In today’s selling environment, you get fewer shots with buyers—and less time when you get them. That’s why meeting management (or better: conversation management) has become a modern sales superpower.

In this episode of the MySalesDay podcast, Michael Hess sits down with Lawrence Horne—joining from the UK countryside—to break down what great sellers do before, during, and after a buyer conversation to earn trust, control momentum, and land the next step.

Lawrence opens with a “Hall of Fame” early-career win: a creative, ambitious ad strategy that required persistence, internal alignment, and the confidence to do something that hadn’t been done before. From there, the conversation gets tactical: agenda-setting, discovery discipline, how to avoid hiding behind decks, and how to read buyer cues when you’re selling over video.

If you’ve ever left a meeting thinking “we talked a lot but learned nothing,” or watched a seller speed-run a slide deck while missing obvious buyer signals, this episode gives you a cleaner framework: set a clear agenda, ask smarter questions early, earn the right to tell the story, and manage the room—especially when there are multiple stakeholders and unclear power dynamics.

To close, Lawrence shares what he does to handle the turbulence of a sales year—the reset, the pressure cycles, and the mindset habits that keep performance steady when the numbers start yelling.

Featuring: Lawrence Horne
Host: Michael Hess, MySalesDay Podcast

Timestamps

00:03 Welcome + Lawrence joins from the UK
01:24 Today’s focus: meeting management and conversation control
02:54 Hall of Fame sale: creativity, competitiveness, and ambition
03:40 The big move: combining dealers into a higher-yield concept
04:37 Crossing lanes? Clarifying internal boundaries and account ownership
05:16 Persistence required: getting 15 stakeholders to agree
06:24 Internal selling and organizational alignment behind the scenes
08:45 Why clustering buyers/sellers increases demand and “yield”
10:39 Why conversation management became the skill Lawrence chose
11:55 Agenda discipline: knowing what the buyer wants to hear
13:45 Why meetings are harder now: fewer buyers, fewer meetings, less time
14:37 Selling over video: why precision matters more than ever
15:05 Stop hiding behind decks: the danger of “get through the slides”
18:59 The 25-minute meeting problem: balancing questions vs. pitching
22:40 Pre-meeting agenda strategy: use the calendar invite to force clarity
39:47 Selling to the top: managing mixed seniority and stakeholder dynamics
42:53 The danger of misreading power in the room
44:03 Handling turbulence: pressure cycles, health, mindset, and habits
46:23 Culture matters: performance gets easier with great people
47:16 The cost of being “the energy person” and why preparation reduces stress
49:07 Closing: better habits equal better selling

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