Notes from the Hive

Straight-talking writing on selling enterprise technology into financial services: pipeline, complex deals, procurement, and the tools that actually move the needle.

Notes from the Hive

Get it in your mailbox every week.

Procurement01/10/2026

Tick-tock

Your buyer says there won't be an RFP this time. There will be, and believing otherwise costs you the only window you have to stack the deck.

Enterprise Sales24/09/2026

Wining and dining prospects has always felt a bit cringe to me. So I use a very specific strategy instead: three dinners, each at a different point in the sale, each with a different guest list and a completely different purpose.

Enterprise Sales18/09/2026

Speak My Language

Your team all use the same enterprise sales language. Ask three of them to define a compelling event and you will get three different answers, and that gap costs you more than your choice of methodology.

Enterprise Sales02/09/2026

Use a Ransom Note

Tell your buyers what you stand for, and give them something to rally behind.

Enterprise Sales02/09/2026

The Attractive Character

It’s the blemishes and scars that make your story relatable. Don’t underestimate how important that is when you’re selling.

Enterprise Sales29/08/2026

The Difference Matters

Someone told me good sales training is universal. They were half right, and wrong in the half that costs you deals. Inside financial services and regulated industries, the pain, the process and the people all behave differently. Here's how.

Enterprise Sales21/08/2026

Press S for Success

Sales trainers love to promise that if you follow their system, success is guaranteed. Bollocks. A methodology is a set of road signs, and real sales craft is what gets you home when you find yourself lost in the woods.

Enterprise Sales14/08/2026

One shot, one kill

A deal sat stalled for six months. What unblocked it was a throw-away comment in a coffee shop, in a sentence about something else. Most of us sell like machine gunners. The best ones wait for the one shot.

Enterprise Sales07/08/2026

Your buyer is afraid of dying

Large transformation projects fail more than half the time, and the person sponsoring yours knows it. Most salespeople never mention that risk, and it quietly costs them the deal. Here is why implementation confidence is the thing you are actually selling.

Enterprise Sales27/07/2026

My happy ears cost me £2 million

I lost a £2 million deal because I mistook a coach for a champion. They look identical from the outside. Here's the one difference that decides your deal, and the water cooler test that tells you which one you've actually got.

Enterprise Sales17/07/2026

Bad forecast accuracy has nothing to do with forecasting

Bad forecast accuracy isn't a forecasting problem. It's what happens when your reps don't understand how their customer actually buys. Here's the test I run on every pipeline review to prove it.

Enterprise Sales30/06/2026

Nobody reads your executive summary

Nobody reads your RFP executive summary, because most of them are recycled corporate drivel. Here's the one thing I started doing that lifted my shortlist rate 40%, and almost none of your competitors are doing it.

Enterprise Sales22/05/2026

How I Closed a $20 Million Software Deal — and What It Cost Me

The biggest deal of my career — the moves that won it, the mistakes I was lucky to survive, and what it quietly cost me.

Enterprise Sales16/05/2026

Craft vs Graft: When a great attitude isn't enough.

The hidden skillset that separates elite enterprise closers from enthusiastic-but-unfinished salespeople — and why most software vendors completely fail to teach it.

Culture09/05/2026

Own your f*ck ups!

Sometimes we fck up. After all, we're human. This week was interesting because I encountered two such fck-ups - one of which was mine!

Culture02/05/2026

WTF is the SaaSpocalypse?! (Explained)

Software valuations are collapsing and investors still don't know where the bottom is. Four AI-driven forces — cheaper code, a lower bar to build, agentic users replacing seats, and value getting hollowed out into the agent layer — are quietly rewriting the rules of SaaS. Here's what's actually happening under the hood, and why every vendor needs a plan.

Procurement25/04/2026

Notes from the Hive

Get it in your mailbox every week.

Tick-tock

Three Dinners

Speak My Language

Use a Ransom Note

The Attractive Character

The Difference Matters

Press S for Success

One shot, one kill

Your buyer is afraid of dying

My happy ears cost me £2 million

Bad forecast accuracy has nothing to do with forecasting

Nobody reads your executive summary

How I Closed a $20 Million Software Deal — and What It Cost Me

Craft vs Graft: When a great attitude isn't enough.

Own your f*ck ups!

WTF is the SaaSpocalypse?! (Explained)

Your Buyers Bloat is the reason Software Costs So Much

Dear Buyer.... Go f*ck yourself!

Left to Drown: The Truth About Moving Into Enterprise Sales

You don't need leverage - sometimes you just need buyers to think you have it.