You can’t be everything to everyone; and nobody is perfect. While it’s easy to say, admitting your flaws isn’t always easy to do. In this episode I discuss how to turn transparency into a powerful sales tool with my guest, Todd Caponi.
Todd is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP®), a multi-time C-Level sales leader, a behavioral science and sales history nerd, and has led two companies through successful exits. He now speaks and teaches revenue organizations and their leaders on leveraging transparency and decision science to maximize their revenue capacity as Principal of Sales Melon LLC. He’s the author of two award-winning books.
We dive into topics including:
- Why transparency and showing some flaws sells better that portraying perfection in the sales world.
- Why negative online reviews can actually help you sell your products and services.
- How to play the long game when selling your services.
- The case for not trying to be everything to everyone.
- Why you should lead a potential client meeting with the things you don’t
- How to find your niche in the speaking world.
- Why if there are people out there better than you at something, refer them for the gig.
- How to stand out in a crowded marketplace of speakers.
- How to know when to stay in your niche’s lane and when it’s time to change lanes.
- How, when, and why people buy your services.
- The one thing, above all else, you need to do to turn transparency into profitability.
…and more golden nuggets of advice!
Todd’s Journey and His “a-HA!” Moment in the Sales World
It all started when Todd was the Chief Revenue Officer in Chicago, at a company in the ratings and review space. It’s stuff that almost everybody has interacted with. You’re shopping online, you scroll down, and there’s reviews. Todd’s company was the engine driving the reviews.
During research Todd’s company discovered that almost everyone views the negative reviews first. Most of the time we skip the five star reviews. We read the fours, threes, twos, and one’s first. The last data point was that a product, and this is across all product categories, that has an average review score between a 4.2 and a 4.5 is actually optimal for purchase conversion.
When your website is acting as your salesperson, negative reviews under that same product make it sell better than a product that is nothing but perfect five-star reviews. Todd wondered if that would also apply to human to human or B2B selling and specifically to speaking and coaching.
With some research, Todd’s answer was emphatically yes, that we as human beings at a subconscious level know that perfection doesn’t exist. We actually need the negative reviews to even be able to process the positive reviews. When Todd started to enact that with his sales team, they led with that philosophy and their core sales cycle sped up. Win rates went up. They worked with the clients they should have been working with all along.
They lost the ones they were probably going to lose anyway, they just did it a lot faster. That gave the sales team their valuable asset of time back. The most important thing they did was differentiate in the way they approached sales. They were the “cool kids” that everybody wanted to work with. While they discovered that playing the long game gives you more wins, more importantly, they discovered that transparency actually sells better than trying to be perfect.
The Case for Not Trying to Be Everything to Everyone
Todd once had a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of a massive software company reach out to him about a speaking engagement. Apparently, he had heard good things about Todd’ speaking and consulting capabilities. Todd was excited about the opportunity.
The CRO started laying out what his challenges were. Unfortunately, they weren’t things that Todd addressed, so he immediately told the CRO “Listen, based on what’s important to you, I could talk about it, but if you made a list of the top 50 people that do, I’d come in at probably around number 47. Can I connect you with the top one or two that I think are the best in the world at that?”
The CRO said that he would love that. He asked who they were and they spoke about that for a while. After that conversation calmed down, the CRO asked Todd what he focused on in his speaking and consulting. Todd took him through those things and he said “Well, we need that too”. Todd got a massive opportunity because he didn’t pretend to be all things to all people and didn’t act out of desperation.
What Does This Mean for You?
You must play the long game because it either means you’re going to lose quickly, which can be great, or you’re going to end up getting the deal anyway. To all of you speakers out there… Stop trying to be all things to all people. When you lead with transparency – flaws and all – that’s when the magic happens.
And that is just the beginning!
Watch the interview for the rest of the story and more golden nuggets of advice!
You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”
About My Guest
Todd Caponi, CSP® is a multitime C-Level sales leader, a behavioral science and sales history nerd, and has led through two companies with successful exits. He now speaks and teaches revenue organizations and their leaders on leveraging transparency and decision science to maximize their revenue capacity as Principal of Sales Melon LLC.
He’s the author of two previous award-winning books, The Transparency Sale and The Transparent Sales Leader.
His newly released book is Four Levers Negotiating: The Simple, Counterintuitive Way to Higher Deal Values and Lasting Trust (Matt Holt Books, Jan. 27, 2026).
Connect with Todd on LinkedIn!
Check out Todd’s Amazon Author Page (and His 3 Books)!
Want more strategies for new streams of income as a speaker? Check out “How Speakers Can Add an Extra Stream of Income with Coaching“
