Bob London

BobLondon.co

According to research studies, B2B buyers rate "discovery" and "listening" as two of the top three influences on their buying decisions. But buyers also rate vendors poorly on those two skills. I'm here to help you close the gap.

After 2,700 customer discovery conversations I can tell you how to get customers that stay longer and spend more. I train customer-facing teams (sales, customer success and account management) to have more strategic customer conversations that drive engagement, insights and revenue. 

My exclusive Radically Authentic Discovery Method(TM) features disruptive questions and deep listening techniques to help you understand what's most important to your customer. 

Learn how "curiosity charms the customer," at www.boblondon.co.

Founder & Chief Listening Officer

Joshua M Freeman Foundation

Support The Freeman Arts Pavilion, a live music and entertainment venue by the freeman Foundation.

Sponsor / Patron - Freeman Arts Pavilion

LearnRADnow.com

In-depth, on demand training for customer, success, managers, account, managers, and sales professionals, who want to have more strategic, revealing customer conversations, that drive customer engagement, insights and revenue.

Customer Discovery & Listening Expert, Teacher & Speaker

MindShare Inc.

Mindshare is an exclusive, invitation-only network of 1,200 CEOs and founders from the most promising emerging and high growth technology companies in the Washington, DC region.

Founded in 1997 by a local group of prominent executives and passionate business leaders, Mindshare is an exclusive forum designed to help CEOs of emerging technology companies build bigger, better and more innovative businesses.

The Mindshare Organizing Board is comprised of prominent technology and business leaders within the Washington DC region. The Organizing Board members conduct a rigorous selection procedure that accepts about 50 technology CEOs each year into the Mindshare Class. The Class meets once a month, for 10 months, to engage with other successful entrepreneurs, interact with the board, enjoy dinner, and gain knowledge from a panel discussion. Panel presenters are legends and luminaries who share their success stories and lessons learned on topics that are critical to launching, scaling and exiting a company -- such as raising venture capital, driving revenue, marketing and sales, recruiting and retaining top talent, building a board and implanting successful exit strategies. Past speakers include Mario Morino, founder and CEO of Legent, The Morino Institute and Netpreneur; Andrews Stern, Chairman and CEO of USinternetworking; Raul Fernandez, founder of Proxicom and Chairman and CEO of ObjectVideo; and Lt. General John Sattler, Leadership Chair at U.S. Naval Academy.

Board Member

Gain Grow Retain

Member

University of Maryland

Volunteer as a business/marketing advisor to University of Maryland students who are at various stages of staring a business. Guest lecturer at Dingman's Fearless Founders class. http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/centers-excellence/dingman-center-entrepreneurship/about-us/entrepreneurs-residence

Entrepreneur in Residence, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

Stealth Startup Creating the Check Engine Light for the Home

Strategic Advisor

DCA Live

Technology Marketing Alliance

The Technology Marketing Alliance is the definitive invitation-only forum for the top B2B and B2G technology marketers in the Washington, D.C. area. Its members consist of vice presidents and C-level marketers who are shaping the region's technology brands. As an invite-only group, TMA membership is subject to review by the board of advisors to ensure that everyone involved is there for one reason only—to develop a forum for idea exchange and continuing education.  For more information, visit www.technologymarketingalliance.com or follow TMA on Twitter @TMA_DC.

ParkMyCloud (aquired by Turbonomic)

ParkMyCloud is a cost-effective, lightweight app that reduces cloud computing costs by up to 60% by enabling AWS customers to schedule automatic start/stop times for their idle resources. So they pay only for the computing power they’re actually using.

“ParkMyCloud saved my company a significant percentage of our monthly Amazon bill. In less than 15 minutes we were all set up, had identified several unused server instances, and applied parking schedules to our development systems to reduce spend during off hours. As a startup, my cofounder and I appreciate the immediate and obvious savings. The ParkMyCloud team has built a great product!“

– Rob Wyant, Chief Technology Officer, Yapper

Board of Advisors

Are your CS, Sales or Account Management team's customer conversations really about the customer? 

Or are they just check-the-box "feature-fests," narrowly focused on your product with little or no value to the customer?

RADICALLY AUTHENTIC DISCOVERY (RAD) BOOSTS CUSTOMER ACQUISITION & RETENTION

RAD is based on my customer discovery conversations with over 2,700 B2B decision-makers and features two unique components:

1. Disruptive, penetrating questions that give customers space to talk about what they're experts in: Their problems, priorities and perceptions (not your product!).
2. Techniques to "mute yourself" so you can listen between the lines and go where the customer or prospect wants to go. As a result you'll "hear" what's really important TO THEM.

NOW, YOUR TEAM CAN LEARN RADICALLY AUTHENTIC DISCOVERY

I'd love to help your team reap the benefits of this unique approach. In my personalized professional development programs, your team will receive exclusive and actionable content not available from any other source, including:

+ ​The disruptive questions that yield candid responses and insights.
+ The importance of asking open-ended questions you don't know the answer to.
+ The right way to frame conversations, ask questions and follow up.
+ Tips on “listening between the lines” to maximize insights.

Visit www.boblondon.co to learn more.

CEO, Founder & Chief Listener

Your customer’s voice should be your company’s voice. I help clarify both.

I work best with B2B leaders - CEOs, founders, heads of CS, Sales, Marketing and Product - who have this in common: You're curious about what their ideal customers and prospects actually think and need IRL (in real life) vs. what you HOPE they need. 

You want to understand how to define value on the CUSTOMER’S terms, not yours. And you’re not afraid to “go there,” to discover the their truth. In fact, you're convinced that’s how your business will win.

My promise - based on 2,300+ interviews with B2B decision-makers - is this: Radically authentic customer discovery will help you develop more powerful brand strategy, positioning, messaging, differentiators and value prop.

And these form the foundation of more successful customer acquisition and retention efforts. And of course, that's what it's all about.

SERVICES:

Voice of customer
Radically transparent discovery reveals what matters to the market in the real world. Engagements include Customer insights, Product-market fit, Sales win-loss, Customer churn, Exit interviews

Voice of company
A compelling messaging strategy boosts customer & employee acquisition & retention. Engagements & deliverables include: Messaging playbook, Positioning & differentiators, Value prop & messaging, Brand promise & strategic narrative, Investor pitch

Discovery training
Learn to get customers and prospects to open up like never before. Specialized workshops and coaching for: Customer Success, Sales, Account management, Product marketing & management

In 20 minutes I'm beginning a "customer listening tour" on behalf of a new client to uncover growth opportunities, gaps, etc. Guess where I'm NOT going to start the convo?

"Hi, how satisfied are you with (CLIENT)?"
"What value do they deliver?"
"How would you rate your experience with them?"

NOOOOOO...

After doing 3,000+ customer discovery convos, I've learned that the best way to start these conversations (yes, they are convos not surveys or interviews) is by giving them context and flow:

"You've been generous enough to chat with me on behalf of CLIENT so first, thank you!"

"Would you like me to give you a bit of context?" (95% say "yes that'd be great" since they have a zillion things on their plate and might not remember the purpose of the call)

"Great. So, this isn't a typical customer satisfaction call. In fact, I probably won't ask any questions about CLIENT for the first 15 - 20 minutes. The first part of the conversation is actually about you and your world. That'll give us a good foundation to dive into a your perceptions and experiences of (CLIENT'S MARKET/LANDSCAPE) and CLIENT'S services. Sounds ok?" ("Yes, thanks that's very helpful.")

Start the convo with a wide open aperture - about their COMPANY'S priorities and challenges - what's hot at that level. Then how that drives or aligns with the customer's job - what does the company absolutely need them and their team to contribute in the next 6 months?

By doing this, you'll be able to create safety and trust AND begin the process of connecting the dots between: 

👉 CUSTOMER'S COMPANY PRIORITIES 
👉 CUSTOMER'S JOB PRIORITIES/CHALLENGES
👉 VENDOR (CLIENT) VALUE/GAPS/OPPORTUNITIES

Stay curious!

----

Bob London
Helping B2B teams turn curiosity into revenue.

------

Oh right - also, my RAD Online Discovery and Listening Course is just $59 USD for a limited time. That's an 80% savings off the regular $297 price. Click "View my store" next to my name or on my profile.

(fake private jet photo courtesy of AI)

Award-winning discovery and listening expert, speaker and coach. Have more strategic, organic, open ended conversations that uncover hidden pain, risk and revenue. RAD methodology based on 3000+ discovery conversations.

Unmarked paid influencer posts and unsourced statistics. Two things I think are killing LinkedIn right now. 

Maybe that energetic post you’re reading from a well known LinkedIn voice was paid for by a software company.

Maybe that compelling stat about some market trend or pain point is made up.

LinkedIn certainly doesn’t care. 

Does anyone else?

“The Customer Success community is drowning in opinions — but starving for evidence and repeatable systems.”

Those aren’t my words, it’s what ChatGPT said when I fed it headlines from 30 recent posts by members of the #customersuccess community. 

Based on those headlines and my queries, ChatGPT said, among other things:

👉 Overall CS mood: exhausted, evolving, fed up with legacy thinking, and hungry for strategic credibility and impact.

👉 The headlines are overwhelmingly (a) stating the current issues — with only light, scattered hints of (b) recommending how to fix them. The sentiment is mostly about naming the problems, not yet about fixing them in a structured, strategic way. 

👉 The headlines read like takes: opinions, frustrations, tips, personal reflections, and community debates — not evidence-backed outcomes. They’re personal narratives and anecdotes, not case studies. They’re cathartic vs. analytical. 

I am sharing this because I serve the wonderful CS community and want it to thrive. So as someone who’s at a bit of arms length (not a CS practitioner), I hope you will embrace my call to urge and inspire you to find, document and share data-backed BUSINESS stories where companies figured out how to keep and expand customer revenue - in a manner that is highly scalable and profitable. Where the CS team challenged other departments to take a more direct hand in customer experience and outcomes - and ultimately retention. 

In my many conversations with CS leaders, I know these stories exist. 

I'm not saying to stop talking about the (quite challenging) problems in CS during this period of transition and reckoning - just dial it back in favor of evidence-based success stories that show how to get CS right!

And I know many of the leaders who are achieving these business successes are busy - and not glued to LinkedIn!  So go to them and help extract and document their stories. 

The business world needs to hear them - now! 

Stay curious. 
Bob

(See the full prompts and outputs at the link in the comments.)

If you’re still seeing your customers as your customers, you’re doing it wrong.

True, they use your solution. But that doesn’t define them.

They’re defined by their priorities, challenges and goals.

What is their company counting on them to get done in the next X months?

So you better start seeing your customers as human beings just trying to get sh#t done, feel good about their jobs, maybe get some kudos at work and end the day/month/year feeling pretty good professionally. 

Your solution is one of a number of vehicles to get them there.

Remember, you can’t matter to them unless you understand what really matters to them.

Stay curious!
Bob London

How to ruin a perfect customer discovery question? End it with:

“In other words…”
“For example…”
“If you don’t have an answer that’s fine…”

NNNNOOOOOOO!

You have to let your questions land. 
Let the convo breathe. 
Let your query do its job. 

Then hit your MUTE button. 

Because every extraneous word you use to qualify the question only dilutes it.

Customers are smart. 

So you don’t have to explain your questions when they’re well-formulated. 

——

We explain because silence feels awkward.
We explain because we hope the customer won’t be confused.
We explain because the “disruptive” questions feel bold and unfamiliar - to us. (Even though customers love them.)

BUT…customers always reward the courage behind a well-placed, un-rushed question.

They share. 
They reveal.
They trust.

——

If you want your next customer conversation to change everything, try this:

✔️ Ask one strategic, zoom-out question.
✔️ Hit mute.
✔️ Count to five in your head.
✔️ Let them go wherever they need to go.

———

Hey! I’m Bob London, and I’ve done 3,000+ B2B customer discovery convos from which I developed The Radically Authentic Discovery Method (RAD).

My RAD online course gives #customersuccess,  #sales and #accountmanagement professionals 25+ disruptive questions, deep listening techniques and conversation tips to have more open-ended strategic customer convos. 

And I just…

👉 Whacked the price of my online course down to the lowest it’s ever been: $59.00 USD. 

That’s an 80% savings off the regular price of $297.00. Grab it while you can!

Just click "Visit my store" next to my name above or on my profile to take advantage of this limited time offer.

(Oh, and if you already purchased at a higher price, don't worry! I'll give you a free coaching session! DM me any time you're ready.)

Great idea for a customer holiday gift: A meeting with zero slides. And video off. Just an actual human conversation. They’ll thank you.

Hey UK / Europe friends! I'm excited and honoured to announce that I’m speaking at The Customer Conference - EUROPE 2026 in London on January 28-29! 

Join me! 

Register today here: https://lnkd.in/ecphHEKD with my discount access code: TCC4SPEAKERS 

Hope to see you there.

And stay curious!
Bob London

#customersuccess #GTM #CSM

No alternative text description for this image

Pumped to go across the pond and speak at The Customer Conference in London on why your AI notetaker is starving for richer customer conversations. 

Thank you for the opportunity and looking forward to seeing some LinkedIn connections IRL!

#customersuccess #customerdiscovery #listening #STFU

When I saw my name right below Adam Grant’s as an inspiration for Chad Horenfeldt 📕 in his book, The Strategic CSM (buy it today if you haven’t already), it got me thinking:

What would my work look like if I were looking at it through the lens of organizational psychology? 

I wouldn't just see “customer discovery and listening training.” 

I’d see a counter-intuitive counterweight for a business culture that has become overly reliant with talking.  

That’s actually what I feel so strongly about.  Does the world belong to the talkers?

See link in comments for my full take. 

Stay curious!
Bob

How good are you at finding The Quiet Part? It is such a huge opportunity.

If you’re in #sales, #customersuccess, or #accountmanagement, being great at revealing The Quiet Part can be the difference between being wildly, successful and struggling.

What’s The Quiet Part?

👉 The thing customers don’t say
👉 The thing leaders avoid
👉 The truth beneath the surface
👉 The unmet need
👉 The hidden risk
👉 The unspoken expectation
👉 The thing the vendor never asks about
👉 The part buried under slides, agendas, and assumptions
👉 The gold that dashboards won’t give you

——

After 3000+ customer discovery convos, I can tell you that customers have a lot to share - they will say the quiet - but it goes unsaid because we simply:

🧐 Don’t ask enough open-ended questions about their business and their job (that’s what their experts in, not your product).

🤐 Pivot too quickly to our own pitch or solution.

Listen to any successful executive or consistently top performer engage with their prospects or customers. 

They’re probably doing it the right way.

And uncovering The Quiet Part. 

Stay curious!
Bob

#customerdiscovery #curiosity #listen #gtm

Is everyone now just going ahead and putting “f*ck” in the title of their book?

What’s the best sales methodology?
The one the customer doesn’t realize you’re using.

Because the moment they feel processed… choreographed… “taken through a framework”… the spell is broken. And not in a good way.

This week I joked with a client:
“Hey customer, what’s your favorite sales methodology?”
Challenger? SPIN? MEDDICC?
Or “can we just have a freaking conversation?”

Here’s the truth:
Top performers aren’t the ones flawlessly running a sequence of steps.
They’re the ones who turn every interaction into a real, open-ended, authentically curious conversation…
…that naturally becomes focused based on the customer’s reality.

Call it “not treating your customer like they’re in a sales escape room.”

Whatever you call it, it works—because the customer feels like a human, not a prospect.

And honestly, isn’t that the whole point?

Stay curious!
Bob

——-

I’m Bob London, award-winning discovery and listening expert, and I do talks and workshops to help teams have more strategic, open ended customer conversations that uncover unspoken revenue opportunities and hidden risk. Reach out anytime!

Smash the Mirror. Start the Conversation.

A lot of “customer conversations” aren’t conversations at all.
They’re vendors talking to themselves.

You’ve seen it — the call that starts with:
   •   “Let me tell you a little bit about us…”
   •   “Here’s what our platform does…”
   •   “We’re the leader in our space…”

It’s a monologue. A mirror.
Not a moment of discovery.

💬 RAD (Radically Authentic Discovery) is about smashing that mirror.

It’s about stepping out of the echo chamber and asking:

“What’s changed at the board level?”
“If I could listen in on your next exec meeting, what would I hear?”
“ What’s the hardest part of your job?”

When you stop reflecting your own pitch,
you start revealing what matters to the customer.

When you ditch the script,
you make space for unscripted conversations
that uncover revenue, risk, and real strategic value.

So let’s smash the mirrors.
Start asking better questions.
Start actually listening.

Because the customer’s story is a LOT more important than ours.

——

Hey I’m Bob London, award-winning customer discovery and listening expert, speaker and coach. I teach teams how to have more strategic, open ended customer conversations that reveal unspoken needs and hidden risk. Interested in upskilling your team? Reach out to chat any time!

#customerdiscovery #listening #customersuccess #sales #accountmanagement

There are the two kinds of conversational pauses in #customersuccess, #sales and #accountmanagement. 

One sucks. And one can help you uncover your customer’s truth.

I’m sure you know what an awkward pause is, so I’ll tell you about the other one.

An awesome pause is when you wait. 

You let the other person finish talking - and reflecting in their head or out loud on what they said in real time. (I call these “verbal ellipses”.)

You can almost see them listen to the echo of their own words to see if they said what they really meant.

Then they'll sometimes clarify or emphasize something.

Which helps you better understand them.

So remember to “dwell before you sell” and try the awesome pause - it really works!

========

Visit my profile for more insights on how to have more engaging and strategic customer conversations by up-leveling your discovery and listening skills.

We often assume that the best way to build a customer relationship is to demonstrate competence. We think if we just show enough slides, share enough features, and hold enough QBRs, they’ll see our value.

But in reality, we aren't building a bridge. We’re building a wall.

We fall into what Adam Grant might call Preacher Mode: we’re so busy proselytizing our own solutions that we stop seeing the actual human across the table.

The bricks of this wall are made of good intentions but bad psychology:

* The Ritualistic Agenda
* The Monologue
* The Fear of Silence
* The Unconscious Biases
* The Slides (oh, the slides)

The most successful companies don't try to prove how much they know. They admit what they don't know.
They switch into Scientist Mode:

 * They replace "pitches" with curiosity. They ask questions they don't have the answers to.
 * They listen to learn, not to respond. This is the difference between hearing and understanding.
 * They challenge the status quo. They aren't afraid to introduce the kind of productive friction that leads to breakthroughs.

The irony - and the great news - is that vendors are the ones who built this wall. 

That means we are the only ones who can dismantle it.

Put down the slide deck. Grab a pickaxe.

Stay curious!
Bob London 

#ThinkAgain #Curiosity #Sales #Leadership #Listen #CustomerDiscovery

Do you remember the last time you felt truly heard and fully understood? In any context: home, social, professional. 

(My sense is it doesn’t happen very often - or often enough.)

Now ask yourself, when is the last time you left someone else feeling truly heard and fully understood?

I bet if you focus on helping other people feel that way, you’ll feel great about it, they’ll be likely to pay it forward. 

And one day it will come back to you.

Stay curious!
Bob

How to Empathize with a CFO.

When I have a discovery convo with a CFO (my clients' customer) during customer listening tours, I always start the same way:

“I looked at your LinkedIn profile… but in your own words, tell me what you do. What do your responsibilities include?”

Almost every time—especially outside large enterprises—the list goes well beyond finance, planning, and accounting. It expands to legal, IT, real estate, HR, and facilities.

My follow-up?

“Wow, that’s a lot of hats," to which they often reply with a sigh, "Yes it is."

Then I ask, "What’s the hardest part of your job?”

The answer is nearly universal: “Managing things I’m not an expert in.”

That right there is empathy 101.

And why you should NEVER see the customer through the lens of your solution. See the world through their lens first.

If you want to connect with CFOs—or anyone, really—you have to respect the human complexity of their role. 

Their job isn’t just running spreadsheets. I mean, imagine the context-switching, decision-making and risk mitigation across disciplines, and delivering outcomes - in areas they didn’t train for.

Asking, “What’s the hardest part of your job?” is a key part of my Radically Authentic Discovery Methodology because it shows you're interested in them as a human with priorities and challenges outside the guardrails of your solution. 

Which builds trust and transparency.

And opens doors to insights no demo or pitch ever could.

Because CFOs, like the rest of us, want to feel heard and understood - before they’re sold to.

#Empathy #CustomerDiscovery #B2B #CFO #Sales #RAD #CustomerSuccess #AccountManagement #Curiosity

Thank you LinkedIn friends and connections for an amazing year! To celebrate - and further my mission to make customer convos suck less - I am…

👉 Whacking the price of my online course on the Radically Authentic Discovery Method down to the lowest it’s ever been: $59.00 USD. 

That’s an 80% savings off the regular price of $297.00. Grab it while you can!

Just click "Visit my store" next to my name above or on my profile to take advantage of this limited time offer.

And…thank you Gema Tamames Monzón for taking a few minutes to share your experiences using the RAD Method. 

(Oh, and if you already purchased at a higher price, don't worry! I'll give you a free coaching session! DM me any time you're ready.)

Shocker! Kids don’t want to answer questions about school right after school. (Also a lesson on why you need to meet customers where they are.)

Some of what I teach comes from my personal life. Like why tje question, "What did you learn at school today?" eliciting NOTHING from my kids. 

Because that was a "me" question. It was purely for my benefit as an anxious parent wanting to make sure my sons were learning something. 

Click to watch the video that reveals the "you" question that got them to open up. 

This video is a mini snack from my RAD Online Discovery and Listening Course which is now just $59 USD for a limited time. 

That's an 80% savings off the regular $297 price. Click "View my store" next to my name or on my profile.

34:30 - ME
So is there anything we didn't cover that you'd like to share, anything I should have asked but didn't?

34:41 - CUSTOMER
No, I think this was really, this was really refreshing. I'm glad that (MY CLIENT CEO) invested in you to do this work for (MY CLIENT). It just deepens my interest to continue the partnership, knowing that something wonderful is going to come out of it.

——

That’s how my last customer interview wrapped up yesterday. 

And why you need to do an open-ended customer listening tour to understand what’s most important to THEM. 

Stay curious!

Bob

——-

PS. Want to know what questions to ask and how to $TFU (Sikent til You Fully Understand) on your customer listening tour? 

Well…my highly rated RAD Online Discovery and Listening Course is just $59 USD for a limited time. 

That's a whopping 80% savings off the regular $297 price. Click "View my store" next to my name or on my profile.

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