Why Preparation Separates Top Performers from Everyone Else with John Rowell

Summary

Episode Overview

Theme:
This episode of Revenue Builders, hosted by John McMahon and John Kaplan, dives deep into how thorough preparation distinguishes the most successful sales professionals from the rest. Guest John Raul (Co-Founder of Pinned Golf, former enterprise sales leader at EMC and Lacework) shares firsthand experience and tangible strategies for applying rigorous prep both in sales and entrepreneurship. The conversation explores process discipline, building confidence, and creating authentic buyer relationships through continual, detailed preparation.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Role of Preparation in Building Confidence

• [00:32] John Kaplan: Opens the discussion by asking how preparation leads to confidence, especially when transitioning into new roles.
• John Raul: Stresses that process creates speed and confidence. A daily discipline and a structured approach allow sales reps to move faster and be more prepared.
  • Quote: “Process equals speed... you're going to move faster, you're going to be more prepared.” (John Raul, 00:51)

Pre-Call Preparation as a Standard Practice

• [00:49] John Raul:
  • Regardless of tenure, even top performers (like those in President’s Club) insist on thorough pre-call preparation: researching accounts, identifying possible pain points, and linking customer stories.
  • Running a business demands similar discipline—knowing buyers’ initiatives and being ready before the call.
  • Quote: “If we're talking to a company we want to partner with, I gotta go do the deep dive and do that same prep doc I used to do.” (John Raul, 01:39)
  • Memorable Moment: Raul’s “psycho about prep” reputation among reps—he views pre-call prep as “everything.” (02:22)

Turning Cold Calls into Warm Calls

• [02:30] John Kaplan:
  • Champions the idea that there’s no need for true “cold calls.”
  • Reps should always find a way to make calls warm by knowing the prospect, their industry, relevant proof points, and customizing messaging (purpose, process, payoff).
  • Quote: “Don’t make cold calls... they should be called warm calls.” (John Kaplan, 02:47)
  • Recommends rehearsing call structure and being “massively prepared” to make early-career reps masterful later.

Analogies & High-Performance Parallels

• [03:57] John Raul:
  • Compares top enterprise reps to athletes (e.g., Patrick Mahomes), emphasizing the necessity of rigorous practice and preparation at the highest levels.
  • Quote: “He’s not showing up on Sunday unless he’s dissected every ounce of film... It’s the same level of prep.” (John Raul, 04:01)

The Cost of Under-Preparation

• [04:23] Guest Speaker (likely John McMahon):
  • If unprepared, reps miss the chance to drive their value home; post-call realizations are too late.
  • Under-preparation leads to surface-level conversations, distracting from truly engaging with the customer.

Preparation as a Signal to Customers

• [05:05] John Raul:
  • It’s not just about selling a solution, but projecting reliability and trustworthiness from the first call.
  • Preparation demonstrates you’ll follow through and are easy to work with.
  • Quote: “They’re going to size up pretty quickly, ‘Hey, is this person going to come prepared to my meetings? Are they going to take the actions they said they were going to do?’” (John Raul, 05:09)

Being Present: Interested vs. Interesting

• [05:40] John Kaplan:
  • Being prepared allows a seller to be present—“interested” (listening fully and engaging with the buyer’s issues) rather than “trying to be interesting” and forcing proof points.
  • The best connection happens when you make space for the buyer, not yourself.
  • Quote: “The best way... is to give that person space to be able to articulate what their challenges or problems are.” (John Kaplan, 06:00)

Preparation Enables Authenticity

• [06:24] Guest Speaker:
  • True preparation means you can be yourself in the moment, focusing on genuine, agile conversation instead of worrying about your next move.
  • Quote: “When you’re really well prepared... you’re just in the moment with the customer.” (Guest, 06:29)

“Process Equals Speed” Expanded and Practical Takeaways

• [07:09] John Raul:
  • At Lacework under CRO Andy Byron, every sales action (weekly planning, discovery call, demo, trial) was mapped as a clear process with specific exit criteria and associated actions.
  • This created clarity, reduced indecision, and accelerated team performance—reps always knew what to do next.
  • Raul applies this process-driven, outcome-based philosophy as a founder, reverse-engineering big goals into quarterly, weekly, and daily actions and KPIs.
  • Quote: “Dialing in a process and measuring your success along the way... can be applied to anything, but definitely, obviously sales and entrepreneurship specifically.” (John Raul, 08:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Process equals speed... you're going to move faster, you're going to be more prepared.”
  – John Raul, (00:51)

• “Don’t make cold calls... they should be called warm calls.”
  – John Kaplan, (02:47)

• “He’s not showing up on Sunday unless he’s dissected every ounce of film... It’s the same level of prep.”
  – John Raul, (04:01)

• “If you’re not really well prepared, you’re not in the customer conversation.”
  – Guest Speaker (John McMahon), (04:37)

• "They’re going to size up pretty quickly, ‘Hey, is this person going to come prepared to my meetings? Are they going to take the actions they said they were going to do?’”
  – John Raul, (05:09)

• “Preparation allows you to be present and not trying to figure out how you can be interesting.”
  – John Kaplan, (05:53)

• “When you’re really well prepared... you’re just in the moment with the customer.”
  – Guest Speaker, (06:29)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:32 – Advice on using preparation to build confidence in new roles.
• 00:49–02:22 – Importance of pre-call preparation; process in sales and entrepreneurship.
• 02:30–03:57 – Redefining “cold” calls; making every interaction warm through knowledge and rehearsal.
• 03:57–04:23 – Athletic analogy: top performers’ preparation.
• 04:23–05:05 – Consequences of under-preparing; missing the real customer conversation.
• 05:05–05:40 – Using preparation to build trust and credibility.
• 05:40–06:28 – Preparation enables presence and authenticity in customer conversations.
• 07:09–08:22 – Deep dive into “process equals speed”; playbook development at Lacework; outcome-driven processes for business and sales.

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Summary Takeaways

• Elite sales professionals and entrepreneurs treat preparation as non-negotiable, process-driven, and ongoing.
• Pre-call research and documented planning transforms confidence, accelerates results, and builds trust with buyers.
• Systematic processes for every sales stage create clarity, eliminate wasted energy, and enable rapid movement—“process equals speed.”
• The shift from “cold” to “warm” calls comes from prep, rehearsal, and always seeking to be present and deeply interested in the buyer’s world.
• Preparation empowers salespeople to show up authentically, listen actively, and connect the company’s offering seamlessly to the buyer’s priorities and goals.

The full episode digs even deeper into these themes. For those aiming to break through in B2B sales or entrepreneurial roles, this conversation reminds us: Preparation isn’t just background work—it’s foundational to every winning outcome.

Transcript

[John Raul]

Foreign.

[John McMahon]

Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast with John McMahon and John Kaplan. This podcast is brought to you by Force Management Forces Solutions help companies meet the revenue goals that drive funding and higher valuations. Today, a segment from our conversation with John Raul, co founder of Pinned Golf. John had an enterprise sales career before he went into entrepreneurship. In the snippet, the three of them talk preparation.

[John Kaplan]

Could you walk me through a little bit of the how you can begin to. You're still doing this today, so how you can begin to really be effective and get that confidence level by being prepared. What advice would you give on preparing in these new roles, if you will?

[John Raul]

Totally. Yeah. I mean I was a big believer in just process equals speed, right? If you can build what you're going to do every day down to a defined process, you're going to be able to move faster, you're going to be more prepared and even like you know, later on in my career when I was enterprise sales or enterprise sales management, like I don't care how long someone's doing it, we would take a half hour for pre call prep. And I think it comes down to you kind of got to make some hypotheses around like, okay, who are we selling to? Like what research did we do on their account? What do we think their key pain points are? Right? What are relevant customer stories of, of where we've done this before that's going to translate and really drive that message home with them. And I think maybe early in your career you're like, this is a bunch of busy work. You know, I'm the best inside rep in, in the company. Like I don't have to do this anymore. Like I, I saw 50 year old guys, president's club and they would still take the time before a call to go read a 10k, read job postings, figure out like what do I think they they're trying to do as a business and how can our solution help them solve that? Just so important and to your point, like now that I'm running a business, it's the same thing. Like if we're talking to a company we want to partner with, like I gotta go do the deep dive and do that same prep doc I used to do, you know, whether at EMC or Lace work of like, hey, we want to get our range finders and speakers in stores at Dick's. Well, what are their initiatives? You know, they're trying to improve margin, they're trying to get a younger audience. Like when we get on the phone with that buyer, we gotta have that stuff down because otherwise you'll figure it out during the call and you miss your chance to drive home how you and your company can help them. So I mean, pre call prep, to me, it's like the reps I used to manage are probably laughing, listening to this because I was a psycho about that, because I think it's everything.

[John Kaplan]

I love that I used to ask people, how are you planning to make this interaction warm? And people kind of look at me like I'm crazy. Like, well, I don't know how to make it. It's a cold call. By the very nature of it's a cold call. And what I like to try to do early on in people's careers is I say don't make cold calls. And they'll go, well, what do you mean? We got goals. There are so many calls that we have to make. And they shouldn't be called cold calls, they should be called warm calls. Because you should figure out ways that you can make that call warm. What do you know about the individual? What do you know about that industry? What do you know about that company? What do you know about companies that are similar to them? What proof points, case studies, testimonials do you have at your fingertips? What value drivers do you know are appropriate for that Persona? So I always used to ask people and get them prepped, like, what's wrong in the old days of getting with your buddies and saying, hey, I'm going to walk through, you know, the purpose, process, payoff. This is the reason why I'm calling. I want to do this with you, Mr. And Mrs. Customer. And the reason why I'm calling, it's, you know, I know this person or this person asked me to call or what have you, and then they're just kind of role playing it out, but they were massively prepared. You learn how to do that that early in your career, you will be masterful at it later on in life. It never, the need for that never goes away.

[John Raul]

No doubt. The way I used to think about it was, you know, if you're an enterprise sales rep, that is the highest point of, of your profession you could possibly be right. It's the same thing as Patrick Mahomes is playing quarterback at the highest level of his, his profession. He's not showing up on Sunday unless he's dissected every ounce of film, knows the playbook cold, knows what he's going to do. You got to do that same level of prep. You know, you're not lacing up the cleats you're, you know, logging into Zoom, but it's the same level of prep that goes into it beforehand.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah. I like what you said, though, John, that if you're not prepared, you'll figure it out after the call, but then it's too late. Right. And the other thing I've always said, and I'm repeating myself because I said it on other podcasts, if you're not really well prepared, then you're not in the customer conversation. You're having a conversation, but you're not really in it because you're still thinking too much and wondering what the customer means by that, and what should I say next and what question should I ask versus being totally prepared and listening to everything that they say and using your intuition and what you heard from the customer in order to react.

[John Raul]

Yeah, and I think a lot about it, too, in the sense that as much as you're selling software or hardware or some form of solution, you're selling yourself and your ability to be a good person for them to work with. And on that first call, they're going to size up pretty quickly. Hey, is this person going to come prepared to my meetings? Are they going to take the actions they said they were going to do? So I think you have a good opportunity on that first call through the prep to show them, like, hey, I'm a sales rep. That's going to be great to work with. If I say I'm going to do something, I'll do it. And even if that just shows up by you knowing what you're talking about before you get on the call, it just. It's going to change the whole sales cycle for you.

[John Kaplan]

We've had guests on before. I can't remember. I think it was selling DeVito, Jonny, but you always bring it up in several podcasts where when you're prepared and when you're in the conversation, you're present in the conversation, you are interested versus feeling forced to be interesting. And that just makes so much sense to me. Preparation allows you to be present and not trying to figure out how you can be interesting to another individual. The best way, the best connection you can make is to give that person space to be able to articulate what their challenges or problems are and then be audible, ready to talk about what you do for a living as it relates to what they just told you.

[Guest Speaker]

Well, it goes back to John's first point. You can be yourself.

[John Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Guest Speaker]

When you're really well prepared, you're not really wondering what you should say or how to act or Any of that stuff. You're just in the moment with the customer. Customer. And that's you. When you're in the moment, you'll know what to say, you'll know what questions to ask if you're prepared.

[John Kaplan]

John. Johnny. Johnny. Ralph.

[Guest Speaker]

Sorry, Junior, for a second there, I'm

[John Kaplan]

gonna call you Junior. Walk us through some other ones. That's a, that was a really, really

[Guest Speaker]

good deep or can you expand on process equals speed. I, I heard that. And you never really expanded on that. I'd love to hear more about process equals or build spilled speed, I think you said.

[John Raul]

Yeah, right. So kind of going forward with my career. Right. I eventually made the jump over to lace work right back when we were single digit millions of ARR and I got there and everyone there was just an absolute hitter. Like I was surrounded by just some studs. And as I started to spend some time in the company, I realized it came top down. Like I was working for past guests. Our CRO at the time, Andy Byron, and he broke down what you're going to do to prep for a week of PG down to a process, right? He broke down the discovery call to a process, right? If you're going to get to a second call, demo a trial, like the whole thing, it was, hey, here's what you're going to do going into it. Here's the defined exit criteria. And then we'd peel that back into the actions you're going to do to get there. So once it came time to show up in like, you know, on a week, and I'm going to run through my calendar and go through all my meetings, I knew exactly what we were going to do every single day for every call and every period. And then we just started to move fast because there was no like, hey, what should we do next? What's this? We just had this playbook that we, you know, were able to adapt and scale quite a bit. And really that, you know, that's kind of the same thing once you get into the founder side and entrepreneurship is I've tried to take the same mindset of hey, what's the big desired outcome my company's after? We're trying to sell more rangefinders, we're trying to launch a GPS Golf tablet. Okay, well what do we need to do this year? What do we need to do this quarter? Like, what do I need to do this week and what are the KPIs we're going to measure along the way? So I mean, that whole mindset of just dialing in a process and measuring your success along the way. I think that can be applied to anything, but definitely, obviously sales and entrepreneurship specifically.

[John McMahon]

This is a great conversation that continues with the whole episode. Linked in the show Notes Be sure to also catch Pin Golf's portable Golf GPS tablet. It hooks right to any cart. They're going to start shipping them out this week. You can find more more on pingolf. Com. Make it a great week.