From Stage to Sales: Why Great Salespeople Are Made, Not Born | Brad Parker S5:E14

Written by Mike J Midgley | Oct 9, 2025 8:15:11 AM

Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, sales, RevOps, AI, and partnerships. Today, we're diving into the art of storytelling in sales and what it takes to survive 25 years of constantly resetting targets with Brad Parker.

We explore how his acting background shaped his approach to storytelling in sales, why discovery is the foundation of every great story, and his controversial take on whether great salespeople are born or made through deliberate practice and coaching.

Brad Parker

Brad is VP of Sales at Epic Gnosis, the learning technologies company behind TalentLMS, the number one cloud LMS software trusted by over 70,000 learning organizations worldwide. But Brad's journey to sales leadership is far from conventional.

His origin story reads like a career pivot masterclass: an actor turned accidental salesperson, a story 25 years in the making.

From queuing outside West End theaters at 7 AM for 10 seconds on stage to building high-performing sales teams, Brad brings a unique perspective on what separates great salespeople from the rest.

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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:

1: The Acting Advantage: Why Performance Skills Transfer to Sales

Brad opens by explaining how his years in theater, from musical theater auditions to touring pantomimes, created an unexpected foundation for sales excellence.

"I think when you come from a kind of performance background, or even things like sport, anything where you are putting yourself out there in front of a crowd, in front of a group, you learn resilience, you know... the one thing acting definitely gives you, and I can attest to this after, you know, a few years on the audition circuit, is resilience. It's the ability to take a no, and not let it put you off going back and trying again the next day."

This resilience becomes crucial in sales, where rejection is constant and the ability to bounce back determines long term success. But beyond resilience, acting taught him to be a "chameleon", adapting his approach while staying authentic, reading the room, and understanding what type of story will land with different personality types.

2: Discovery as the Foundation: You Can't Tell Stories Without Understanding

Brad reveals that the best storytellers in sales aren't necessarily the most charismatic, they're the ones who do the deepest discovery work with their customers.

"To be able to tell a good story, you've got to have done a good discovery... The more you know about your customer, their world, their problems, their goals, their aspirations, their situation, their team, their technology, whatever it is, the more you understand, the more you can start to relate their world to your world."

He emphasizes that you could be the world's best storyteller, but without understanding your customer's context, challenges, and objectives, your stories will fall flat. Great discovery enables salespeople to create narratives that connect features to outcomes and outcomes to emotions.

3. The Emotional-Rational Bridge: Making Decisions Feel Right

Brad shares his philosophy on the psychology of sales, emphasizing the critical importance of engaging emotional buying centers before rational ones.

"If you can't engage the emotional buying center of a customer before you engage the rational side, then you'll never win. It's easy to say to somebody, you should buy my product because it will save you £10,000 a year. But it's not their money, usually, it's their company's money. But if you can engage them emotionally first about what it's going to mean for them... make the decision emotionally, and then justify it rationally."

This insight transforms how salespeople approach product demonstrations and value propositions, focusing first on personal impact and career benefits before diving into business metrics and ROI calculations.

4. The Great Debate: Natural Born vs. Trained Salespeople

Brad provides a nuanced perspective on one of sales' most enduring debates, drawing from 25 years of hiring and coaching experience.

"I've worked with some incredible salespeople that you would never think should be in sales, you know? People that aren't natural storytellers, aren't necessarily extroverts, don't want to get on the phone... But then they do, they smash their number, they just get it... Equally, I've worked with some massive extroverts who just can't sell for toffee."

His conclusion: while both natural talent and training can create great salespeople, it's easier for natural born salespeople to learn process than for process oriented people to force themselves out of their personality comfort zone.

5. Responsibility Over Accountability: The Hiring Secret

Brad's most actionable insight focuses on what he looks for when hiring salespeople, and it's not what most people expect.

"What I'm looking for as a hiring manager is somebody who's going to hold themselves responsible. They don't need somebody to hold them accountable... It's somebody who sits there and says, well, actually, no, my responsibility to my manager, to my team, to my business is, you know, to do those things. And actually, my responsibility to myself is to want to do them to the best of my ability."

This distinction between accountability (something applied to someone) and responsibility (something someone takes on themselves) becomes the foundation for identifying high performers who will succeed with or without constant management oversight.

Final Thoughts:

Brad leaves us with a powerful reminder about the mindset that separates great salespeople from the rest.

"I'm really trying to figure out if somebody's got that fire in their belly, you know, that desire to be the best, with or without support, with or without training. I'm going to get there, Brad, you know, you might be able to help me get there faster, but it's gonna happen."

His final insight emphasizes that while skills can be taught and processes can be learned, the internal drive for excellence and self improvement cannot be coached, it must come from within.

The journey from stage to sales reveals that great salespeople aren't born with supernatural powers, they're made through deliberate practice, deep customer understanding, and an unshakeable commitment to personal responsibility.

As Brad demonstrates, whether you come from acting, sports, or any other background, the fundamentals of storytelling, resilience, and genuine customer connection remain the same. The question isn't whether you're naturally gifted, it's whether you're willing to do the work to become great.

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Mike Midgley runs a portfolio career, a dynamic hands on digital entrepreneur, founder of the Scrubbing Squad, NXD, strategist, public speaker, Winning by Design certified Revenue Architect and Host at The Force & Friction Podcast.

Mike has achieved multiple exits over a 30+ year career, raised Venture Capital and franchised his businesses 68 times.

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