The Sales Communication Gap:
How to Connect with the Person Behind the Purchase

The Sales Communication Gap:
How to Connect with the Person Behind the Purchase

Most sales teams prepare for the company, the opportunity, and the business problem. But better sales conversations require another layer of preparation: understanding the person across the table.

In complex B2B sales, the same solution can land differently depending on who is hearing it. A CFO and CRO may be evaluating the same growth opportunity, but they are listening for different risks, proof points, and outcomes.

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What to Expect:

In this Business as “Un”usual session, Red Caffeine CEO Kathy Steele is joined by Tom Latourette, Managing Partner at M3 Learning and Owner of Sales3Set, to explore how DISC, self-awareness, and public intelligence can help salespeople prepare for more effective buyer conversations.

Together, they discuss why today’s buyers are more prepared than ever, why trust is built through validation rather than education, and how sales teams can use communication cues to adapt their openers, questions, proof points, and follow-ups.

The session also features a live sales-preparation role-play using Red Caffeine’s Grow-to-Market™ strategy and a real-world growth scenario. Kathy and Tom demonstrate how the same business challenge should be framed differently for a CFO versus a CRO, showing how buyer-specific preparation can create stronger alignment and more productive conversations.

Session Highlights:

Learn why buyers do not just want to be educated — they want to be validated
Understand how DISC can help salespeople recognize their own communication defaults before adapting to a prospect
Explore how public signals, LinkedIn activity, email style, verbal cues, and body language can inform buyer-specific preparation
See how the same growth opportunity requires different questions and proof points for a CFO versus a CRO
Discover why strong questions often build more credibility than long explanations
Learn how sales leaders can coach their teams to prepare for the person, the pressure, and the decision process

Watch the replay to learn how to adapt your sales conversations without changing your core value proposition — and how better preparation can help your team build trust before, during, and after the meeting.

“People don’t want to be educated. They want to be validated.”
— Tom Latourette, Managing Partner, M3 Learning

Guest

Tom Latourette
Owner | Managing Partner
Sales3Set | M3 Learning

Tom Latourette is Managing Partner at M3 Learning, where he helps sales teams improve performance through stronger communication, preparation, accountability, and buyer engagement. With more…

Tom Latourette is Managing Partner at M3 Learning, where he helps sales teams improve performance through stronger communication, preparation, accountability, and buyer engagement. With more than 26 years of experience across marketing, sales, and sales management, Tom brings a practical, real-world perspective to helping salespeople and sales leaders communicate more effectively. Before joining M3 Learning, he served as VP of Sales and Marketing at SBR, Inc., where he became a disciple of the M3 Learning process and saw firsthand how stronger sales habits, ownership, and communication discipline can transform team performance. Today, Tom works with organizations to apply ProActive Selling principles in ways that help sales teams better understand buyers, prepare for more productive conversations, and move opportunities forward with greater consistency. Join Tom in an upcoming 10-week ProActive Sales Foundations Cohort. Learn more here.

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Host

Kathy Steele
Chief Executive Officer
Red Caffeine

Kathy Steele is a visionary leader and entrepreneur with over thirty years of corporate strategy, branding, marketing, and technology expertise. As an operating executive, consultant,…

Kathy Steele is a visionary leader and entrepreneur with over thirty years of corporate strategy, branding, marketing, and technology expertise. As an operating executive, consultant, founder, and board member, she advises executives on innovative growth, brand, and talent management strategies that drive shareholder value while protecting reputational risk and improving customer and employee engagement. Currently, Kathy is the CEO of Red Caffeine, a growth consultancy that builds Grow-to-Market™ strategies for mid-market companies in the manufacturing, technology, professional services, and education sectors with combined revenues exceeding 4 billion. She has advised executives on developing and promoting first-mover technologies, positioning and launching new products and services, changing brand perception to aid business turnaround, and helping organizations with their human capital strategies. Kathy has successfully guided the management of a crafting product from idea to acquisition by the largest strategic player in the space, a technology product launch campaign that led to 80% revenue growth, more than doubling their business, and an award-winning repositioning strategy that reached a global audience, changed negative market perception, and drove new customer acquisition.

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