I recently sat down with Pete Smith, a sales veteran and the founder of SpotLogic, to talk about a problem we are all feeling: The Treadmill.

Sales organizations are cranking up the speed, flooding reps with tools that demand data entry rather than providing data insight. Pete shares his journey from the old-school days of NCR’s "Sugar Camp" (where they taught you how to dress) to building a tool simply because he needed a way to survive the cognitive load of modern selling.

We discuss why 84% of enterprise deals die in the first meeting, why "winging it" has become a survival mechanism for overbooked reps, and how to earn the right to sit on the same side of the table as your buyer.

Key Highlights & Takeaways:

• The Origin Story: Pete didn't set out to build a startup. He built SpotLogic for himself because he felt he needed a "force multiplier" to handle complex deals. When he realized it made him twice as effective, his friends forced him to turn it into a company.

• The "Insider" Threshold: There is a moment in every deal where the buyer decides you are no longer an outsider pitching a product, but an insider helping them solve a problem. If you don't cross that threshold, you are just "column fodder."

• Discovery is Not a Phase: We agreed that treating discovery as a checkbox in the sales process is a death sentence. Discovery is a state of mind that starts before the first call and continues long after the contract is signed.

• The "Pajama" Problem: We laughed about the shift from the suit-and-tie culture of NCR to the "socks are the new tie" reality of Zoom sales -- and the time Sun Microsystems had to remind reps not to film internal enablement videos in their PJs!

• The Goldman Sachs Lesson: Pete shares a brutal story about losing a deal not because the product wasn't better (it was), but because the organizational risk of switching infrastructure was too high. It’s a masterclass in understanding the buyer's ecosystem, not just their pain points.

Memorable Quotes:

• "Customers buy from the reps who understand them best." — Pete Smith

• "Discovery is the most important part of the job in complex sales... No, it IS the job." — Pete Smith

• "I've got three critical meetings today. I prepared three hours for one of them. And I'm going to have to wing the other two." — Pete Smith (quoting his son on the reality of modern sales)

Call to Action:

• Stop Winging It: Check out how SpotLogic helps reps reduce cognitive load and prep for meetings in minutes.

• Connect with Pete: Reach out to Pete at pete@spotlogic.com.

• Subscribe: If you enjoyed this deep dive into the psychology of buying, hit subscribe on Thoughts on Selling so you never miss an episode!