In this episode of the Expert Insight Interview, host John Golden sits down with Adnan Malik, co-founder and CEO of Softwarefinder — a platform redefining how businesses find and select software by putting trust and transparency at the center of every recommendation.

Adnan shares a sobering reality: 70–80% of B2B software buyers end up dissatisfied with their purchase. The culprit isn’t poor products — it’s a buying process driven by noise, pressure, and pay-to-play platforms that prioritize vendor budgets over buyer needs.

Softwarefinder takes a radically different approach. Every vendor pays the same cost per lead, eliminating the financial bias that skews recommendations on traditional platforms. Buyers connect with trained human consultants — not algorithms — who ask the right questions and match them to the best-fit software in about 10 minutes.

In this conversation, Adnan and John explore:

• Why the pay-to-play model has run its course
• How Softwarefinder trains consultants across 40–50 software verticals
• The role of AI as a support tool — not a replacement — for human judgment
• How verified reviews are maintained in an era of fake B2C feedback
• The explosion of niche software categories post-AI
• Why trust is becoming the most important competitive differentiator for any business

With nearly 100,000 vendors and 14,500 categories on their platform, Softwarefinder is scaling fast — but Adnan believes the future belongs to businesses that keep humans at the heart of complex decisions.

Visit softwarefinder.com to book a free 10-minute consultation or to connect qualified buyers with your software solution.

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About the Guest: Amir Berenjian is the founder and CEO of REM 5 Studios, a Minneapolis-based production house helping global brands leverage VR, AR, and spatial computing. After a career in investment banking. Berenjian tried the Oculus Rift in 2016, saw the potential of immersive technology to democratize experiences, and left finance to found REM 5. Since then, he’s immersed over 150,000 people in VR headsets across clients ranging from pro sports teams to the Gates Foundation.

Episode Overview

SalesPOP! host John Golden and Amir Berenjian explore how immersive technology is reshaping brand storytelling at events. Berenjian shares real-world examples and breaks down the current platform landscape. He makes the case that spatial computing will become the primary way we interact with AI.

Key Insights

1. Start with Distribution, Not the Demo Berenjian’s first question isn’t about the creative — it’s about who’s putting on the headset and where. VR content without a distribution plan is just an expensive reel. For his clients, events are the answer.

2. VR Expands the Market — It Doesn’t Replace It. Minnesota United FC’s game-day VR experience gave fans access to the locker room and tunnel. Drawing lines at the State Fair and driving real ticket sales.

3. Immersive Content Creates Memories, Not Just Messages. The Gates Foundation’sVR polio campaign, shown at 50+ global events, including the UN General Assembly, resonates with policymakers because the brain processes it as a real experience.

4. The Hardware Has Arrived Meta Quest 3 delivers VR/AR with hand tracking for $300. Apple Vision Pro is redefining interface design. Ray-Ban smart glasses offer AI access in a normal form factor.

5. Spatial Computing Is AI’s Next Interface. Berenjian argues immersive tech and AI are converging — hand gestures and voice will replace typing and dropdown menus as the way we interact with AI systems.

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Guest: Steven Rosen, MBA — Founder of STAR Results, executive sales leadership coach, and author of Focused: The Leadership Discipline That Protects Performance from Distraction

When sales numbers slip, most organizations look at the reps. Steven Rosen says that’s the wrong place to look. In this condensed highlight from his SalesPOP! Expert Insight Interview with John Golden, Steven draws on 30+ years in sales leadership to explain why the real breakdowns happen at the management level — and what disciplined leaders do differently.

Key Takeaways:

• It’s a leadership problem, not a talent problem. Companies reflexively blame reps when performance dips, but the root cause almost always traces back to how managers coach, inspect, and enforce standards.
• Discipline erodes gradually. No single lapse looks critical on its own. But small concessions — a skipped pipeline review, a lenient quarter — compound until the damage shows up in the forecast.
• “The Three Things” framework. Steven’s career-long practice: identify three critical priorities, communicate them relentlessly, and say no to everything else. Simplicity drives execution.
• Coaching is the highest-leverage investment. Moving even a few mid-tier reps into the upper tier through skilled coaching produces an outsized revenue impact yet most managers have never been trained to coach.
• Forecasting requires real inspection. Asking “how’s it going?” is not a pipeline review. Reliable forecasts come from specific, sometimes uncomfortable questions about every opportunity.

Quotes from Steven Rosen:

“We always default right to the salespeople. We start tinkering with the sales team — but we ignore where the real issue lies, which is in the leadership.”

“If you have a sales leader who is an excellent coach and knows how to coach, they are the greatest revenue multiplier you’re going to have.”

Links: Steven’s website: https://starresults.com | Book on Amazon: Focused | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stevenrosen

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Most people assume the top one percent got there on raw talent. Larry Weidel, founder of the Big Hitters Community and author of Serial Winner, sees it differently. In this Sales POP! episode, he breaks down the habits, systems, and relationships that actually drive elite performance.

Here’s what you’ll take away from this conversation: why surrounding yourself with the right people accelerates your results faster than any course or book alone; how to build a repeatable “cycle of winning” that turns progress into a habit rather than a lucky streak; and why the most successful leaders Larry has met are also the most humble and coachable people in the room.

Larry also challenges listeners to rethink how they invest their time and money—pointing out that the same people who won’t spend a dollar on professional development will spend thousands on entertainment without a second thought. If you’re ready to break that pattern and build something lasting, press play.

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You fought hard to land a great sales hire. Now what? In this episode, John Golden and Steve Radford dig into the phase that makes or breaks new sales talent: onboarding and early-stage development. Radford, a UK-based sales leader with more than two decades of experience coaching high-performing teams, shares his structured 90-day framework designed to accelerate ramp-up time and slash early attrition.

The conversation moves through personalized development planning, the critical difference between instruction, teaching, mentoring, and coaching, and why assigning a mentor outside the management chain can be a game-changer. Radford also breaks down which metrics actually predict future success—and why pipeline velocity and conversation quality matter far more than quota attainment in a new hire’s first quarter.

If you’re investing in new sales talent and want to see a faster, stronger return on that investment, this episode lays out the roadmap.

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Most businesses launch Google Ads campaigns expecting a flood of leads and end up with nothing but a drained budget. In this episode of the Expert Inside Interview, John Golden sits down with Jeff Coleman, founder of Four Factor Marketing and a Google Ads strategist with more than two decades of hands-on experience, to unpack why the majority of paid search campaigns underperform—and how to fix that.

Coleman walks through his persona-driven approach to building what he calls a “lead engine,” a systematic process that connects keyword intent with landing page relevance so every dollar works harder. He explains why chasing the number-one ad position often backfires, how negative keywords can save thousands in wasted spend, and what most advertisers get wrong about Quality Score.

The conversation also tackles the growing role of AI in Google Ads, from automated campaign types like Performance Max to the emerging ad landscape inside AI-powered search engines. Whether you manage your own campaigns or work with an agency, this episode is packed with practical takeaways you can apply immediately.

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What if most of your customers have already made their buying decision before they even realize it? In this episode of the Sales POP! podcast, host John Golden sits down with Paul Larche, broadcaster, business strategist, and author of The Divided Brain: Why Customers Buy and Why They Don’t to explore the neuroscience hiding behind every purchase and the forces shaping buyer behavior in an AI-driven marketplace.

Larche breaks down the battle between the instinctive “old brain” and the rational “new brain,” revealing why emotion consistently wins the war for attention and action. The conversation takes a fascinating turn into artificial intelligence, examining how modern algorithms are engineered to tap directly into subconscious triggers, personalizing content so effectively that it simulates real human rapport and trust at a speed no salesperson could match.

You’ll also hear about Larche’s Brand Value Canvas, a three-pillar framework that aligns your messaging with the logical, emotional, and subconscious layers of decision-making. Plus, the discussion dives into metacognition, the practice of thinking about how you think, which Larche argues may be the most underrated competitive skill in modern sales.

Listen now and completely rethink how you reach, engage, and convert your buyers.

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What would you do with an extra twenty hours every week? For most entrepreneurs, the honest answer is they can’t even imagine it—they’re too deep in the daily chaos to think that far ahead. George Rivera used to be one of them. After building a $20 million brand from scratch, he found himself working nonstop, missing family moments, and wondering whether the trade-off was worth it.

In this episode, Rivera sits down with John Golden to break down his Buy Back Time Formula—a step-by-step system that helped him reclaim his schedule, nearly double his revenue to $50 million, and cut his workweek to under 30 hours. He walks through the dollar-per-hour audit that reveals how much time founders waste on low-value tasks, and shares practical strategies for delegation, automation, and building systems that scale without burning you out.

If you’re a founder who’s tired of being the bottleneck in your own company, this episode gives you the roadmap to take your time back—starting today.

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