Mike Schultz's Blog

Win Over Every Buyer: How to Equip Sellers for Multi-Persona Deals

The New Reality: One Deal, Many Deciders

Selling to one decision-maker is a thing of the past. Today’s deals are shaped by committees, each member with their own goals, priorities, and objections.

AI Will Transform Selling—Only for Sellers Who Deserve to Stay

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

As AI continues its breakneck evolution, it’s being hailed as the next great revolution in sales. Tools powered by large language models promise more automation, faster research, cleaner data, and sharper insights.

But let’s be clear: AI won’t save sellers who don’t know how to sell.

Beyond the Hype: What Actually Works in AI Sales Coaching

AI has surged across the sales tech landscape, promising smarter, faster, and more scalable enablement. But amid the hype, many sales leaders are asking:

Is this the real breakthrough we’ve been waiting for or just the latest shiny object?

How Many Touchpoints Does It Take to Make a Sale?

How many touchpoints does it take to make a sale?

The simple answer is: more than most people think!

According to our Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research, it takes an average of 8 touchpoints to get an initial meeting (or other conversion) with a new prospect. But the initial meeting is just the beginning. It takes a lot more to make the sale.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Sales Training: Key Metrics and Best Practices

Measuring sales training effectiveness is essential and often underestimated. Even the most engaging learning experience must lead to performance outcomes to justify the investment and drive change.

Yet many teams struggle to go beyond surface-level metrics. The gap between identifying and consistently tracking KPIs is real, and for many sales enablement and L&D professionals, closing that gap remains a persistent challenge.

Beyond Onboarding: How Everboarding Fuels Sales Success

Onboarding alone isn’t enough to build a high-performing sales team. Research shows that 70% of training is forgotten within a week, leaving sellers struggling to apply what they’ve learned when it matters most.

That’s where everboarding comes in. Instead of treating sales training as a one-time event, everboarding ensures that learning continues long after onboarding ends. This continuous development approach helps sellers sharpen their skills, adapt to changing markets, and consistently drive revenue.

How AI Coaching and Roleplay Drive Sales Performance

Top-performing sales teams are 51% more likely to maintain a regular coaching cadence, yet 73% of frontline managers coach less than two hours per week. That coaching gap affects team dynamics, as well as win rates, ramp times, and revenue.

Responding to RFPs in B2B Sales: A Strategic Approach for 2025

RFPs (Requests for Proposals) are a necessity in B2B sales. Yet most sellers respond reactively, mistakenly believing that more proposals mean more deals.

In truth, without a strategic approach, businesses waste valuable resources on low-probability bids. Worse, failing to differentiate means buyers default to price-based decisions rather than value-based ones.

Middle Managers: The Overlooked Backbone of Organizations

75% of managers are overwhelmed, according to Gartner, and the pressure is only intensifying. Hybrid teams, relentless change, talent churn, rising expectations, and AI are fundamentally changing the structure of work itself.

Gartner predicts that by 2026, 20% of organizations will use AI to flatten their structures, eliminating more than half of today’s middle management roles. Why? Because many of the core functions traditionally performed by managers are increasingly automated, such as synthesizing reports, overseeing tasks, and translating strategy.

[Infographic] 10 Ways to Drive Continuous Learning for Your Organization

Organizations with highly-effective training are 2.2x to 5.5x more likely to embrace key elements of a continuous learning culture. 

These organizations treat training and development as an ongoing journey. From the first day of onboarding to years later, they invest in their sellers and give them the knowledge and resources they need to excel in their roles.