Brent Adamson is a world-renowned researcher, author, presenter, trainer, and advisor to B2B commercial executives around the world. 

He is the Co-Founder of both A to B Insight, a B2B sales and marketing research, advisory, and training company, as well as Co-Founder of Qoos, providing B2B sellers micro-guidance and AI-guided coaching, seamlessly embedded within HubSpot CRM.

Brent's next book, The Framemaking Sale, is available Sept. 9, 2025.

Known as having the “biggest crystal ball in B2B sales,” Brent is the co-author of the best-selling, industry changing The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer.  He is also a frequent contributor to well-known business publications, including the Harvard Business Review, featuring his recent articles, “Sensemaking for Sales” and “Traditional B2B Sales and Marketing Are Becoming Obsolete.” 

Across the last 19 years, Brent has been privileged to work with some of the greatest thought leaders in B2B and B2C sales and marketing, building and leading exclusive communities of highly progressive commercial executives.  Known as a world-class facilitator and speaker, Brent has presented to tens of thousands of commercial leaders both in-person and virtually all over the world, ranging from executive leadership teams to large keynote audiences.  

Especially well known for his passion for “productive disruption,” Brent served as the “chief story teller” for CEB, now Gartner’s, sales, marketing, and customer service practices from 2003 to 2022.  Across that time, Brent’s research has focused most closely on the critical, boundary-spanning intersection of selling and buying, seeking to understand the rapidly changing nature of effective commercial collaboration.  Most recently, Brent and his colleagues at CEB, now Gartner, have introduced industry-leading concepts such as Buyer Enablement, Sense Making, and Customer Decision Confidence. 

A native of Omaha, Neb., Brent joined CEB, now Gartner, from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business where he received his MBA with distinction. Prior to that, he served on the faculty of Michigan State University as a Professor of German and Applied Linguistics. In addition to his MBA, Brent holds a B.A. with distinction in political science from the University of Michigan along with M.A.s in political science and German, and a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from the University of Texas. Brent resides in Leesburg, VA with his wife, two daughters, and rescue dog.

Brent Adamson

Shari Levitin

It all started in a Colorado living room with a simple question: “If you won $35 million in the lottery, what would you do?”

One guy wanted to start an adventure company. Another? Buy a house in Paris.

Me?
“I’d build a company to help people transform—to sell with confidence, lead with clarity, and actually love their work.”

That’s when it hit me:
💡 I didn’t need to win the lottery to build a meaningful business—or to have massive sales success.
And neither do you.

Since then, the Shari Levitin Group has helped sales teams close faster, sell smarter, and scale revenue—in over 40 countries across 5 continents. We work with scrappy mid-size teams and Fortune 500 legends alike—from Salesforce and Hilton to Microsoft, the NBA, Comcast, and Humana—helping them turn training into action, and action into revenue.

Not just motivation.
Transformation—from the inside out.

Because most sales training:

🚨 Gets applause but never gets applied
💨 Fades faster than a pipeline post-quarter
🎯 Dishes out content but doesn’t build competence

I started my company in 1997 to fix that.

We build repeatable sales systems that stick—so you’re not crossing your fingers for one hero rep to carry the quarter, or pulling people out of the field for training they forget by Monday.

Because let’s be real:
Every hour spent training is an hour not selling.

So whether it’s a keynote, a hands-on workshop, or a session with my AI-powered twin (yes, she’s called SaaSi and yes, she’s a little sassy), it better drive real, measurable results.

That’s why we blend brain science, storytelling, and sales strategy to change behavior—and make it last.

My goal?
To make you so good, you don’t need us anymore. 💔
(We’ll miss you. But we’ll be thrilled.)

So if your reps are still pitching when they should be problem-solving...
If your coaching sounds like a forecast meeting...
If your training gets applause on Friday—but zero follow-through on Monday...

Let’s talk.

Especially if you want to meet my sassier, AI-powered twin, powered by our partners Grw AI. Just don’t blame me if she roasts your forecast.

Passionate Global Sales Leader| Empowering Businesses with the Tools to Increase Profit & Grow | CEO

My passion for helping others transform their business, their relationships, and their outlook on life has truly been the driving force of my career. At the Shari Levitin Group, we help sales leaders, CEOs, sales enablement teams and business leaders empower teams to deliver training programs that produce results, particularly in this new selling paradigm. 

Too many training programs focus on the training process rather than the learning process, and that’s what differentiates the Shari Levitin Group. People love, love, love our content because we deliver it in a funny and creative way that enables me to connect with people’s hearts.

Anyone can make a sale, but selling with heart not only increases job satisfaction, it allows your sales team to be more open, engaged and receptive, which in turn: increases profits, reduces turnover, enhances culture and heightens transparency and accountability. 

Shari Levitin Group offers interactive training workshops and train the trainer programs, along with online learning modules that are:

👉 Effective: Our content engages learners and is retained and built upon over time. 
👉 Scalable: Our delivery system ensures consistency of message, transfers the competency into the field, and can be repeated in diverse environments.
👉 Sustainable: Our information can be measured, monitored and adjusted. We help you track and identify KPIs. What is the goal? Typically, companies have one primary objective with one or two secondary goals.

Thousands of sales professionals worldwide have already attributed their success to our virtual sales tools, including Hilton, Adobe, Dell Technologies, Humana, Cox Communications, Salesforce, Jaguar, Nimble, Comcast, Nuance Communications, and Sprint Communications. Is your business next?

SPECIALTIES: Keynote Speaker | Virtual Selling Coach | Fortune 500 | Virtual Learning programs, consultant

People often ask me why I spend untold hours customizing my keynotes.
Why I hire not one, but two speaking coaches when I’m testing a new story.

 Why I’ll practice a five-minute story for eight-plus hours until it lands just right.
Simple.

The more personal the story,
 the more customized the message,
 the more your audience feels seen.

 They feel you understand their pain, their pressure, their wins.
Same for sellers
How much time do you spend getting to know the person, not the persona?

 their business…
their competitors…
 their customers…
 and yes, their customers’ customers.

 That’s where trust is built.
 That’s where deals are won.

Huge thank you to Hertz for trusting me to keynote your Sales Kickoff and lead a StorySelling breakout......and for the standing ovation ☺️

 Your team showed up curious, committed, and all-in.
 And I promise…
 I will never again rent a Turo 😂

Shari (AKA SaaSi Shari) Levitin

LinkedIn Top Voice | Top 50 Sales Keynote Speaker | Reps Getting Ghosted After the Demo/Presentation? | We Train Sales Orgs to Build Urgency, Consensus & Trust to Close Faster — with AI + Heart | #BeMoreSellMore

As we begin a new year, it’s worth remembering something uncomfortable and freeing: Trying hard isn’t enough.
 
 Yes, effort matters.
 Yes, discipline builds skill.
 Yes, mastery requires work.

 But effort alone doesn’t create fulfillment.
Trying hard builds competence.
 Knowing WHY you’re trying builds meaning.

That philosophy sits at the heart of Is “Good Enough” Good Enough? by my friend David Brock.

 David writes:

“You can do outstanding work and still feel like you’re going through the motions…The work can be good. Clients keep coming.
 And yet, somewhere along the way, something quietly erodes, not the quality of the work, but the why beneath it.”

 Because achievement doesn’t automatically create meaning.
 Goals are finite. 

✊ Hit the number. 
✊Get promoted. 
✊Close the deal. Then what?

Purpose is different.

Purpose is what remains when the goal is achieved, or abandoned.
 
It’s the reason the work still matters on the hard days.
It’s what makes “excellence” feel alive instead of repetitive.

As David puts it:
“The question isn’t whether you know what to do. You do.
 The question is: What, (or who in my case,) are you doing it for?”

 If you’re starting this year feeling capable but restless…
 Successful but slightly numb…

 Winning, but wondering why it doesn’t feel like more
This book is a must read

And this question is worth sitting with.
What are you doing it for?

(And no.....“because I always have” doesn’t count.)

📘 Is “Good Enough” Good Enough? By my good friend confidant, and mentor, David Brock

I was super pumped for this keynote… until 2:00 a.m., when I came down with a stomach bug and couldn’t get back to sleep.
This was an SKO for a mission-driven company that changes lives for people living with chronic diabetes, booked by a speakers bureau I hadn’t yet worked with, and leaders who deeply care about culture.
 
Now what?

I remembered this advice from one of my mentors:

✊ Anyone can perform when they feel great.
 Pros show up when they don’t.

🤝 Focus on connection, not performance.

🎶 Listen to your theme song.

 Yeah… you heard that right. We all need one. Mine has been the same since I started in sales in the ’90s:
 "On Every Street," by Dire Straits

So I went for a quick jog (ugh), played my song on repeat, thanked God for the opportunity, and prayed for strength.

What a day!

Grateful to Scott Streator, Kristy Henritzy, Stephanie Perrotti Kohn, Jennifer Perry, Brandon Bast, @Laurie Gilliam, Nicole Soto the team at Executive Speakers Bureau and the incredible people at CCS changing lives every day.
#ALLINFORGROWTH

 You don’t have to feel strong to lead.
 You just have to show up connected. 💙
 
🏆 Love this team! 

What's your theme song?

You can build trust for five years and lose it in five seconds.

After a keynote last week, a sales leader asked me:

“I’ve never thought of reliability and integrity as part of trust. Why do you include them?”

Here’s what I told them:

Most people focus on knowing your customer and knowing your product— empathy and competency.

But how do you kill trust?

You say you’ll follow up and don’t.
You miss a deadline.
You overpromise.

It unravels fast.

That’s why I teach four pillars of trust:

- Empathy
- Competency
- Reliability
- Integrity

Reliability means doing what you said you’d do.
Not sometimes. Every time.

Integrity isn’t just “don’t lie, cheat, or steal.” That’s table stakes.
It’s telling your customer what your product won’t do, so they believe what it will.

Empathy gets you in the door.
Competency, reliability, and integrity keep you there.

That’s the difference between a deal and a customer who comes back.

Where might your team be losing trust without even knowing it?

Gallup asks one question that instantly separates average sellers from top performers and most people get it wrong.

"What’s the best way to establish credibility with a client?"
 Most sellers answer with:

Talk about my tenure
Share white papers
Show logos and case studies

Sounds reasonable 

But it's dead wrong.

Top sellers don’t lead with proof.
 They lead with curiosity.

The answer consistently given by high performers?

"Find out what’s important to them!"

But discovery alone doesn’t build credibility.
Confirmation does.

You have to reflect back what you heard
 and ask for validation.
Because buyers don’t buy when they feel informed.
 They buy when they feel understood.

I call this step Information Confirmation
 and it makes all the difference.

Confession: I got a little too excited about AI last year.
We built cadences, follow-ups, and sequences.
They looked great and saved hours of time.

But after a few weeks, the pipeline felt… quiet.

That’s when it hit me:
When was the last time I picked up the phone?

Turns out we’d optimized everything, except the human part.

So I dusted off the call list I’d abandoned for GPTs, Zapier flows, and HubSpot sequences.
I called past customers.
Friends.
Colleagues.
People who knew me. People who didn’t.

I talked.
I listened.
I stayed curious longer than was comfortable.

And those conversations helped us exceed our annual target by 18%.

As machines get smarter and help us move faster, we’ve got to double down on what they can’t do.

I call it the Four Cs:

🔍 Curiosity
According to George Loewenstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, curiosity is the gap between what we know and what we want to know. That gap creates tension—like hunger or thirst—and drives us to close it.
In sales, that’s the moment you ask one more question. Not because it’s in your script. Because you care. Because something’s missing. Because you want to really know your customer.

🦁 Courage
A mentor once told me: courage lives out on the skinny branches.
It’s making the hard call. Asking the question no one else will.
Working scarier, not harder.
Going where the cherry-pickers don’t.

✨ Captivating
Your buyer’s phone is the most compelling object in the room.
Can you be more interesting than that?
That’s presence. That’s knowing when to pause.
That’s reading the room and telling a story people actually want to hear.

💛 Compassion
Empathy helps you feel what someone’s going through.
Compassion goes further.
It means taking responsibility to help.
In sales, that means solving the right problem, even when the right outcome is a sale... or no sale at all.

AI can help us move faster. It can even spark new ideas.
But it can’t be curious. It can’t be courageous. It can’t captivate. It can’t care.

And those are still the reasons people say yes.

So today, ask yourself:
Which of the Four Cs do you need to practice more?

When I was a kid, my brother had a go-to insult for our mother.
Whenever he was really mad, he’d call her “a strumming old banjo.”

 He didn’t know what it meant.
 But the way he said it?
 
Mom knew he was unhappy.

And her response? she usually chuckled.
 Why, and here's the key. Because she knew she wasn’t one.

That’s when I learned something important about defensiveness.
Clients 
Coworkers 
Prospects 
Family members

 Can't make us defensive.
 Defensiveness is something we do in response to being triggered.
We get defensive when someone touches a weakness, an insecurity, or a doubt we haven’t fully owned yet.
 
   If my brother had said,
 “Mom, you’re grumpy,” or
 “Mom, you’re getting gray hair,”
 that might have landed differently, because it might’ve felt true.

This shows up everywhere:
 • a customer raises an objection
 • a deal stalls
 • someone you lead challenges your decision

The moment you get defensive, you give up your power.
 You stop listening.
 You stop learning.

Instead, pause just for a breath and ask yourself:
 
🤔 Why am I getting defensive right now?
 
Not what did "they" say,
 but what does this reveal about me?

 That’s where growth lives.
 That’s where confidence actually comes from.
 Defensiveness isn’t a flaw.
 
It’s a signal.
And the best leaders and sellers don’t swat the signal away.
 
 They listen to it.
 They learn from it.
 
And then they decide.
Because an objection isn’t an attack.
And defensiveness isn’t protection.

Both are information telling you where clarity, confidence, or belief still needs to be built.

Information isn’t valuable anymore.
It’s everywhere.

What’s rare now is human connection.
And connection travels through stories.

👇 Read the carousel below for why stories outperform facts in the age of AI.

Why Storytelling Wins in an AI World

We landed in Kona after dark.
Eight overstuffed bags thudded to the curb—snorkels, shoes, and too many “just in case” outfits spilling from the seams.

We’d booked 2 cars through a peer-to-peer rental app. My husband stayed with the bags. I headed toward the lot with my son and his girlfriend—exhausted, hungry—but excited to kick off our trip.

The app said the cars were in “Lot A.” That was it.
There were no signs. No instructions. 

Just two endless rows, maybe 130 cars on each side that were nearly indistinguishable under dimly lit, flickering orange street lamps.
Every one was locked, and we had no idea which ones were ours.

We texted the host.
Eventually, he answered…during one of his breaks from surfing: 
“Just use the app, brah.”

Sure. Except we had no signal.

So I hiked back toward the terminal, phone held high like an antenna, trying to download the 400MB app over airport Wi-Fi.

Back in the lot, my son and his girlfriend scanned windshields with flashlights, searching for a license plate we didn’t actually have.

Finally, one car unlocked.
We celebrated!

Until the alarm started going off.

Lights flashing. Horn blaring.
We couldn’t shut it off.
There was no key. No button. No instructions to follow.

Turns out the first car only recognized my son’s phone.
And his phone was at 1%.
Every time he stepped away, the alarm screamed again.

Meanwhile, my husband was still at the curb—guarding nearly 500 pounds of luggage, befriending a 90-year-old traveler, and texting us, “Still here. You’ve got this. I believe in you.”

Eventually, after circling what felt like every car in the lot, we found the second vehicle.
We shoved the bags in the cars. Slammed the trunks.
And drove to the condo in silence.

Now, we did have a fantastic trip.
Hawaii is truly my favorite place in the world. 

But it reminded me that for all the AI in the world, sometimes you just need a person who gives a damn.

A few months ago, I broke my own rule.
 And it cost me a big deal.

I met the CEO of a mid-sized company at a sales conference where I was the keynote speaker.

She told me she definitely wanted training for her team.
We talked.
We had lunch.
 
She even sent me pictures of her pit bull 🐶
I thought we had alignment.

So I did what sellers do when they think it's time "to close."

😬 I sent the proposal.
 
In comes Mike, the CFO. We got on a Zoom call.

“We don’t have a training problem,” he said.
 “We have a recruitment problem.”

Deal lost.

Here’s the lesson I had to relearn the hard way.
 
I had consensus with one stakeholder.
 Not consensus on the solution.
 And  not even consensus on the problem! 

That’s why I don’t send proposals until I’ve had as many stakeholders as possible on the phone or in the room helping craft the deal.

Proposals don’t always fail because they’re poorly written.
 
They fail because they’re written too early.
This isn’t Sales 101.
 This is Sales 305.

Watch the video if you want to stop sending proposals and start building real consensus.

You’re told to fix your weaknesses.
Tom Brady didn’t.

He wasn’t the fastest or the strongest.
And that’s exactly why he was great.

He didn’t try to be everything.
He made sure his weaknesses didn’t cost him the game.

That story came up in today’s episode of Selling Isn’t Everything, with Fergus Connolly PhD.

Dr. Connolly has coached NFL teams, elite military units, and top execs.
And when Brent Adamson and I asked what separates the great ones, he didn’t say talent.
He said: know what to manage and what to protect.

That line stuck with me.
It’s so easy to chase more and forget what actually keeps you in the game.
That’s what makes the best different.

They don’t ignore their limits.
They work with them.

So what does greatness really look like?

It’s not hustle or brute strength.
It’s sustainability.

System over heroics.
Alignment over exhaustion.

If your team is strong, but stretched, this episode will help you protect what makes them great.

🎙️ The episode is now live.

I love this ad.
In one image, it captures the biggest mistake salespeople make across industries.

Back in 2003, SeaWorld was stuck at 5.2 million visitors. Respectable, but nowhere near Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Their ads looked like most sales decks today.
 Rides.
 Restaurants.
 Acreage.
 Numbers.
 (Features.)

Attendance dropped.

Then a new marketing director ran one ad.
 One image.
 One line.
“There are only 4,350 days of childhood.
 Which one will your child remember?”
Attendance soared.

Sellers and founders, stop leading with what you do and how it works.
Start with the problem you solve and how your buyer will feel when it’s solved.
People don’t buy products, they buy outcomes: 

 ✊ Relief
 ✊ Confidence
 🙏 Peace of mind
 No one cares how your solution works.
 They care how they’ll feel when they use it.

Not everyone is lucky enough to find a true mentor, let alone one who becomes a close friend. I met Jill Konrath more than a decade ago, and was completely starstruck. 

She was, (and still is),one of the most influential voices in sales. 

 When Jill writes, you feel like she’s sitting across from you at a café, looking you in the eye, asking  questions you’ve been avoiding and somehow making it feel safe to answer.

I’ve devoured all of her books. But Pivotal Moments is different. It’s a life book.

It’s about stepping into the unknown. About the quiet epiphanies that change the trajectory of a life. About turning uncertainty, loss, and challenge into growth, not through hustle or bravado, but through reflection, courage, and choice.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from Jill is this:
 
Life doesn’t come with a picture on the box showing us what it’s supposed to look like. We don’t get instructions, we get moments. And we choose the picture by paying attention to people who are living lives we admire.
Jill is that mentor for me......and I've come to learn  for hundreds of others. ☺️

If you’re standing at the edge of change, questioning what’s next, or simply wanting to live with more intention, I can’t recommend Pivotal Moments enough. It won’t tell you what to do. It will help you see what’s possible and trust yourself enough to walk toward it.
Lori Richardson, Lisa Magnuson, Alice Heiman

I didn’t burn out when things were hard.
I burned out when everything worked.

I built a global training company.
40 countries.
5 continents.
36 employees.

From the outside, it looked like I had it all.

Inside, I was exhausted, depleted, and dealing with nightly migraines.
Here’s what no one tells high performers:
Burnout doesn’t just come from failing.

It comes from succeeding without clarity.

This week's newsletter is about why top sellers burn out after they win, and what actually sustains performance long term.

👇 Read below.

It didn’t happen when I was struggling. It didn’t happen when the business was uncertain. It happened after we hit what seemed like an impossible goal

Open article: Why Top Sellers Burn Out After They Win by Shari (AKA SaaSi Shari) Levitin • 4 min read

I didn’t expect Sundance to change how I think about business.
Or sales. Or relationships.

But after serving on the Advisory Board of the Sundance Film Festival, hosting clients at opening night for years, and watching how stories actually move people to act, I can’t unsee the parallels.

This year, everything felt different.

Fewer certainties.
Missing landmarks.
A world that no longer works the way it used to.

And yet… something important is beginning.

I wrote about what Sundance taught me about pause, storytelling, loss, and execution—and why it matters—in this week’s newsletter.

👇 This is where the good part starts.

#Storytelling #Leadership #Sundance

I still remember the moment the late Ken Brecher, former Executive Director of the Sundance Institute, asked me to serve on the Sundance Advisory Boar

Open article: What Sundance Taught Me About Sales, Storytelling, and Saying Goodbye by Shari (AKA SaaSi Shari) Levitin • 3 min read

What Sundance Taught Me About Sales, Storytelling, and Saying Goodbye

Your prospect goes dark after a meeting.

Most salespeople assume interest has changed.
Usually, it didn’t.

You built rapport.
You did your homework.
You offered real insight.

Then they go dark.

What often happens is this.

You led with empathy and proved your competency.
But neglected the two other pillars of trust.

You can lose the trust that took months to build in an instant.

Omit a follow-up or recap.
Overstate what your product can do.
Say “I’ll get back to you” and don’t.

That’s not a small mistake.
That trust erased.

This exact conversation came up after a keynote yesterday.
And this is how I answered it.

taplio

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Brent Adamson

Shari Levitin

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