In this shorter-than-usual episode of the podcast, Paul heads back to one of our early podcasts (no 84) that looked at the well-known RACI model. This model helps people understand the different roles in decision-making and task allocation.

Paul thinks the Consulted and Informed roles, and how sometimes the Accountable person has to manage the emotions and expectations of these groups, so that they don't hold teh project hostage to their perspective, yet remain unaccountable to the outcome.

Why do so many sales conversations grind to a halt… even when both sides want the same outcome?

If you've ever found yourself stuck arguing over the detail — pricing, features, process, targets — this episode explains what's really going wrong and how to fix it.

In complex B2B sales, disagreements rarely happen because people want different things. They happen because the conversation has dropped too far into the "what" or the "how", and everyone has lost sight of the why.

In this episode, we unpack the Why–How–What Pyramid and show:

• Why detail-driven conversations create friction and stall deals
• How asking better why questions lifts conversations out of conflict
• Why senior stakeholders care more about intent than execution detail
• How to realign sales conversations around purpose, not opinion

You'll hear a real-world example of a high-growth customer relationship that was stuck in tactical arguments — until the conversation was reset at the strategic level.

If you're selling into complex organisations, influencing senior leaders, or navigating internal alignment challenges, this episode will change how you approach difficult conversations.

In this short podcast, Graham revisits one of our old podcasts on change. When change at work happens it can create an emotional responce, especially when the change is done to us, not by us.

Graham looks back on a podcast from May 2023 that explores the different ways that we react to change, asking how much do we, as leaders, really understand the people around us, and take that into account when communicating and leading change.

If you want to go back and listen to the whole podcast you can here it here - https://thequestionis.libsyn.com/106-why-do-some-people-react-to-change-harder-than-others

Why do sales conversations so often end up stuck on price?

Because the moment your product becomes the centre of the conversation, comparison is inevitable — and value gets lost.

In this episode, we explore value-led selling and why buyers don't want products — they want confidence in outcomes.

We unpack:

• Why focusing on your solution pushes buyers into risk mode
• How complex buying decisions shift responsibility onto the customer
• Why customers want help making the right decision, not choosing a product
• How to reposition yourself as a trusted advisor, not a vendor

Through real programme examples, we challenge a deeply held belief:
Even the best product doesn't matter as much as what it enables.

You'll learn how to:

• Shift the conversation from "what we sell" to "what they need"
• Align your expertise to customer outcomes
• Build value propositions rooted in impact, not features
• Strengthen trust — even when it means walking away from a deal

Another look back into our podcast library, Richard heads back to when we asked the question, How can I improve my confidence.

Richard explores how our confidence changes over time, especially when working on something big or important to us, and that can lead to confidence wobbles, yet with a small amount of planning ahead of time, we can handle these low points and power through to achieve our goals and objectives.

If you want to listen to the original podcast, it is called 'How can I improve my confidence?' and is podcast 112 from March 2026. You can listen to it here - https://thequestionis.libsyn.com/112-how-can-i-improve-my-confidence

In this short episode of The Question Is, Ricky delves back into the library to revisit one of his favourite episodes, which also happens to be one of our most-played ever.

There are lots of slightly different versions of the meanings of the five areas in SMART goals, but the one that comes up most often with the people we work with is the 'R': Realistic (can you do it) or Relevant (should you do it). Even after all this time, this is still a hot topic, which is why Rob and Rich talked about it in 2017, and Ricky decided to focus on it for the first of our revisited series.

If you want to listen to the whole of the original podcast, it was episode 6, from June 2017 or you can click here to listen right now - https://thequestionis.libsyn.com/006-should-the-r-in-smart-be-realistic-or-relevant

In this last podcast in our series on common thinking errors, Richard and Graham look at how we assign labels to ourselves and to others and then act as if these made-up labels are true.

While labels can help us to understand the world by generalising things into simple to understand categories, often we assign labels about our abilities, experiences, identity and personality that are more of a reflection of a situation than they are of us.

Richard walks Graham through how we can explore these labels we create and reframe them to focus on behaviours that we can change if we wish, and not our identity. Seeing something as an area we are learning is always more constructive than something you are not good enough to do.