In this episode of Selling the Cloud, Glenn Poulos joins Mark and KK Anderson to break down what truly drives success in complex enterprise B2B sales. With over 40 years of experience selling technical solutions across telecom, wireless infrastructure, and power utilities, Glenn shares the practical frameworks behind building trust, mapping decision processes, and creating repeatable sales performance. Drawing from his book Never Sit in the Lobby and decades of hands-on leadership, Glenn explains why buyers in complex sales are not simply purchasing products. They are buying safety, trust, and confidence that their decision will not backfire. The conversation explores how to slow down early, uncover real risk, build consensus across multiple stakeholders, and implement disciplined follow-up that keeps long-cycle deals moving forward. If you are leading an enterprise sales team or looking to scale predictable revenue in complex markets, this episode delivers actionable insight you can apply immediately. What You’ll Learn: • Why complex buyers prioritize safety and trust over price and specs • How to build trust early by slowing down and asking better questions • The importance of mapping decision makers and influencers in enterprise deals • How to prevent deals from stalling due to unseen stakeholders • The habits that create sales repeatability and predictable results • Why disciplined follow-up is a competitive advantage • How to coach sales teams before, during, and after every call • Glenn’s philosophy of greed-based learning and how it accelerates product mastery Key Topics: • Trust-driven selling in high-risk B2B environments • Mapping enterprise decision processes • Mutual action planning and consensus building • Sales discipline and behavioral consistency • Curiosity, preparation, and active listening • Scaling sales teams through repeatable behaviors • Coaching frameworks for enterprise sales leaders Guest Spotlight: Glenn Poulos Glenn Poulos is an award-winning author, sales expert, and serial entrepreneur with more than four decades of experience in complex B2B selling. He is the co-founder of Gap Wireless, which he scaled from startup to a multi-million dollar distribution business serving North America’s mobile broadband and wireless infrastructure markets. In 2022, Gap Wireless was acquired by the organization, where Glenn stayed on as Executive Vice President and General Manager to help integrate and grow the combined entity, now operating as NWS Canada. Today, Glenn serves as President of ProgUSA, supporting US power utilities and service firms with electrical test and measurement equipment. He is also the author of Never Sit in the Lobby, a practical guide to winning and sustaining success in complex sales environments. 🎧 Listen now and follow Selling the Cloud for more conversations with leaders shaping enterprise sales, go to market strategy, and revenue growth. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mark (00:31) Welcome to today's episode of Selling the Cloud podcast. I'm excited to welcome Glenn Poulis, an award-winning author, sales expert, and serial entrepreneur with over 40 years of experience in complex B2B selling. Glenn is the co-founder of Gap Wireless, which he built from startup to a multi-million dollar distribution business serving the mobile broadband and wireless infrastructure markets. KK Anderson (00:57) and the infrastructure market. Mark (00:59) of North America. In 2022, GAP Wireless was acquired by Network Wireless Solutions, NWS, a portfolio company of green management. stayed on as the executive vice president and general manager to help integrate and grow the combined entity, which is now NWS Canada. Today, Glenn is president of Prague USA, a company that supports US power utilities and service firms with electrical test and measurement equipment. Thanks so much for joining us here, Glenn, and welcome. Glenn Poulos (01:31) Thanks, Mark. Great to be here. Mark (01:32) Cool, so today we'll explore four critical themes. First one, the core of complex B2B selling. How deals really get done and when the product is technical and the risk is high, how do you make sure that you build very strong efficiency into your selling model? Building sales repeatability. The habits and systems that make results predictable. Scaling and distribution business. We're gonna go a little deeper in that than we normally do. But really from startup to exit in the telecom and technology sectors. And then AI and technology and sales. Using tools without using the human connection. Topic one, just start with the B2B selling model as a whole. Glenn, your book, Never Sit in the Lobby, is full of field-tested wisdom from 40 years in technical sales. When you're selling complex products, whether it's wireless infrastructure, equipment, or power utility testing solutions, what fundamentally determines whether a buyer says yes or ultimately walks away? Glenn Poulos (02:32) Great question. So, and we're talking about complex sales, right? So, right. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, complex sales is a little different than just, you know, box selling or when you're just selling commodities like printers and computers or something. And, you know, when, when someone's buying something that's complex, right, they're not really buying a product. Mark (02:36) We are. Yes. Glenn Poulos (02:52) I always like to tell our people they're buying safety and solutions, right? Like they've got a problem. It could probably be solved in many ways with a complex solution, right? And it, and they're buying the safety that it, the, that decision will work, won't blow up in their face. No one's going to get fired. That's where the old, nobody got fired for buying IBM or Hewlett Packard came from, right? And that someone will stand beside them when things get hard, right? The specs matter. but trust matters more, right? That's the most important thing is the trust. And if a buyer doesn't feel safe saying yes, price doesn't become an issue, product doesn't become an issue, you're kind of dead in the water. And that's just a little, Looking back, it's like that's why a lot of times people would say to them, so I can't believe I didn't get the order. Like I had the best product, I had the best price, I had the best delivery, but they didn't trust you. rather, and again, I love saying, nobody got fired for buying IBM, right? They knew IBM was going to be there even if they were twice the price. And it's like, you know what? I'm going to buy IBM. Then I don't have to worry about it. I can say, Hey, I bought IBM. What do you want from me? Right? So that's kind of my first part of it. so the question is like, how do you build safety and trust, right? That's the key, you know, and so one of the key things that I always say is, you build it by slowing down early, right? You got to ask better questions. Listening more than talking the old God gave you two ears and one mouth you do the math, right and ⁓ the so listening more than talking, know, and you want to you want to be open honest and upfront about the risks, right and Challenge them with the risks a little bit so that they're out there and you're discussing the real risks that are in play and when the buyer you were trying to establish report to the point where the buyer feels feels you're helping them and not pushing them to buy Right. And so that's, that's, that's one aspect of it. Right. And, you know, some of the biggest mistakes people make are, you know, pushing price too early, trying to dive into specs for bigger, faster, wider, deeper, 20 % cheaper, you know, all those kinds of, you know, salesmen kind of things. Right. And pitching before understanding. And yeah. So. KK Anderson (04:53) So in a complex sale where it could go on for six to nine months and there's lots of dollars at stake as we were just discussing, what are some tricks or ways that you teach or talk about building consensus as you go through the sales process, as new people are added on into the conversation, as complexities increase? you know, everyone's got a different opinion. Like what are some ways that you build, build consensus, if you will. ⁓ Glenn Poulos (05:20) Okay, so or get to the order or whatever, right? I guess is yeah. So first, you got to understand the risk, right? Like that's the you got to present it to the customer, you got to present what the risks are to them and getting the job done. And you have to understand what the risks are to you and presenting your product at like your solution. You know, as being the as being the solution, right, you have to always remember early on and throughout it that buyers are not afraid of the price. And that proves itself out by just looking on the road and there's people that are driving Toyota Corollas and people that are driving Mercedes Benz S-Class, right? And so clearly some people just want to spend more on a car, right? And so they're afraid of being wrong, making the wrong decision. So you got to ask questions that uncover ⁓ what failure would look like if they make the wrong decision and who gets the blame if it happens, right? You're trying to identify that kind of stuff, right? And then second, This is so important, right? You wanna map the decision process, who influences, and there's many models and sales strategies out there. I don't teach these, but like the challenger model and what have you, where you're identifying the technical buyer, the financial influencer, the key decision maker and what have you. But you need to know, ⁓ especially the way I explain it to people is you have to look at the dollar value of the solution that you're selling. Let me, it's 50 K 500 K 5 million, 50 million. Right. And you have to say in the company that I'm selling it to who's signing that check, who's signing the PO, the authorization, the final, where does the buck stop? Rig
