jerry stapleton

A few decades back, I pivoted from metallurgical engineering to sales, then to sales effectiveness, working in a way that no one in the training space ever has.

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I conducted over 1000 ride-alongs with salespeople from some 40 companies. But, unlike traditional ride-along experts, I was an active participant, carrying a client business card, not a passive, notepad-toting observer. A copy of many of the business cards I carried is shown below.

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I spent years observing—like a fly on the wall—the very interactions my clients and I were conducting together.

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I learned a lot! But two takeaways were as undeniable as they were mind-blowing: 1. Customers respond—positively or negatively—to six specific signals, which we send by what we say and do in our interactions with them. 2. All of us come “Prewired” with a way of thinking (a “Traditional Sales Mindset”) that causes us—totally unwittingly—to send those signals negatively far more often than positively. That, of course, is the mind-blowing part.

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I eventually created a more familiar training format and began working with a range of companies, seeking to live my mission of helping customer-facing professionals unleash their full potential by helping them shed their Traditional Sales Mindset.

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For the past five years, I've worked with Minneapolis-based APi Group, a $6B global services firm. APi was looking to rethink how it engages with customers in pursuit of several business outcomes. I worked closely with the senior leadership team and the customer-facing teams in the trenches—to create a sales mindset shift across the company and, of course, to build the skills and behaviors that breathe life into that shift.

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With a license to my intellectual property, and the cultural foundation that has been built, the baton is now being passed to APi’s leadership team. And I am excited to now launch Stapleton 2.0.