Jennifer Hines at Accelerated Sales & Leadership

06/23/2026

A great sales interview tells you one thing for certain: that the candidate is great at sales interviews.

And a résumé? It tells you one thing for certain too — that somewhere, at some point, the numbers were good. It never tells you who actually made them good.

Neither one tells you whether the person across the table can sell.

Those are two different skills, and the costliest hires I've seen come from leaders treating them like one. Polished, likable, easy to say yes to — that's not a producer. That's someone who's good in an interview.

Here's the part nobody puts on a résumé. You see a seven-figure number, but what you don't see is whether they built that pipeline or inherited it. Whether they hunted or got fed. Whether they drove the deal or just rode along.

A real closer and someone who got carried look exactly the same on paper — and they usually interview about the same too.

You don't fix that with another reference check or a sharper gut feel. Hiring sales talent shouldn't be a guessing game.

You fix it by getting X-ray vision into a candidate before you make the offer, not after.

That's what the right assessment does.

The one we build into our hiring process sees straight past the résumé and the interview polish to what's actually there — whether a candidate has the Will and Sales DNA to hunt, to take rejection and keep going, to hold their price instead of folding, to close. It measures what someone can fake for an hour in a conference room but can't fake at the core.

It's science, not gut feel — and it tells you how effectively they'll sell in your role and environment, not how well they'll interview.

Then you make them show you. Stop asking candidates what they've closed and have them do it in front of you.

Give them a cold territory and have them build the prospecting plan.

Run a live discovery call where you're the buyer who won't make it easy.

Have them create a deal from zero, right there.
True producers come alive — for them it's just another day.

The ones who got carried go quiet, fast.

Talent isn't what someone pulled off somewhere else with a big brand behind them and leads in the queue. It's what they can do in front of you, today, with every old advantage stripped away.

That's measurable. That's testable. And it's the best protection your revenue has against a six-figure mis-hire.

Hire for what a candidate can prove — not what they can claim.

Interested in seeing what X-ray vision into a candidate really looks like before you hire? DM me for a free sample report. www.asliinc.com

06/03/2026

You didn't get ghosted.
𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺.

That prospect who went quiet after a great discovery call — the one you figured just wasn't ready?

Here's what actually happened.

You ran a strong call. You got them to open up. They could see the gap between where they are and where they want to be, and they wanted your help closing it.

Then they said, "Let me get back to you."

And you… let them.

No recap. No nudge. No follow-up other than a polite "thank you for the meeting and let me know whey you're ready". You told yourself you didn't want to look desperate or pushy.

Meanwhile, the data is pretty brutal:
→ Only 2% of sales close on the first contact.
→ 80% take five or more follow-ups.
→ 60% of buyers say "no" four times before they say "yes."

A great discovery call doesn't close the deal. It earns you the right to follow up. The follow-up is where you protect what you built in the meeting.

And here's the part most people miss: if you did discovery right, the follow-up actually writes itself.

You already know what they want, what they're concerned about, and what's standing in their way. You just hand it back to them, one piece at a time, until they're ready.

If all you can say is "just checking in"? 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄-𝘂𝗽 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺. 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺.

The deal was not lost on the call.
It was lost in the silence you chose afterward.

Which one prevents you from consistent and persistent follow up: not knowing what to say, not wanting to seem pushy, or just forgetting?

If you would like to read my entire article, link is in the comments.

05/27/2026

You're losing deals right now — and you don't even know it.

Not because your offer isn't good.
Not because you need a better pitch.

But because the way you're having sales conversations is silently pushing clients away.

I co-built a $100M+ sales company. And, after 20+ years of helping business owners and sales professionals close more clients, I can tell you this: the ones who stop "pitching" and start connecting are the ones who win.

I'm revealing exactly how at Chicago's BIGGEST Business Networking Event of the Year.

🗓 Workshop: "The Sales Conversation Costing You Deals You Didn't Know You Lost"

📍 Small Business Expo Chicago | 3:30 PM | Room 1

FREE access. No fluff. Just the method that converts.
Link in comments.

05/18/2026

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗶𝗿𝗿𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗲𝗲.

Most sales leaders never trained for this part. They got promoted because they could sell, then got handed a team. So they default to the model they know — pushing harder.

It works for a quarter or two - 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦.

Three rules I keep coming back to that show up in your numbers six months after you start practicing them:

𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝟭: 𝗕𝗘 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱. 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘁.
Your team is watching you. They aren't listening to you. They learn to do what they see you do — not what you tell them to do.

A leader I worked with recently couldn't figure out why his reps kept missing deadlines and showing up unprepared. We pulled up his calendar. He was 15 minutes late to half his own meetings.

The reps weren't ignoring his standards. They were meeting his standards.

Write down the three behaviors you most want from your team. Score 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 on each one, 1–10. Anything below a 7 should be fixed first.

𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝟮: 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺. 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺.
Most "performance problems" are training problems in disguise.

Next time you catch yourself frustrated that your team isn't doing something — running a consultative discovery meeting, qualifying out a bad deal, reaching all the decision-makers — ask one question: where did you train them to do that?

If the answer is nowhere, you don't have a performance problem. You have a training and coaching gap. And being frustrated with people for not knowing what you never taught them is the fastest way to lose them.

A client was venting last month about his reps getting stuck with their primary contact and watching deals die when that contact lost interest. I asked when he'd last trained them on how to reach the rest of the decision-makers. Never. They weren't avoiding it. They actually didn't know how.

𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝟯: 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀.
Most managers delegate tasks because tasks feel safe. You stay in control. But you also stay the bottleneck. And your team stops thinking.

Hand someone a task, you get a task done. Hand someone an outcome, you get a salesperson who's thinking.

Stop saying "send 20 prospecting emails this week." Start saying "book three qualified discovery calls by Friday — your call on how."

𝗧𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘅-𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀. 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀.

None of this is complicated. All of it is uncomfortable, because every rule here points the finger back at the leader before it points at the team.

We can't see our own swing. But we can be honest about who taught the people watching it.

Which of these three would change the most for your team if you practiced it for 90 days?

05/04/2026

Sales leadership doesn't fall apart in strategy meetings.

It can fall apart in the five seconds after a deal review ends.

Here's the trap: we judge ourselves by our intentions. We judge our managers by their impact on us.

You have a "𝙗𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙩" deal review.
You cut a rep off mid-sentence to "𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩."
𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙖 𝙨𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘 joke about a missed number — in front of the team.

Five minutes later, you're in your inbox. You've moved on.

They haven't.

Think about a wasp sting. The wasp lands, stings, flies off — never thinks about it again. You're the one left with the welt.

That's what these moments are.

You delivered the sting and kept moving. They're still rubbing the spot an hour later. A day later. Sometimes a quarter later.

You can be 100% right and still be the reason the room went quiet and motivation vanished.

High achievers assume the team is over it because they're over it.

But we can't see our own swing.

What's a "small moment" from a leader that stuck with you for years? Drop it below. . leadership. management motivation

04/24/2026

If you had to bet your own money on your Q2 forecast — your actual retirement account — would you?

Be honest.

Most sales leaders wouldn't. And that's the problem.

You build quota plans, hiring decisions, and board commitments on top of a forecast you wouldn't personally stake $100 on.

Then you act surprised when the quarter ends 12% below projection.

Here's what I've learned working with mid-market sales organizations: the forecast isn't broken because your CRM is bad. It's broken because of *what's being put into it.*

Reps grade their own opportunities.

Opportunities advance based on how the last conversation 𝙛𝙚𝙡𝙩.

"Stage 3" means five different things to five different reps.

And the sales manager's confidence level gets treated as data — when it's really just an educated guess.

Put that system through the fanciest forecasting model on earth, and you'll get the same result:

Perhaps some better dashboards. But the same guesswork.

What separates the mid-market companies that consistently hit their number from the ones that don't?

— They define what "qualified" actually means — with completed milestones, not feelings
— They coach managers to validate progress, not celebrate activity
— They hold the forecast against objective criteria, not rep optimism

And increasingly, the best of them are bringing in technology that 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿 — not from whatever the rep typed into CRM last Thursday.

Because here's the reality:

When your forecast depends solely on human opinion, it will always be wrong.

A question for the CEOs, presidents, and sales leaders reading this:

If you couldn't see your CRM — and just watched what your buyers were actually doing — would your forecast be more accurate, or less?

Think about that one for a minute.

Here's what's changed:

That capability isn't hypothetical anymore. It's running in mid-market companies today — forecasts above 90% accurate, with zero rep input.

For the sales leaders ready to stop guessing — let's have the conversation.

DM me to learn how we do this.

04/23/2026

A mid-market manufacturing CEO told me his pipeline had $14M in qualified opportunities.

I asked him one question.

By the end of the week, that pipeline was $4M.

Here's what happened.

He called me in because his team kept missing forecast. Every quarter, deals that looked "committed" in CRM would stall, slip, or disappear altogether. His sales manager blamed the market. His reps blamed procurement. He blamed the forecast tool.

None of them were right.

I sat down with his team and asked a single question:

"For every opportunity in Stage 3 or later — show me which strategic milestones have actually been completed."

Silence.

Because here's what we discovered: his "sales process" was really just a pipeline report with stage labels. There were no defined milestones. No objective criteria for what it took to move from Stage 2 to Stage 3. Reps were advancing opportunities in CRM based on how the last conversation 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵, not on what had actually advanced the opportunity.

When we held every open deal up against real milestones:

— Was the economic buyer identified and engaged?
— Were the decision criteria documented — beyond price?
— Was the business outcome tied to a measurable result the buyer cared about?
— Were all decision makers and influencers mapped?

Two-thirds of his "qualified" pipeline vanished.

Was that painful? For sure.

Was it necessary? Without question.

Because what looked like a $14M pipeline was really $4M of real opportunity and $10M of wishful thinking. And you can't coach, forecast, or close wishful thinking.

Within two quarters of defining real milestones and training his managers to coach to them:

— Forecast accuracy moved from 62% to 89%
— Average sales cycle shortened by nearly five weeks
— Win rate on truly qualified opportunities climbed 14 points

The CEO told me later it was the hardest conversation he'd ever had with his sales team — and the most valuable.

Here's the takeaway for CEOs, presidents, and sales leaders:

If your pipeline feels bigger than your results, the problem isn't your pipeline — it's what you're calling "qualified."

Would a single question eliminate half of yours?

04/10/2026

Business owners...be honest — how many potential clients have you lost in the last year?

Not because your work isn't good enough. Not because your prices are too high.

Because somewhere between the first conversation and the close, something broke down.

Selling your own expertise is one of the hardest things to do — and nobody warns you about that when you launched your business. Most coaches, consultants, and small business owners are one conversation away from their next client. They just don't know how to have it.

I've spent +20 years in sales and the last two decades helping people just like you fix exactly that.

Every week in The Revenue Edge I share one real, actionable sales strategy — the kind you can use the same day you read it. No pressure tactics. No scripts that make you sound like a robot. No fluff.

Just the conversations that close.

It's free. It takes five minutes to read. And it might be the most useful thing that lands in your inbox this week.

👇 Subscribe free — therevenueedge.substack.com
Your next client is closer than you think.

https://open.substack.com/pub/therevenueedge/p/the-one-question-that-changes-every?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Most sales calls are lost before the pitch even starts.

04/05/2026

Your prospect's brain is working against you.

The moment they feel unheard, their amygdala kicks in.
Cortisol spikes. Trust shuts down.
And no amount of great pitch saves you after that.

This is the science behind why discovery calls fail — and most salespeople never see it coming.

The fix isn't a better script.

It's learning to listen for context, not just content.

In 21 seconds, I break down exactly what that means. 👇

And if you want to know how your discovery process actually scores, I built a free Conversation Scorecard to show you where you're winning and where you're quietly losing deals.

Link in the comments.