How do the top 1 percent of sales professionals consistently close the biggest, most complex deals?
If you ask enterprise software sales veteran, David Morse, he’ll tell you this: “They don’t wing it. They master disciplined discovery.”
So what is “disciplined discovery”? How can you implement it for a better business today?
In Morse’s debut sales book, The Heart of the Sale, you’ll find those answers and more.
Drawing from decades of success in enterprise selling, Morse lays out a proven system that will change how you approach every deal, from first conversation to closed-won.
Let’s get into it.
Book Title: The Heart of the Sale: How To Close More Deals With Disciplined Discovery
Genre: Business, Sales
Website: yodavidmorse.com
If you had to give one reason for writing this book, what would it be?
I’ve spent the last 20+ years selling complex tech solutions to large companies around the world. My teams have delivered more than $2B in revenue and contributed to 3 acquisitions and an IPO.
It was a very successful run, but it wasn’t without its share of challenges. I saw many deals evaporate, fail to close on time, or fail to close for the amount of money we forecasted.
The biggest culprit was poor Discovery.
Many times, we’d fail to uncover critical info that would build compelling business cases, get executive approval, and navigate complex buying processes.
This is why I wrote the book. Discovery is the most vital enterprise sales skill. This book teaches sellers how to do it right.
Why was now the right time?
As a sales leader, I was frustrated by deals that evaporated or failed to close on time. But by implementing all of the techniques in the book, I improved our ability to close deals, on time, for big money.
Because I had success teaching it to my team, I thought the concepts could be widely applicable to other enterprise sellers and leaders who struggle with the same challenges. That’s why I wrote this book now – to help sellers avoid these challenges and close more deals with large companies at a time when it is getting harder than ever to sell to these businesses.
Other than sales reps, who can benefit from reading the methods outlined in The Heart of the Sale?
Knowing how to close deals and make more money goes way beyond sales reps. Managers, Directors, VPs, Chief Revenue Officers who sell to large companies, and the marketing teams that support them will all find something valuable within these pages.
What are 3 aspects of Disciplined Discovery within the book that these business professionals will walk away with?
Three of the major things a reader will learn in The Heart of the Sale are how to:
1. Ask the right questions at the right time by mastering the Magnificent 7 question types
2. Build trust and urgency with senior level champions
3. Build winning business cases that inspire executive buyers to say “yes”
Tell us a bit more about the writing process. What did you enjoy? What did you struggle with?
I pretty much followed the exact process laid out by selfpublishing.com, and found both the online learning tools and the team from coaching to editing to production to be really solid.
The book flowed from my own experience leading sales teams that generated more than $2B in sales, 3 acquisitions, and 1 IPO. One unique twist is that I was inspired by the blog “Wait But Why” and used stick figure cartoons to illustrate the concepts in my book and hopefully make people laugh, too. I was glad I was able to keep my personality in the book through those cartoons and humor, which is not something typically done in business book publishing.
The hardest parts of the process came in organization and editing. Taking 20+ years of experience and distilling them into a structure that would make sense to the average reader was a huge hurdle. The editing process helped me to do this by removing a lot of ideas. That was tough because even though I thought they were great, they might not have added a huge value for the reader. It took some time and consideration to make those decisions for a better finished product.
Now that the book is in the early stages of the launch process, I’ve already started to get feedback from readers and the response has been so positive that these ideas can help them not only in sales, but in other areas like marketing and customer success.
Moving forward, I plan to use this book to build training, consulting, and speaking services to bring these concepts alive and help sellers succeed.
More information about David Morse:
David Morse is a 20+ year veteran of the enterprise software trenches. He and his teams have closed more than $2 billion in revenue and drove three acquisitions and an IPO.
He’s done and led most of the customer-facing jobs you can do—sales, marketing, product, customer success—from individual rep to global Chief Revenue Officer. From startups to $2B enterprises, David’s seen—and sold—it all.
David aims to help enterprise sellers close more deals, make their customers wildly successful, achieve their personal and professional dreams, and have a lot of fun along the way.
David is also a comedian and rapper (aka “D-Mo” aka “Notorious D-Mo” aka “Biggy Sales) who has trained at Second City, ImprovBoston, and Freestyle Love Supreme Academy (founded by Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Hamilton) and made audiences across the US and Europe convulse with laughter.
He published a rap video a week across his social channels and will soon be releasing an album called “CRO Bars” which parodies 9 famous hip hop songs like Big Poppa (Big Pipeline), Hypnotize (Discovery), and Regulate (Negotiate), but he infuses them with real sales and marketing lessons.
Connect with David or give D-Mo a listen across his social media accounts @yodavidmorse on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Has David’s story inspired you to share your own? Learn more about the book writing support, editing services, book coaching, and more she received as a part of the Author Advantage Accelerator Elite Program: Schedule a consultation today to find the right program for you and your book!
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