Half-Man, Half-Meme, 100% SE

Do you see random memes on your LinkedIn feed? It’s probably me!

Are you getting phone calls from numbers you don't recognize? Me again :)

I'm only half-joking but when I'm not posting memes or cold calling, I'm doing everything I can to improve my business acumen and lead a life of integrity, optimism, and service. 

I'm passionate about making a positive impact in my personal and professional communities. Ultimately, my personal mission is to help others and hopefully make some people laugh along the way.

Caspian Lewke

I gave up YouTube in 2025.

Don’t get me wrong, I love YouTube, but it just felt like a time suck that wasn’t serving me anymore.

As a result, I wound up doing different things in my free time, like:

-Getting back into running 🏃
-Starting a podcast 🎙️
-Vibe coding (my vibes are infinitely better than my coding skills) ⌨️

Ultimately, I got bored more, which caused me to try things I haven’t done before and push myself in ways I haven’t.

This year I am giving up 2 things which I also love:

-Sour candy 🍋
-Energy drinks 🔋

Not all heroes wear capes, some just skip putting gummies in their cart at the grocery store.

Stay posted for updates throughout the year.

Oh yeah, and I’m posting on LinkedIn more this year. Sharing my wins, my losses, and everything in between.

PUMPED TO BE BACK!

#sales #learnings #2026

Streamlining Month-End, One Close at a Time

AE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 5x President's Club

Creating raving fans @ Gong. Founder of Closed Won. Dad to Monty 🐾 

Brian LaManna

"If you keep your nose to the grindstone and work hard and you've got the right people, anything's possible."

You don't have to Google him anymore.

🌹 Rose Bowl
🍑 Peach Bowl
🏆 National Champions.

I debated whether or not to go to the last game. Grateful for the people that pushed me to 'take the trip.'

Will forever be one of the most special times in my life. 

We work to live, not live to work. 

Hoo Hoo Hoosiers!!! 🥹

AE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 7x President’s Club

Until further notice, this is an IU Football + Mendoza fan account.

We are here in Miami and ready for the National Championship.

I have never anticipated a game more in my life.

Full butterflies. Pit in my stomach.

But confident as ever.

Predictions?


P.S. No matter how it ends… I’m sad this season will be over. A magical run and some of the most fun I’ve had traveling + reuniting with college friends. But we don’t go to war with warm milk & cookies. Time to win.

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I now have 12 free resources built for 2026, all of them below.


𝟭. 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 - Organized way to keep track of all your prospecting efforts and people you're going after.

https://lnkd.in/gwjX9Nya


𝟮. 𝗦𝗮𝗮𝗦 𝗔𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘆𝗺 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 - Terms I never knew existed until I got into tech sales. 

https://lnkd.in/g9R9WH53


𝟯. 𝗠𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 - Template to keep you and your champion fully aligned through a deal cycle. Also, helpful to navigate security, legal, and who the signer ends up being.


https://closedwon.xyz/msp/


𝟰. 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄 - Top 12 discovery questions to follow a typical first call flow.

https://lnkd.in/g75tkxRM


𝟱. 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮 𝗦𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲 - Agenda slide to cut the 2 minutes and show a visual instead. Buyers love visuals. This is it.

https://lnkd.in/gD5vaXf7


𝟲. 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 - Grab a Google Doc template of my exact resume. 2 pages on other best practices, tips, and dos/don'ts.

https://lnkd.in/gESuWPBW


7. 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 - 8 proven openers to get the call started hot.

https://lnkd.in/gdPP_D8J


8. 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 - Actionable sales tips (and some B+ memes) delivered to your inbox every Monday. Trusted by 11,200+ sellers and counting. Read in 2-3 min.

https://lnkd.in/gjeVd_U8


𝟵.  𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 - Quick reverses for the most common objections and methodology on how to 'handle' them.

https://lnkd.in/g36efdAw


10. 𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 on Closed Won.

https://lnkd.in/gVY8Xpxc


♻️ Please consider resharing if it'd help others in your network.

📌 Sellers - what (free) resource should I build up next?

Joined Gong in 2021 to sell a -hot- product that (it felt like) everyone already knew. Then June 2023 happened...

We launched Gong Engage with 0 customers.

Suddenly, I wasn't selling just the #1 conversation intelligence platform anymore. 

I was selling an unproven sales engagement tool in a crowded market.

Here's the problem we hit immediately:

Every prospect asked: "Who else is using this?"

We had no case studies. Very few Beta references.

And burning through our early adopters on every single deal? 

Not sustainable when you're trying to get to 1,000+ customers fast.

That's when we started using UserEvidence.

Instead of manually tracking down customers for references, UserEvidence automatically captures product reviews, pulls verified stats, and creates battle cards we can actually use.

Now when a prospect asks "who else uses Engage?" - I can instantly share:
* Real customer quotes
* Specific use cases
* ROI metrics from similar companies

No begging customers for time. No stale case studies from 6 months ago.

As we've grown into a true multi-product platform, UserEvidence has become essential. 

Different products, different personas, different proof points - all organized and accessible.

If you're scaling a new product or expanding your platform, you need proof at scale.

Give UserEvidence a look: https://userevidence.com/


P.S. Will be partnering with them closely in 2025 to share other ways I am leveraging them. Thanks all for the support!

Brand partnership • AE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 7x President’s Club

Tell tale sign of junior sellers is trying to avoid risk in their deals. 

And getting defensive about risk in forecast / pipeline reviews.

Risk is uncomfortable and junior sellers often try to ignore it and 'hope' that it doesn’t come to fruition. 

When in reality the opposite is best.

Get comfortable knowing risk exists in every deal and it doesn't mean it's your 'fault.'


I write out the biggest reasons why I will lose the deal. 

Then 'the action' of how I will get in front of it.

Here’s a (real) scenario of a deal I had earlier this year:
-12 month evaluation and we were named vendor of choice. Fit perfectly to their initiatives. Great critical event with a competitor renewal in 2 months but we aren’t speaking directly with the decision maker on it (CRO). Have 5+ champions advocating for us.

What most sellers would think:
- Wow, we are in a really strong spot! We have so many champions and fit perfectly with their goals. Bummer the CRO isn’t more directly involved but my champ will get it done.


Here’s how I’d approach it instead.

Risk:
- Work/effort to migrate over to a new platform
- CRO not having direct involvement
- Their current vendor will try to save this renewal with aggressive pricing.
 
Action:
- Call out the risk of both next call
- Recommend a 30 min call with implementation to discuss migration
- Recommend a 2nd, 30 min call with CRO and main POC to review one-pager exec business case we will build for them.


For any fans of the book 'The Obstacle is the Way.'

'The risk is the way' in your deals cycles.

Don't avoid it, go through it.


P.S. Closed Won Club goes live 1/26. Be the first to hear about it here: https://closedwon.xyz/

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The Battle

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