Leadership & Customer Stories
Real lessons. Not management theory.
The stories here are the experiences that shaped how I coach people, manage pipeline, work with customers and think about leadership.
Jeff Hoyland taught me that accountability and compassion are not opposites.
Jeff started as an underperforming BDR on a performance improvement plan. He worked his way completely off it, earned a promotion to Senior BDR—and then received a throat-cancer diagnosis that changed far more than his career.
During treatment, Jeff worried that missing work would hurt the team's quota. That was the moment the numbers stopped mattering. The night before he returned, I made a decision. The next morning, I walked into our team meeting wearing an old-school Army helmet.
What happened when I removed it became one of the defining moments of my leadership career.Read Jeff's full story
What Disney Taught Me
I'm a huge Disney fan, but my interest has never been limited to parks and movies. A significant part of my philosophy around customer support came from watching how Walt Disney World approached its Guests.
Great customer service isn't an accident. It is designed. The customer doesn't care about your org chart. Every handoff is still your brand.
The BDR isn't making calls. They're creating the beginning of a customer relationship. The AE isn't just closing an opportunity. They're setting expectations for everything that happens after the contract is signed. Support isn't closing tickets. They're restoring confidence. Customer Success isn't processing a renewal. They're earning the right to continue the relationship.
Details tell customers whether you care. Did someone remember what they said? Did the AE brief Implementation? Did anyone send what was promised? Does a customer have to explain the same issue every time they're transferred?
Loyalty has to be earned again. A respected brand gets you another opportunity. The experience determines whether you deserve the customer's loyalty again.
The Disney Test: Follow one customer from first marketing touch through renewal. At every handoff ask what was promised, what they experienced, who owns it, and whether the experience is worth telling someone else about.
PURPOSE → PEOPLE → PROCESS → EXPERIENCE → LOYALTY → REVENUE
An 80% opportunity with no activity is not an 80% opportunity.
Last activity, notes and real next steps belong beside stage and value. “Checking in” emails with no response do not make a forecast real.
“How do you know?”
On a $125K opportunity, the rep's Decision Criteria turned out to be her interpretation, not the customer's criteria. One coaching question changed the deal strategy.
$250K became $750K at Hewlett-Packard.
I thought I owned the account until I discovered another buyer doing similar volume with a competitor. One question changed my account-management philosophy: “Is there anyone else in your company who would buy something like this?”
The 5 / 5 / 20 problem.
A quarterly 30-meeting goal created a hockey stick. Moving to monthly goals and rewarding proposal/closed-won outcomes changed the behavior.
The stories explain the system.
They are why I believe people, process, data, customers and leadership have to be managed together.