Quick announcement episode.

Steven shares a brief update on This Is The Play, why the release schedule paused, and what the show will look like when it returns. The long-term direction is more interviews with sales reps and leaders, so listeners can hear the real needle-movers from multiple perspectives (not just through Steven’s lens).

He also introduces a new solo podcast launching soon: Calm Under Quota. It’s built for sales leaders and reps who want to make better decisions under pressure. The lens is Stoicism, plus Steven’s experiences in sales leadership, endurance sport, and disciplined training. The tone is intended to be reflective, practical, and not preachy.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the new drop and the return of interviews.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenwerley/ or get in touch at https://closable.ai/

Great sales calls begin before the meeting.

Steven Werley walks through a fast pre-call workflow that uses AI to assemble a one-page brief so you enter discovery prepared, objection-ready, and set up to secure a clear next step.

Key takeaways

• Gather the essentials fast: invite, email thread, CRM facts, quick AI research.
• Build a one-page brief with persona, pains, outcomes, objections, five discovery questions, binary next step, and proof points.
• Use Steven’s plain-English prompt to generate a printable brief in minutes.
• Label assumptions and avoid invented facts so the brief stays reliable on the call.

Timestamps
00:00 Intro and show format

01:20 Why strong calls start before the call

01:39 Five-step play overview

01:46 Gather inputs, invite and thread and CRM facts and quick AI research

02:13 One-page brief sections, persona and pains and outcomes and likely objections

02:32 Follow the brief on the call and mark assumptions to verify

02:57 AI sidecar overview

03:27 Build the printable one pager in ChatGPT

03:31 The exact prompt to generate the brief

04:30 Guardrails, one page and plain English and assumption labels

05:07 Confirm time zones for the two realistic slots

05:20 Action in five minutes and close

The Single Source Sprint: Elevate Your Sales Game

In this episode of 'This is the Play,' Steven Werley introduces 'The Single Source Sprint,' a strategy designed to place sales managers in the top 5% of their field. The key to this method is establishing a reliable CRM as the single source of truth, scrubbing away cluttered and inaccurate data. Werley outlines a daily 10-minute and weekly 20-minute routine to ensure CRM cleanliness, emphasizing the importance of seven core fields: owner, stage, amount, close date, last touch, next action, and confidence level. Additionally, leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT can assist in maintaining pipeline hygiene, ultimately boosting decision-making and forecasting accuracy.

00:00 Introduction to the Single Source Sprint

00:55 The Importance of a Single Source of Truth

01:34 Implementing the Daily Hygiene Loop

03:21 Choosing and Enforcing Your CRM

05:19 Daily and Weekly Review Processes

08:15 Leveraging AI for CRM Hygiene

13:05 14-Day Plan for CRM Optimization

13:39 Final Action Steps and Outro

The Play: Single-Source Sprint

1. Choose your SSOT: the CRM. Freeze side sheets read-only.

2. Enforce 7 canonical fields: Owner, Stage, Amount, Close date, Last touch, Next action, Confidence.

3. Make “Next action + date” required — otherwise not a valid opp.

4. Build 3 core views: Missing Next Action • Stale by SLA (Hot 24h, Warm 72h, Cold 7d) • Closing This Week.

5. Run a daily 10–15 min Status-Sweep: fix missing next steps, touch stale opps, close junk.

6. Hold a weekly 20-min exceptions review: discuss outliers; every decision = next action.

7. Keep a dashboard with only 3 metrics: Time-to-first-touch • Stage-to-stage days • Win rate by source.

Export a simple opps table and let GPT run a hygiene audit, returning a fix list and close/recycle candidates.

• Don’t add new fields mid-sprint; stick to the 7 canonical.

• Keep dashboards at 3 metrics.

• Archive side sheets read-only — no split sources.

• Back up before bulk edits.

Start (≤5 min): Export today’s open opp view, paste into GPT with the audit prompt, and copy the FIX LIST into your task queue.
Finish: Run a 15-minute Status-Sweep today and schedule it daily.

AI Sidecar

Export a simple opps table and let GPT run a hygiene audit, returning a fix list and close/recycle candidates.

Guardrails

• Don’t add new fields mid-sprint; stick to the 7 canonical.
• Keep dashboards at 3 metrics.
• Archive side sheets read-only — no split sources.
• Back up before bulk edits.
• 
  

Action in 5

Start (≤5 min): Export today’s open opp view, paste into GPT with the audit prompt, and copy the FIX LIST into your task queue.
Finish: Run a 15-minute Status-Sweep today and schedule it daily.