Priya Shah
About the Expert
Priya has carried a bag, built a team and designed sales motions for products that were not obvious. She treats discovery as research, not theatre, and pipeline as a moral document: either it is true or it is fiction. 31 Experts selected her because she can teach selling without turning the reader into a caricature.
- Built an outbound-to-close motion that 4x’d a 12-person team.
- Writes discovery scripts that sound like a person, not a framework tattoo.
- Special Edition includes a 7-call practice, not a personality transplant.
Special Edition
The Top 10
If you could give just one piece of advice to someone starting out in this discipline, what would it be?
Ask what happens if they do nothing. Then be quiet.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in your career, and how did you overcome it?
Pitching before I understood the cost of the status quo.
What is the most important “Never do this…” rule in your discipline?
Never invent urgency the customer does not have.
Who inspired or mentored you, and what did you learn from them?
A buyer who thanked me for ending a bad-fit call early.
What is the biggest discovery you wish you had known on day one?
Follow-up is the job. Meetings are the highlight reel.
What do outsiders consistently misunderstand about your discipline?
That good salespeople are pushy. The good ones are specific.
What decision looked small at the time but changed everything?
Blocking two hours of follow-up like a meeting with a customer.
What skill outside your discipline has contributed most to your success?
Improv. Listening for the offer inside the sentence.
What belief did you hold when you started that you no longer believe today?
That charisma closed deals. Preparation closed deals.
When your career is remembered, what do you hope people say you stood for?
That she made asking for money feel like adult work.
Expert Playbook
The honest pipeline
If there is no next date, it is not a deal. If you cannot name the pain in their words, it is not discovery.
Recommended resources
A CRM you actually update
Memory is not a pipeline.