Podcast
Sales Signals
Hosted by Cognism · EN
Sales Signals is a podcast for revenue leaders who don’t just look at data - they act on it.
Each episode breaks down the signals shaping modern sales teams through a simple lens: Data. Insight. Action. From misleading metrics to high-impact indicators, we uncover the stories behind the numbers and what decision-makers should do next. If you’re responsible for revenue and want to move beyond dashboards into decisive execution, this show is for you.
16episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The reply rate crisis with Phil Woolley, BDR Lead at G2
1w ago00:25:12Tap to summarizePhilip from G2 joins us to unpack why reply rates are declining, how AI-generated "slop" is killing email as a channel, and what smart sellers should be doing instead - from cold calling to LinkedIn InMail.
Transcribe →Why sales coaching is broken and how to fix it with Kevin Beales, CEO and founder of MySalesCoach
3w ago00:30:43Tap to summarizeKevin Beales, CEO and founder of My Sales Coach, joins the Sales Signal podcast to unpack why sales coaching remains one of the most overlooked levers in sales performance.Despite clear data showing a 60% performance difference between frequently coached and uncoached reps, most managers spend less than 5% of their time on true coaching.Kevin shares what the data really shows, why experienced reps are often the most neglected, and the practical framework - coaching plans, cadence, and conversation discipline - that separates real coaching from pipeline reviews dressed up as one-to-ones.If you'd like to read the MySalesCoach report that Kevin mentions in the episode, you can find it here: https://www.mysalescoach.com/the-state-of-sales-coaching-in-2026-report
Transcribe →Why some Sales training might not change behaviour, with Mark Wills, CEO and Founder of Perception Selling.ai
Apr 1500:31:17Tap to summarizeMost sales teams invest in training, but see little change in results. In this episode, Mark Wills explains why performance is driven by behaviour, not knowledge. From discovery and client centricity to leadership and system-level thinking, this conversation unpacks how to turn sales methodology into real, repeatable performance.Find Mark and his team here: www.perceptionselling.ai
Transcribe →How job change signals unlock pipeline with Johnny Stiffell, Mid-Market AE at Cognism
Apr 100:16:43Tap to summarizeWhen someone joins a company, they don’t just bring experience, they bring change. In this episode, Johnny breaks down how he uses job change signals to break into accounts, build relationships with new stakeholders, and create pipeline from day one. From SDR to AE, we unpack how identifying the right moment to reach out can be the difference between being ignored… and starting a deal.
Transcribe →When the data says jump with Darius Lohmann, Former Cognism and Hubspot AE
Mar 1800:24:40Tap to summarizeIn this episode of Sales Signals, we sit down with Darius, former Cognism and HubSpot sales performer turned founder, to unpack the real signals behind modern selling.After closing deals, making mistakes, building a LinkedIn presence from scratch, and now launching his own outbound-as-a-service business, Darius shares the data, insights, and actions that shaped his journey.
Transcribe →The Sales Recession Signal with Kyle Hegarty, Managing Director of Leadership Nomad
Mar 400:39:55Tap to summarizeWhat happens when buyers are 90% through the journey before sales even shows up? In this episode of Sales Signals, Kyle shares the data behind declining quota attainment, the collapse in formal sales training, and why today’s reps must evolve from sellers to coaches. The signal is clear: the old playbook is broken. The question is, what replaces it?
Transcribe →Your Product Isn’t the Problem, Your Prospecting Is. Gabe Lullo on Fixing GTM Failure
Feb 1800:27:18Tap to summarizeMany leaders will happily talk for 45 minutes about their product… and struggle to talk for two about their prospecting engine. In this episode of Why Did It Fail?, Gabe Lullo, CEO of Alleyoop, joins Shivan to unpack why that gap quietly kills startups and stalls growth in mid-market and enterprise sales teams.Gabe shares stories from decades in the trenches: SDRs who couldn’t make it past lunch, weeks of zeros on the whiteboard, clients who raised millions and still ran out of runway, and what changes when you treat prospecting with the same seriousness as product. He breaks down how Alleyoop makes over a million dials a month and how his team uses AI as a sparring partner to prepare reps for the only 9-10 objections that really matter.Gabe offers a clear challenge: if you obsess over building the product but take a casual approach to go-to-market, you’re betting the company on hope. He explains when it makes sense to outsource SDR, how to instrument your sales engine like an F1 car, and why the founders who win are the ones who own the front end of the funnel.
Transcribe →Staying Too Long: How Redundancy Reset Stuart Taylor’s Career
Feb 400:24:07Tap to summarizeIn this episode of Why Did It Fail?, Stuart Taylor, CRO at The Lennox Academy, opens up about a failure most people only talk about in whispers: staying at a company too long after an acquisition… and being made redundant as a result. He talks candidly about what it felt like in the moment, the shock, the hit to his identity and much more.Stuart and Shivan dig into the uncomfortable truth about loyalty, timing your exit, and recognising when a role or company has stopped serving your growth. Stuart shares the mindset and practical steps that helped him rebuild, and how that experience now shapes the way he leads, hires and coaches revenue teams.
Transcribe →From Spray and Pray to Strategic: How Ayah Daniel-Rashid Levelled-Up Her SDR Game
Jan 2100:18:05Tap to summarizeWhen Ayah joined Cognism, she didn’t know what an SDR was, but she knew how to hustle. Her first few months were a blur of spray-and-pray dialling: huge lists, minimal research, mass calls… and 400% of target in month one. It worked. Until it really didn’t.In this episode of Why Did It Fail?, Ayah sits down with Shivan to unpack the dark side of spray and pray: the stress, the lack of control, the low-quality pipeline and the moment she realised her “success” wasn’t sustainable. She talks through how reaching out for help changed everything, how she rebuilt her approach around intentional accounts, proper research and multi-channel outreach, and what a genuinely good cold call looks like now.Ayah also shares how this phase shaped her resilience, mindset and confidence, from handling constant objections to nurturing accounts “like little babies” instead of burning through them. If you’re an SDR leaning on spray and pray to hit your number (or managing a team who are), this conversation is a sharp, honest look at why that approach fails long term — and how to replace it with something that actually scales.
Transcribe →The Deal That Shrunk: How Gearóid Cox Lost a Career-Making Opportunity
Jan 700:24:57Tap to summarizeIn this episode of Why Did It Fail?, Gearoid Cox, Founder and CEO of Sales Pipeline, shares the story of a deal that looked like a win on paper, but turned out to be a brutal lesson in discovery. As a young enterprise rep, Gearoid was laser-focused on getting the PO signed. He closed what he thought was a big hardware sale… only to find out later it was the tiniest slice of a huge, multi-layered project. The rest of the business, software, print, additional hardware, went straight to competitors, and he never even knew it was on the table.Shivan and Gearoid unpack exactly how tunnel vision, target pressure and “just be grateful for the deal” thinking can quietly cost reps career-defining opportunities. Gearoid breaks down the difference between perception and perspective, why it never costs you to ask one more question, and how he now coaches sellers to mine existing accounts properly instead of behaving like “new logo magpies.”If you’ve ever chased the close so hard you forgot to understand the customer, this one will sting in all the right ways, and leave you with practical mindset shifts around discovery, attitude and actions that you can take into your next deal.
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