Qoos

Co-Founder

A to B Insight

Skinny Rhino Productions

Founder, Speaker, Advisor, & Researcher

Ecosystems

Global Head of Research, Advisory, and Communities

Gartner

Distinguished Vice President

Principal Executive Advisor

Managing Director, Advisory Services

Senior Director, Advisory Services

Associate Director, Research

Michigan State University

Assistant Professor of German and Applied Linguistics

Brent Adamson is a world-renowned researcher, author, presenter, trainer, and advisor to B2B commercial executives around the world. 

He is the Co-Founder of both A to B Insight, a B2B sales and marketing research, advisory, and training company, as well as Co-Founder of Qoos, providing B2B sellers micro-guidance and AI-guided coaching, seamlessly embedded within HubSpot CRM.

Brent's next book, The Framemaking Sale, is available Sept. 9, 2025.

Known as having the “biggest crystal ball in B2B sales,” Brent is the co-author of the best-selling, industry changing The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer.  He is also a frequent contributor to well-known business publications, including the Harvard Business Review, featuring his recent articles, “Sensemaking for Sales” and “Traditional B2B Sales and Marketing Are Becoming Obsolete.” 

Across the last 19 years, Brent has been privileged to work with some of the greatest thought leaders in B2B and B2C sales and marketing, building and leading exclusive communities of highly progressive commercial executives.  Known as a world-class facilitator and speaker, Brent has presented to tens of thousands of commercial leaders both in-person and virtually all over the world, ranging from executive leadership teams to large keynote audiences.  

Especially well known for his passion for “productive disruption,” Brent served as the “chief story teller” for CEB, now Gartner’s, sales, marketing, and customer service practices from 2003 to 2022.  Across that time, Brent’s research has focused most closely on the critical, boundary-spanning intersection of selling and buying, seeking to understand the rapidly changing nature of effective commercial collaboration.  Most recently, Brent and his colleagues at CEB, now Gartner, have introduced industry-leading concepts such as Buyer Enablement, Sense Making, and Customer Decision Confidence. 

A native of Omaha, Neb., Brent joined CEB, now Gartner, from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business where he received his MBA with distinction. Prior to that, he served on the faculty of Michigan State University as a Professor of German and Applied Linguistics. In addition to his MBA, Brent holds a B.A. with distinction in political science from the University of Michigan along with M.A.s in political science and German, and a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from the University of Texas. Brent resides in Leesburg, VA with his wife, two daughters, and rescue dog.

Brent Adamson

If we think back across the arc of B2B sales spanning the last 30 years (OK, if you're Todd Caponi, that's a short arc), we can trace four critical phases where we've sought to differentiate ourselves in dramatically different ways.

More than anything else, each phase was driven by a need to stand out and drive higher-margin returns.

~1999-2008:

Our products were getting commoditized and we're competing on price, so let's bundle those products into unique "solutions," specifically designed to address a broader set of customer needs. 

How do we stand out? By telling our customers that our 1+1+1 solution equals 4 in a unique and sufficiently differentiated way that we can demand outsized premiums and win bigger deals.

Wait.

~2005-20012:

Now our "solutions" are getting commoditized too, as we all pursue the exact same strategy to drive differentiation. 

How do we stand out now?

Wait.

~2009-2018
Here's a book that tells us, the best possible way to differentiate in this world (circa 2009) isn't what we sell, but how we sell.  We'll differentiate based on the actual insight we deliver as part of the sale itself. More broadly, let's be "thought leaders!" 

And Smartness Arms Race was on!

Wait.

~2020 - today
Now we're all saying really smart things, so "being smart" is commoditized as well.  And worse still, our customers are really overwhelmed and confused by all this information.

How do we stand out now?

Maybe by going back to the North Star that's been there all along. By being helpful. 

But what exactly does that mean?? It sounds good, to be sure, but "helpful" how, exactly??

In world where customers are overwhelmed, the best way to help isn't so much getting them thinking, but *organizing* their thinking.

That's Framemaking.

For a step-by-step walkthrough (and a cool graphic!) of the last 30 years of selling, marketing and differentiation, see Chapter 10.  

Looking for a Framemaking workshop? Let's help your team stand out rather than blend in, by helping customers through Framemaking.  

#framemakingsale #B2BSales #B2BMarketing

Researcher, author, presenter, and thinker with a passion for “productive disruption.”

One of the biggest challenges of conducting high-end research for a broad audience is that the language can get a bit too wonky for popular taste at times.

I can't tell you how many times colleagues have had to talk me out of long riffs on "schema theory" over the years for fears that everyone's eyes would simply glaze over.

But sometimes you have to run right at the problem, rather than run away.

And in The Framemaking Sale, Karl Schmidt and I run right at a similar sort of wonky term. A term few if any typically associate with B2B sales and marketing. And that term is "agency." 

Even more precisely, "customer agency." 

Does it sound a bit wonky at first?  Probably. 

Is it also critically important for maximizing the likelihood of a high-quality, low-regret deal? Undoubtedly.

So let's talk about it.  

#framemakingsale #B2Bselling #b2bmarketing

April Dunford. Arguably the world's leading expert on B2B positioning.

Writer, thinker, advisor, speaker, and change agent, April's two books, Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch, belong on every B2B leader's bookshelf.

Her work is widely known and even more deeply valued.

So what do you do when April is a guest on your brand new podcast? 

Well, for Shari and me, the objective with Selling Isn't Everything is to find the world's leading experts in building human connection and then explore what they've learned through all their work as a means for making all of us better sellers and better people at the same time. We're looking to apply a completely new lens to the world of B2B sales--a lens tinted with our collective everyday humanity. 

To get there, you have to ask questions few others are likely to ask.

Because the answers are often incredibly illuminating and inevitably take the conversation down a path far less traveled.  

In this week's episode of Selling Isn't Everything, hear April travel this path and explore the boundaries of her own obviously awesome work. 

#SellingIsntEverything #Podcast #AprilDunford

Everyone has a podcast these days, it seems. Especially in B2B sales. 

And while they're all pretty good, they're all pretty similar.

So when Shari (AKA SaaSi Shari) Levitin approached me about starting a sales podcast a couple of years ago, I honestly wasn't very interested.  

"I just don't think we need another podcast on cold outreach, opportunity management, and sales tactics."

But Shari persisted, and we agreed, we'd only make a podcast if we could make it different.  Different angle, different guests, different focus, different vibe.

After two years of experimenting, what we came up with is "Selling Isn't Everything," a sales podcast not about selling.  A podcast designed to refocus the sales conversation on what matters most, the fact that--for now at least--the heart and soul of successful sales is human connection.

At the end of the day, Selling Isn't Everything is a podcast about human connection coated with a thin veneer of sales and selling--kind of like the candy shell of an M&M.

And it launches today with three really spectacular episodes, including the absolutely incredible Don Yaeger and Maria Boulden. We hope you enjoy their stories as much as we did.

Check it out, and let us know your thoughts!

LinkedIn Top Voice | Top 50 Sales Keynote Speaker | Reps Getting Ghosted After the Demo/Presentation? | We Train Sales Orgs to Build Urgency, Consensus & Trust to Close Faster — with AI + Heart | #BeMoreSellMore

View Shari (AKA SaaSi Shari) Levitin’s profile

T’S LAUNCH DAY! 🎉
 After two years of starting, stopping, refining, and building a true friendship, Brent Adamson  and I are officially dropping Episode One of our new podcast, #SellingIsn’tEverything.

And I can’t think of a better guest to kick us off than the formidable  Don Yaeger storyteller to the greats, culture whisperer, and author of 35 bestselling books.

In this clip, he shares a moment I cannot stop thinking about.

A very visible person sat down with him and told the truth about what their success really feels like. Not the magazine cover version. The lonely, heavy, complicated parts that never make it into the story.

❤️ That is the heart of Selling Isn’t Everything.

The first three episodes of Selling Isn’t Everything are live:
 • The Art of the Ask - Don Yaeger on Why Curiosity Beats Tactics
 • Better Humans Make Better Salespeople - Here's How
 • Think in Spreadsheets, Lead with Humanity: Maria Boulden on 40 Years of Sales Leadership

I hope these conversations help you feel seen in ways our industry does not always allow.

🎧 All three episodes are available now.
👇 Here is Don, in his own words, on what it means to be trusted with someone’s real story.


#sellingisnteverything #newpodcast #sales

RENTELECOM

Relaunched RENTELECOM in the telco and enterprise markets gaining, with my team, new clients in the national and international markets. Directly responsible for solutions design / presale, delivery, operations, marketing and communications, sales, contract closing, contract management, telecommunications and energy regulatory issues, budget elaboration and control, human resources, environmental and quality issues.  

Rentelecom is the telecoms and IT provider of the REN energy group. REN  is the utility in Portugal operating the electricity and gas transport networks. Rentelecom offers B2B services such as dark fiber, connectivity, datacenter services as well as ICT projects to telecom operators and enterprise (focus on utilities) markets.

General Director

ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics & Management

Professor in Sales Management and co-coordinator and lecturer of the “B2B Sales Performance” executive education program

Professor of Sales Management

Single Track Mountain Bike Club

This is a workplace sports club sponsored by REN. I am committed to bringing more colleagues to mountain biking. I believe this helps build employee engagement and motivation and supports employees’ emotional and physical wellbeing. It is quite demanding but it is also great fun!

President

At the time, Nae was already the largest telecoms consulting company in Spain and was seeking to expand abroad. Portugal was the first step for such expansion and I was the partner in charge for the launch of the Portuguese operation. Nae offer included consultation services in the following four main areas: Business, Technology, Operations and Management. 
Leveraging on my deep knowledge of the telecommunications and IT markets, I ensured the closing of consulting contracts with Portuguese telecom operators such as Vodafone and Oni.

Partner

T-Systems

Direct report to the Iberian CEO. In charge for sales, presales, communications and marketing. Heading a direct team of 8 persons (including 4 sales managers and 2 presales consultants).
Relaunched the activity from focus on single global account (VW group) to addressing the whole market with special focus on public administrations, health, Industry,  telecommunications, transports  and automotive. For this purpose I elaborated business plan, sales and marcom plan, reviewed portfolio and associated processes and recruited the team.
T-Systems offer included ICT services for corporations, with a broad range of telecom and IT services. Telecom services include IP/MPLS VPNs, Internet access and managed LAN / WAN services. IT services include desktop management (managed pc services, managed office output services, desktop virtualization, etc...), computing services (data center associated services) and application services.

Chief Sales and Marketing Officer

Wholesale Business Unit Director reporting to the board. Heading a highly specialised team of 12 persons (inc. presales, account managers and customer care), developed this “B2B” business from 16M€ in 2001 to 42M€ yearly revenue in 2008 (more than  40% of Oni revenues). This growth has been accomplished by transforming the business model from basic services to providing complex solutions including value added services, managed services and full outsourcing solutions including very demanding service assurance guarantees and penalties. Around half of the business was accomplished with international carriers accounting for around half of the revenues denoting the importance of the international market and Spain in particular. Wholesale voice (termination, transit, etc…) and managed data service were the main lines of service. Main customers included British Telecom, Telefonica, AT&T, Belgacom, Deutsche Telekom, TATA, ZON (national Cable TV operator later integrated into NOS) and Vodafone. 
In 2007 also became responsible for the 1M€ revenues Calling Cards retail line of business. Responsibility also included management of regulated voice interconnections accounting for a total budget of more than 40M€/year (fixed and mobile).

Wholesale Business Unit Director

Companhia Portuguesa Radio Marconi, S.A.

Regional Director

Holistic view of the Telco and IT B2B business from marketing and sales to technical, including administrative, legal and general management. 
Deep knowledge of the IT and telecommunications markets, telco carrier relations / wholesale and utilities markets. Knowledge of the telecoms and utilities regulatory framework. 

International experience and proficiency in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Consistently building and managing large ICT contracts and relations.
Launch, build and turnaround of businesses and service units.

B2B Sales and Marketing practitioner, evangelist and teacher.

Frequent speaker in Conferences and Seminars about Telecoms, IT, Datacenter and Sales.

Branches: Telecoms, IT, ICT infrastructure and Datacenter, B2B Sales and Marketing.

What others say about my “superpowers”: Persistence, Integrity, Curiosity, Leadership and teamwork, Enthusiasm, Fun and Self-awareness. 

Passionate about people’s development, I invest in my teams as well as other persons in particular mentoring young professionals.

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Brent Adamson

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The Battle

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Rui Franco

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