've seen in my career. Buying committees are larger than ever and additional scrutiny is in every deal. Environments like this have always been more polarising for sellers. Most reps are going to find this tougher, but reps who are highly skilled at multi-threading, navigating buying processes, and driving effective next steps are going to pull even further ahead.
THE SETUP
Charles Kirkman is the International Director of New Business Sales at ZoomInfo, the go-to-market intelligence platform, which puts him in conversation with go-to-market leaders all day, every day. He gave us one of the most honest answers we've heard on what actually separates elite sellers, and it has nothing to do with talent.
THE 60-SECOND VERSION
Speed is the only universal trait of top sellers. The rest is ensuring a solid process is run consistently.
Turn up with a credible and informed point of view — not just a point of view.
A champion is able and motivated to get you into the right rooms. A coach can't. Know which one you have.
Don't give up on a deal that goes quiet. Keep bringing genuine value until you hear an honest no.
3 THINGS YOU'LL STEAL FROM THIS
The single universal trait Charles has found in every top seller
A champion-versus-coach test that predicts whether your deal survives the committee
The intent hierarchy that tells you which lead deserves your morning
TOGETHER WITH PROSPEO
Charles's whole argument rests on turning up with a credible point of view — and that falls apart if half your data is wrong. In an independent test of 8 providers, Clay ranked Prospeo first for accuracy. 300M contacts, every email triple-verified, so your outbound actually lands. Try it for free here →
01 · The only universal trait is speed
We asked Charles what winning salespeople have in common. His answer surprised us with what it left out.
The single commonality I see among top performers is speed to action. Outside of that, it becomes about consistency, running the same solid process every single time, rather than being exceptional in one area at the expense of the rest. If you pour everything into uncovering the decision criteria in exceptional detail, but don't leave enough time on the call to understand what's actually driving this to be a priority for the business, that trade-off will cost you more than it gains you, and it works the other way round too.
It reframes coaching entirely: chase consistency before you chase brilliance, and treat speed of action as a skill, never a personality trait.
DO THIS THIS WEEK
Make a conscious effort to act as fast as physically possible on anything client facing — replying to emails, sending proposals, and booking calendar invites, ideally while you're still on the call, not after it. Track your inbound email volume week on week as your proof point: faster action drives higher velocity conversations and more accepted meetings.
02 · No excuse to turn up without a point of view
Where is AI genuinely making a difference? For Charles, account research and first-party data, and both raise the bar rather than lower it.
Everyone says turn up with a point of view. What actually matters is turning up with a credible one, built on real information — whether that's past conversations you or your colleagues have had with stakeholders at that account, or account research using AI tools, ideally a combination of both. When prospects see that level of business acumen, they feel it's safer to open up about their genuine priorities.
The prep-heavy reps compound the advantage. Automated CRM notes and admin mean roughly double the conversations per rep, which in a talent-dense team means fewer people carrying bigger quotas. But he had a warning for the script-dependent: "If sellers just read an AI pitch and don't have the business acumen past question one, it's going to be challenging."
STEAL THIS
Open every first call with one credible, researched sentence about their business, then a question that tests it. Point of view first, pitch later.
03 · Champions get you rooms. Coaches just talk to you
Buying committees are bigger, and technical buyers now carry serious weight, because leaders know they can't personally evaluate a fast-moving tech landscape. Managing that crowd without losing control comes down to one distinction Charles has made into a usable definition:
A champion is someone who can get you into the right rooms with the right people, and is motivated to actually do it. A coach might like your product and want to help, but either can't get you into those rooms, or can, and doesn't, because they're not fully convinced it's the right solution. Be careful to scrutinise which one you actually have — it changes everything about how you run the deal.
His multi-stakeholder playbook:
Thread individually. Direct lines to every committee member, especially on complex deals.
Brief through your champion. Before the group call, learn what each attendee cares about.
Get your champion to introduce your solution on the call. Have them explain why they think it's the right fit in the introduction — it gives your solution legitimacy from the get go on larger calls.
Arm the champion. Business case, priority alignment, and even role-playing the CFO conversation with them.
TRY THIS ON YOUR LIVE DEALS
Label every internal contact champion or coach against this definition. Find out if they can or can't get you in the room, and if they are motivated to or not — it totally changes what your next step looks like depending on their access and motivation level.
04 · Timing beats targeting, and then just ask
Charles thinks the majority of deals are a timing problem. If a business has a renewal with another vendor in six months, there's zero opportunity there today. But reach out at the four-month mark, and that outbound lead can actually have an even higher propensity to purchase than a typical inbound enquiry, because you know a purchasing decision is already happening — which makes the biggest competition of all, doing nothing, a much less likely outcome.
And once you're in the deal, his simplest advice of all:
Don't give up the moment a deal goes cold. Keep showing up with something genuinely useful, a unique market insight that only we, as a vendor, can offer, because we talk to people in that position all day, every day. You'd be amazed how many deals close simply because one side kept showing up with something useful, while everyone else gave up.
THE MOVE
Review every open opportunity older than 90 days and send each one something genuinely useful — a market insight relevant to the conversation you had with them, an idea tied to their priorities. Don't close your pipeline, just close the deals that are actually dead.
THE ONE THING
Speed is the only universal trait of top sellers. Everything else is ensuring a solid process is run consistently.
WHERE TO FIND CHARLES
Charles Kirkman is International Director of New Business Sales at ZoomInfo, the go-to-market intelligence platform helping sales and marketing teams find, acquire and grow customers. Find him on LinkedIn or visit zoominfo.com.
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