If you run a business with a sales team, this episode will make you uncomfortable. That's the point.

Marcus Cauchi and Andy Hough have a no-holds-barred conversation about why sales has become distrusted, what's causing it, and what founders and CEOs can actually do to fix it.

Andy has spent decades in the field, from Lloyds and Barclays to 16 years at EMC (now Dell), and has since sat through hundreds of hours of sales meetings as a researcher. He knows where the bodies are buried.

What we cover in this episode:

Why sales has shifted from a relationship-driven profession to a numbers and technology treadmill, and what that's costing you in customer trust, revenue quality, and staff retention.

How shareholder pressure flows down through leadership, management, and sellers, and arrives in front of your buyers as inauthenticity, shallow discovery, and unwanted pressure.

Why the best sales interactions are built on understanding how your customer makes money, protects margin, and carries risk, and why most sales teams have lost this entirely.

The 90-day productivity myth. Research puts it at 3.2 years for a salesperson to hit full stride. Most organisations churn people before they ever get there.

Why activity metrics destroy quality, and what the alternative actually looks like in practice.

The player-manager trap and why it almost always ends badly for the team, the manager, and ultimately the customer.

What sales coaching actually is, and why the gap between what managers think they're doing and what salespeople are experiencing is wider than most leaders realise.

Why seller psychological safety is as important as buyer trust, and how the wrong people keep getting promoted.

Why your CRM is aligned to your sales process and not your buyer's journey, and why that single misalignment is costing you deals you didn't even know you lost.

The case for sustainable sales: focusing on the 6-to-36 month pipeline where there's no competition, time to build real relationships, and room to become a trusted adviser rather than another vendor chasing a quarterly number.

The question this episode leaves every founder and CEO with:

Are the systems you've built designed to create trust with customers, or are they quietly destroying it in order to hit this quarter's number? And critically, does anyone in your organisation feel safe enough to tell you?

About Andy Hough

Andy Hough is co-founder of the Institute of Sales Professionals, a tireless advocate for sales as a profession, and a doctoral researcher studying the adaptability of salespeople and its impact on performance. He lectures at Cranfield University and is part of the Global Sales Science Institute. He has carried a target, led teams, and spent his career trying to return sales to what it was in its best form. A genuinely human, outcome-focused profession.

Connect with Andy on LinkedIn or visit the ISP at www.isp.uk.com

About Marcus Cauchi

Marcus Cauchi is the host of the Inquisitor Podcast and works with founders, CEOs, and sales leaders on decision safety, go-to-market alignment, and building sales organisations that create long-term customer value. He is currently completing a manuscript on the systemic compromises that accumulate inside sales cultures and the cost they carry.

Connect with Marcus on LinkedIn

If this episode resonated, share it with your CRO, your Head of Sales, or any founder who's wondering why pipeline feels harder than it used to. The answer is probably in this conversation.