The Adapter’s Advantage: Mike Kunkle on Revenue Growth
Welcome to The Adapter’s Advantage: Breakthrough Moments that Lead to Success. In episode 24, sales effectiveness expert Mike Kunkle shares how he pivoted from a career as a musician to helping companies drive dramatic revenue growth through best-in-class training strategies and proven sales transformation systems.
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“Imagine that your sales training materials accidentally fell into the hands of your top five customers. Think for a second, are you mortified or are you proud?’” — Mike Kunkle
Mike is a recognized expert on sales training, sales effectiveness, and sales enablement. He’s spent over 25 years helping companies drive dramatic revenue growth through best-in-class training strategies and proven-effective sales transformation systems—and he’s delivered some impressive results for both employers and clients.
Today, Mike works as the Vice President of Sales Effectiveness Services for SPARXiQ, where he designs sales training, delivers workshops, and helps clients improve sales results through a variety of sales effectiveness services. Mike collaborated with Doug Wyatt to develop SPARXiQ’s Modern Sales Foundations™ curriculum and also authored SPARXiQ’s Sales Coaching Excellence™ course. His book The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement will be published in 2021 by ATD Press.
Listen as Mike describes how he applies the lessons learned as a professional musician to the field of sales training, the importance of practicing your craft, and the need for critical thinking skills.
Episode 24: Driving Revenue Growth | Mike Kunkle
Listen and Subscribe Now: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn
From This Episode
Host Mark Magnacca: “What do you think is the most important skill that a new employee should learn or improve today?”
Mike Kunkle: “I think it’s a toss up between critical thinking, prioritization skills. and business acumen. All of those I see as being sorely missing. We could do a lot more to help people develop better problem solving and critical thinking skills. I think this is so important in the sales profession, especially for consultative sales and buyer-centric selling where the whole selling profession is going.
“Being able to prioritize, target, and general business acumen would be my top three for sales. It’s the ability to do deep consultative discovery with root-cause analysis. I see that as being something that happens early in the sales process. If you get that right, you could make a ton of mistakes going forward and still get to a win in the end.
“If you truly understand the customer, their perspective, their world, their problems, their pains, their opportunities, their current state, and desired future state—what are the impacts and outcomes they’re looking for? Get that right and a lot of magic starts to happen.
“And the other thing I think is so critical right now, and it’s surprising because this topic has been talked about for more than 50 years but our knowing-doing gap is just massive, and that’s making a full shift to being completely buyer-centric.
“We still talk about things like ‘I need to overcome these objections.’ Think about that for a second right? That is like one of the most combative things I could imagine. Why not just help buyers resolve their concerns?”
About The Adapter’s Advantage
Our podcast features leaders from sales, training, and industry who share their personal journeys of transformation and how they are adapting to an ever-changing environment. As your host, I’ll introduce you to some of the most interesting and inspiring people I’ve met over the last twenty years.
The conversions dive into the ups and downs of their journey. Our guests focus on inflection points—the aha moments that, in retrospect, had a critical impact on their success. These interviews will leave you with practical, real-world advice that you can apply to your life.
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