Most leaders try to build high performance by stacking talent. But talent alone doesn’t create championships. In this episode, Ray breaks down the team-building principle reinforced by Tom Brady — and how he applied the same philosophy for over a decade to transform a cutthroat sales environment into a record-setting team. If you’re leading high performers who feel disconnected, political, or overly focused on individual wins, this episode will help you think more clearly about what actually dri...
Jan 02, 2026•15 min
Chris Voss , author of Never Split the Difference , teaches that “why” questions can trigger defensiveness in negotiation. That advice is widely repeated in sales training — especially around discovery calls and consultative selling. But should sales professionals actually avoid asking “why” questions? In this episode, Ray breaks down the difference between high-conflict negotiation environments and collaborative B2B sales conversations. If you’ve ever hesitated to ask “Why is that important?” b...
Jan 01, 2026•8 min
If you're nervous when you fire up the camera, I'm going to share a piece of advice Dan Martell gave me three years ago that I absolutely did not want to hear: go live for 30 days in a row. I was terrified of video—I could write great scripts, set up the tech perfectly, get the lighting and mic just right, then hit record and completely blank. Stage fright. So when Dan told me to go live with no retakes, no edits, where if I look dumb I'm stuck with it? That was the LAST thing I wanted. But I di...
Dec 31, 2025•10 min
This is probably the most unfiltered view I've posted since changing this podcast format. I saw a LinkedIn post with the hook: "My wife died at 39. Her doctors never tested the one thing that could have saved her." I started reading—retired pharmacist, tired of Western medicine, quotes, problems—and thought "this smells like a sales letter." I scroll to the bottom and there's a CTA: "Leave a note of 'Energy' below and I'll send you the clinical research." Are you fucking kidding me? Did we reall...
Dec 30, 2025•15 min
One benefit of getting older? You see patterns over a longer horizon. And here's one I keep seeing in sales and marketing: people proclaiming channels are dead. Cold calling is dead—nobody answers their phone. Webinars don't work. Cold email is ruined by spam filters. LinkedIn organic content doesn't work. Canvassing is impossible. DM selling has been destroyed by automation. I've heard every single one of these channels proclaimed dead—sometimes by people I actually respect who used to crush it...
Dec 29, 2025•9 min
This may be one of the most important podcasts I record for you. I'm sharing my system for taking control of my calendar—and I say most important because time is your most valuable asset. When you master how to manage it, it affects everything: your business, your family time, your health. This year alone, I started MSP Sales Partners from zero to $800K, added five full-time hires and 50+ customers, created content every week without missing a newsletter or YouTube video, had dinner with my kids...
Dec 27, 2025•17 min
Is your team outsourcing their thinking to ChatGPT? In this video, I break down why relying on AI for answers is leading to "thought atrophy" and killing expertise in the workplace. While AI is an incredible tool for efficiency, it cannot replace the nuance, context, and experience that I hire my team for. I share the story of a recent project where an AI-generated response missed the mark, and I outline the 4 New AI Guidelines I’ve implemented to ensure we use technology to amplify our intellig...
Dec 26, 2025•15 min
I used to be an idea gangster with my team—I'd do drive-bys every single week. I'd read a book, get super excited about the takeaways, and come in firing: "All right team, let's execute!" They were genuinely good ideas. But we never got enough traction with any of them before I'd pop in with the next one. My COO finally leveled with me: "Dude, we gotta stop. People are exhausted. We're not doing great work. That great idea eight ideas ago? We still never saw it produce fruit, and we're on to sev...
Dec 25, 2025•12 min
True story: I forgot my car in a parking lot today. Made it all the way home. My wife asked "where's the jeep?" and my first thought was "oh shit, did someone steal it?" This isn't the first time I've forgotten a car. I have ADHD and level one autism, which means I get wildly obsessed with things I care about—it's why I learn things so quickly and see patterns in complex systems—but I also completely forget shit that's not in my focus. I've flown to the wrong cities, forgotten to eat all day, an...
Dec 24, 2025•14 min
I just wrapped a full day of calls with 75 MSP business owners about goal setting, and I heard all the mistakes I've made myself over 20+ years—from leading eight sales turnarounds to turning around a 40-year-old PE-backed company to its highest revenue ever. The most common mistakes? Inaccurate goals where the math doesn't map. Unrealistic goals that look good in December but are dead by March. Setting them too high so your team quietly thinks "that's never happening," or too low creating a com...
Dec 23, 2025•13 min
A friend who does M&A for MSPs asked me: if you've got a team of five hunters, what's a good hiring and firing process that keeps top performers, pushes average reps, and weeds out the bottom? Here's my answer—and it's all about having a system that manages for you. The best approach consists of two parts: First, separate your minimum standards from actual goals. Your goal might be $24K/month where commission incentives kick in, but your minimum standard is $18K—the threshold below which the...
Dec 22, 2025•11 min
I spent two years scaling the wrong business and one conversation with Alex Hormozi's Chief Strategy Officer reframed everything. Here's what happened: I'd built a consulting business to $50K/month doing sales audits and fractional management, but I thought "this isn't scalable." So I pivoted—created courses, built a community, started teaching people how to turn expertise into income. I ended up in a sea of competition selling to the wrong audience at the wrong price point. His CSO said: "Dude,...
Dec 21, 2025•16 min
I was on a coaching call yesterday with a bunch of people selling IT services, and the question came up: how do you handle price objections? When somebody says "that's expensive" or "more than we're paying now" or "higher than other bids," what do you do? I've got a really simple framework that works across any competitive selling situation—IT services, professional services, whatever. Here's how it works: First, ask "What makes you say that?" to understand if this is a negotiation tactic, a sta...
Dec 20, 2025•7 min
Ray Green answers a thought-provoking question from a friend: Is there a real difference between "play to win" and "play to not lose" people, and can you build an entire team of aggressive risk-takers? In this episode, Ray breaks down why he believes there are two distinct types of "play to not lose" people - Type 1 who are well-intentioned and think through proper risk mitigation, and Type 2 who operate from fear and lack of confidence. He explains why Type 1 people are actually assets who bala...
Dec 19, 2025•9 min
Physics defines work as force times distance times alignment. In sales, that's effort times results times whether those results actually get you what you want. I saw a junior SDR post on LinkedIn saying "sales training is a joke—just dial your face off." He's one-third right. Volume matters. But here's what gets lost: you drive to work every day, doesn't make you a Formula One racer. It's intentional volume that matters. Josh Braun responded with something so well-written I had to share it: "Dro...
Dec 18, 2025•12 min
Physics defines work as force times distance times alignment. In sales, that's effort times results times whether those results actually get you what you want. I saw a junior SDR post on LinkedIn saying "sales training is a joke—just dial your face off." He's one-third right. Volume matters. But here's what gets lost: you drive to work every day, doesn't make you a Formula One racer. It's intentional volume that matters. Josh Braun responded with something so well-written I had to share it: "Dro...
Dec 17, 2025•8 min
If you've got a BDR setting appointments and an outside sales rep closing deals, here's a question that comes up constantly with MSPs: Should your AE also be generating their own pipeline? In a perfect world, here's the ideal setup: your setter fills a third to half of the AE's calendar, and the AE fills the rest themselves. Why not just have marketing and the BDR handle it all? Multiple reasons. BDRs turn over—it's often an entry-level role with higher volatility, and you don't want your pipeli...
Dec 16, 2025•9 min
We just spent six weeks migrating our email newsletter from Beehiiv to Substack. Within one day of going live, I realized I'd made a mistake and had to course-correct. This episode opens up what happened, why it was a mistake, and more importantly—the framework for deciding when to pivot versus when to persevere. Because I've always struggled with this: am I being frantic and erratic by changing course? Or am I being stubborn and falling into sunk cost fallacy by staying? Here's what went wrong:...
Dec 15, 2025•20 min
"Should I niche down in my prospecting to a vertical or an industry?" That question came up on an office hours call yesterday with a bunch of MSP business owners. Here's what I told them based on managing 50 different IT companies in our fractional sales program and listening to thousands of prospecting calls: Yes, you should absolutely niche down—but you don't have to rebrand your entire company to do it. Most people think going vertical means becoming "the law firm IT company" and changing eve...
Dec 13, 2025•7 min
Ray Green breaks down why both hustle culture and the "deep work only" mindset miss the mark, using a simple physics formula to explain what real work actually is. The equation? Force times Distance times Alignment. In this episode, Ray explains why effort alone doesn't equal results, why you can bust your ass and go nowhere, and why even getting results doesn't matter if they're not aligned with your actual goal. He walks through practical examples—from salespeople making calls to authors writi...
Dec 12, 2025•14 min
I just had dinner with four really successful business owners—all running businesses bigger than mine—and we got talking about sales compensation plans. Once I started sharing things I honestly take for granted after 20 years in sales leadership, they were like "we hadn't thought about that." These are very smart, very successful guys, just not from the sales world. So if they found it helpful, maybe you will too. Here's the foundation: the only purpose of your comp plan is to change behavior. C...
Dec 11, 2025•17 min
I just wrapped up several hours of difficult conversations stacked back-to-back, and I want to share something that changed my entire management career: the conversations that are going to have the biggest impact on your business are the ones that are really fucking hard. There's almost a direct correlation between how difficult a conversation is and how much impact it has. Yet we avoid them—for days, weeks, months, sometimes years. I've talked to business owners who've let problems fester for y...
Dec 10, 2025•7 min
I keep hearing this incomplete advice everywhere: "All sales is about the transference of emotion." It's a Tony Robbins thing, and it's not wrong—but it's dangerously incomplete. I work with a lot of MSP and IT sellers who rely purely on their tech stack, response times, and spotting network problems, thinking logic alone will close deals. Spoiler: it won't. But here's where the "emotion-only" crowd gets it wrong too. People make buying decisions emotionally—they want the transformation, the fee...
Dec 09, 2025•6 min
I had to call my wife to pick me up yesterday after re-injuring my knee by pushing six miles when my physical therapist said three. Sitting on that corner waiting for her, I realized something uncomfortable: sometimes the hardest thing you need to do is quit. We glorify resilience, grit, and stick-to-itiveness because they work... until they don't. If you've achieved success through raw determination and sheer will like I have, you've been rewarded for pushing through—which makes it even harder ...
Dec 08, 2025•7 min
First-of-the-month accountability check reveals a brutal reality: a salesperson with nothing on the scoreboard, no pipeline, no meetings, and no real plan beyond "follow up with four people" and "pack boxes for Thursday's event." This episode is a wake-up call for anyone in sales responsible for generating their own pipeline. Learn why treating your time like a precious resource isn't optional—it's survival. Discover the two critical mindsets that separate top performers from struggling reps: (1...
Dec 07, 2025•11 min
After years of struggling with content that either grew the business but burned him out, or stayed authentic but didn't generate leads, this episode reveals a new strategy that solves both problems. The challenge: three goals kept conflicting—grow the business, teach what you're learning, and actually enjoy creating content. The breakthrough? Create unfiltered content on dedicated channels (daily podcasts, raw thoughts on X) without worrying about hooks, thumbnails, or "ideal client" topics, the...
Dec 06, 2025•12 min
When a team member quoted the host's own content back to him—"focus on one thing, use one metric"—it would have actually been counterproductive. This episode clarifies a critical nuance that changes everything: yes, focus on ONE constraint (the biggest problem blocking your business), but measure it with at least TWO competing metrics. Why? Because single metrics get gamed, even unintentionally. Focus only on close rate? Sales reps start disqualifying opportunities. Only track appointments set? ...
Dec 04, 2025•9 min
Watching his wife spend weeks building custom Christmas decorations from scratch—with zero blueprint and no clear plan beyond a color theme—revealed a powerful business truth. We glorify the Bezos-style crystal clear vision, thinking that's what you need to succeed. But the reality? Most wildly successful entrepreneurs will tell you their business took on a life of its own. Building a business is more art than science—more Steve Jobs ("you can only connect the dots in hindsight") than detailed m...
Dec 03, 2025•8 min
Ray Green shares why he eliminated call minimums when he took over his first sales team - and how revenue per sale doubled as a result. Most sales managers crack the whip on volume and activity metrics, but Ray argues this comes at the expense of optimizing for what you actually want: results. In this episode, he breaks down the policy change he implemented, the cultural shift required to make it work, and how he recruited differently to build a team that took ownership of outcomes instead of ju...
Dec 02, 2025•20 min
Can a team be made up entirely of aggressive, play-to-win people? Or do you need the balance of risk-conscious players who pump the brakes? This episode breaks down a fascinating leadership question: the fundamental difference between people who play to win versus those who play not to lose—and why it matters for building your team. Discover the critical distinction between two types of "play not to lose" people: Type 1 who intelligently mitigate risk with confidence versus Type 2 who operate fr...
Dec 01, 2025•12 min
