18 months without a sale pushed Richard Rivera to rethink his approach. He shares the stories of two of his gamechanging career deals. In the episode, we talk about Richard's new book, The Champion Sell. He shares how champion relationships, emotional connections, and certainty transformed him into a sales rockstar closing $50M+ deals. 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:04:00 - Richard's Early Struggles at BladeLogic 00:06:20 - Turning his confidence around through stories 00:08:00 - Deal #1: The deal that turned it around (the Aha deal) 00:18:20 - Building champions at Dell 00:23:00 - The big negotiation & close 00:29:30 - Gaining Certainty Through Visualization 00:34:30 - Deal #2: AT&T - The record setting $50M deal 00:42:26 - Last Minute Deal Drama 00:45:00 - Game theory in Sales 00:50:50 - Why people should care about The Champion Sell 00:57:35 - Richard's mentors and what they taught him