I Don’t Read Sales Books

James Chanot

A sales podcast for people who never quite fitted the script. Hosted by James Chanot. From mortgage advising to building businesses and now corporate sales, this is a podcast about what sales, leadership and starting again really look like. No playbook. No buzzwords. Just real stories, real situations, and the lessons you only learn by doing.

Episodes

  1. Oct 19

    The Human Side of Sales, Episode 1: When You Hit a Wall

    Be resilient. Own your number. Find a way. They’re great principles, but what happens when you take them too far? This is the first episode of The Human Side of Sales, a short series on the human cost of performance from the side of the employee, the manager and the business owner. In this first episode, I talk about hitting a wall early in my career, the manager who recognised it, and how that experience shaped the way I saw people in sales. Because what looks like bad attitude isn’t always what it seems. And sometimes, the person who needs help most is the one who’s least likely to ask for it. Next time: the pressure on the manager, and what happens when they’re struggling too.

    The Human Side of Sales, Episode 1: When You Hit a Wall

  2. Aug 31

    Episode 6: Sometimes Starting Again Is the Achievement

    This episode goes back to 2021, when the business I’d spent years building came to an end. I talk about what happened, the decisions I made, the people involved and what happened afterwards. I went from owning a business and employing people to applying for jobs, doing wine deliveries and 4am supermarket shifts. There’s an overqualified rejection, a tin of beans rolling down a hill, and quite a lot of stuff I probably wouldn’t have talked about a few years ago. But it’s really about people. The people you work with, the people you think you’re protecting, the people who stay, the people who walk away, and the people who help you when things go wrong. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the boss, the employee, a friend or part of a family. Relationships can change pretty quickly when things get difficult. I got a lot of things wrong. I also thought I was doing the right thing at the time. This is what happened next.

  3. Aug 3

    Episode 5: No Book Prepares You For This

    (updated quality of recording) Every entrepreneur has a story about building something. The growth, the wins, the moments when everything starts to come together. But nobody talks enough about what happens when everything changes overnight. In March 2020, the business I had spent 10 years building went from growth mode to survival mode. Suddenly, the decisions weren’t just about revenue or strategy. They were about people, families, responsibility, and trying to lead when nobody had the answers. This episode is about the hardest leadership lesson I’ve ever learned: sometimes the person everyone looks to for answers doesn’t have them either. It’s about uncertainty, pressure, difficult decisions, asking for help, and realising that some lessons can’t be found in a book. Because no book prepares you for this.

  4. Jul 27

    Episode 4: When You Can’t Solve the Problem

    Episode 4: When Control Disappears For years, I believed every problem had a solution. Work harder. Find another way. Take responsibility. Keep moving forward. That mindset helped me build businesses, lead teams and overcome challenges — but it also became one of my biggest weaknesses. Because what happens when you face something you cannot fix? When the thing you've built, the identity you've created, and the confidence you've relied on start to disappear? In this episode, I explore the difference between responsibility and carrying everything alone, and how losing control can reveal lessons you never expected to learn. Some of the biggest lessons in life don't come from when everything goes right. They come from the moments when nothing does.

  5. Jul 20

    Episode 3: Control Is an Illusion in Sales

    We like to believe that if we work hard enough, prepare well enough and follow the right process, we'll get the outcome we deserve. In sales, and in life, I've learned that's simply not true. In this episode I talk about why sales isn't chess, it's probability. I share the mortgage deal I lost despite doing everything right, the business mistake that nearly stopped us trading overnight, and what those experiences taught me about the difference between influence and control. This isn't about giving up. It's about focusing your energy on the things you can actually control. Because sometimes the biggest lesson isn't how to win, it's how to respond when you don't. This is Part One of a two-part conversation about control.

  6. Jul 13

    Episode 2: Why Being Different Made Me Succesful

    Every salesperson knows the feeling when everything just clicks. The conversations flow, you stop overthinking, rejection doesn’t seem to affect you, and you find yourself in what I call the “purple patch”. But what happens when that disappears? In this episode, I explore what real confidence in sales actually is. Is it being the loudest person in the room? Having the perfect words? Never feeling pressure? Or is confidence something much deeper? I talk about why confidence comes from understanding yourself, trusting your process, recognising your strengths, and knowing how to recover when things don’t go your way. From helping salespeople find their own style, to seeing talented people lose confidence when stepping into leadership, to my own experience of losing my business, starting again, and rebuilding my identity in sales. Because confidence isn’t created when everything is going well. It’s what allows you to keep going when things aren’t.

  7. Jul 5

    Episode 1: I wasn’t supposed to be a mortgage advisor

    Episode 1. (Updated recording to improve sound quality) I wasn’t supposed to be a mortgage advisor. This is my early journey in sales, learning by copying, figuring out my own style, and stepping into leadership before I was ready. It also covers real lessons from hiring, trusting (and ignoring) instinct, and what it actually feels like to start again multiple times in a career.

  8. Jun 29

    Episode 0: I Don’t Read Sales Books

    This is Episode 0, an intro of I Don’t Read Sales Books. I’ve never read a sales book in my life. Not because I don’t believe in learning, but because everything I’ve learned has come from doing it the hard way. In this first episode, I share my journey from leaving school at 16, becoming a mortgage adviser, building and leading businesses, and eventually moving into corporate sales. It’s about what actually happens when you learn sales, leadership and decision making in real environments, not from theory or playbooks. From mortgage advising to building companies, to working in corporate sales today, the same themes keep showing up. People, pressure and decisions. This podcast is about real experience. Not perfect advice. Episode 1 is coming next.

  9. Jun 7

    I Don’t Read Sales Books – Trailer

    This is I Don’t Read Sales Books. A podcast for people who have learned sales the hard way through real conversations, real pressure and real experience. No scripts. No theory. No polished advice. Just honest stories from mortgage advising, building businesses and corporate sales and what actually happens when you are in it not reading about it. Episodes coming soon.

  • 9 Episodes

About

A sales podcast for people who never quite fitted the script. Hosted by James Chanot. From mortgage advising to building businesses and now corporate sales, this is a podcast about what sales, leadership and starting again really look like. No playbook. No buzzwords. Just real stories, real situations, and the lessons you only learn by doing.

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