Most companies take their best salesperson, hand them the keys to the office and a good car spot, and then quietly hope leadership works itself out.
It rarely does. Darren Mitchell has spent his career watching that exact pattern play out, and he has strong views on why so many capable operators flounder within three months of a promotion nobody prepared them for.
Darren started his career as an engineer before the Australian building industry collapsed in the early nineties, which pushed him into a telemarketing role at Optus in 1993. Over the next two decades he carried the bag and led high performing sales teams delivering revenues over $100 million per year across Optus and Telstra. Since 2015 he has worked behind the scenes as a sales leadership coach and mentor, has trained more than 5,000 people, and hosts The
Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast, which is now well past 900 episodes. He has worked with organisations including IVECO, John Holland, Hyundai, Australia Post and World Vision.
In this conversation Darren and Matthew get into why the sale is lost in the planning rather than the call, the think-feel-do framework exceptional salespeople use before every meeting, why sales coaching is the number one driver of high performance and also the first thing every leader cancels, and how founders consistently hire the wrong first sales leader by looking for someone exactly like themselves.
If you lead a sales team, or you are a strong individual contributor being lined up for a promotion you have not been trained for, this conversation is worth your time.
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⏱ CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
02:36 From engineer to Optus telemarketer in 1993
03:55 Why people think the telephone weighs 400 tons
05:32 How salespeople stay relevant when buyers are more educated than ever
08:59 Why promoting your best salesperson so often backfires
11:18 The hunter versus the conductor
13:50 What actually makes a quality sales leader
26:31 Self awareness, honest pipelines, and the courtroom test
28:41 The sale is lost in the planning, not the sales call
28:48 The think, feel, do framework
33:08 Why 80% of sales happen between five and twelve contact points
33:09 Becoming a buyer’s assistant
35:00 The sale does not begin until after the sale is made
38:07 Scripts, Chris Hemsworth, and the difference between A grade and B grade
43:39 The two things sales leaders do that kill team performance
44:29 How to actually run a sales coaching conversation
50:47 Where founders get it catastrophically wrong hiring their first sales leader
54:35 What Darren would tell his 25 year old self
56:23 The one book that made the biggest difference
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🔗 CONNECT WITH DARREN MITCHELL
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/salesleadership-coach
Exceptional Sales Leader → https://exceptionalsalesleader.com/
Website → https://www.darrenmitchell.com.au
The Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast → Available on all platforms
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🎙 THE CEO AND THE SALESMAN PODCAST
Subscribe for more episodes → https://www.youtube.com/@TheCeoAndTheSalesmanPodcast
Follow Matthew on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewwhyatt
