I had a realization while shopping for winter gear this morning. I was comparing expensive gloves - $80, $120, $150 - trying to find the perfect pair to keep my hands warm. Then it hit me: I was solving the wrong problem. Here's the thing about cold hands: they're not a glove problem. They're a core temperature problem. When your body gets cold, it prioritizes your vital organs and pulls blood away from your extremities. You can buy the most expensive, technical gloves on the market, but if your core isn't warm, your hands will still freeze. The solution? A better jacket. Fix the core issue, and suddenly even cheap gloves work fine. This is exactly what I see founders doing in their businesses. You're laser-focused on the "cold hands" - the visible problem right in front of you. Revenue's down, so you hire more salespeople. Customer complaints are up, so you expand support. Projects are delayed, so you add more project managers. But you're buying expensive gloves when what you really need is a better jacket. These aren't isolated problems. They're symptoms of systemic issues upstream: • That sales underperformance? It might stem from unclear positioning or a broken lead qualification process • Those customer complaints? Could be a flawed onboarding system setting wrong expectations • The project delays? Perhaps it's unclear decision-making frameworks or misaligned priorities at the leadership level When you're inside the business every day, you're too close to see it. You feel the cold hands, so you focus on the hands. It's natural. It's human. But it's expensive and exhausting. You end up in a cycle of putting out fires, treating symptoms, buying increasingly expensive "gloves" that never quite solve the problem. Meanwhile, the core issue continues generating new problems downstream. Find the root - find the cause - fix that. ....and if you can't call us! ☎️

I learned about discipline from a very young age. When I was in grade 2 my parents put me in Karate. This was in part to learn self defence but also to build good habits and discipline. I had to work hard. I had to push myself My brothers were also at the same dojo which made slaking off - impossible. We had a competition coming up for where we would represent our dojo. I practiced HOURS and hours my kata (a detailed choreographed pattern of martial arts movements) and I remember this moment like it was yesterday. 3rd Place - didn't call my name 2nd Place - didn't call my name I thought "man... I guess I didn't win". The thought of me winning the whole thing didn't even cross my mind. 1st Place: Ari Barmapov. I had won. In the moment it didn't feel like it. It felt surreal. It was simply a byproduct of the hard work. You feel excited when you win something that you didn't earn. You feel relief when you win something that was hard earned. FINALLY everything you worked hard for came to fruition. This is why if you want something REALLY want something. You need to be willing to endure the pain that it will inevitably take to achieve it. All of those hard earned hours put in to achieving your dreams at the end you will get that relief. Might not be today, might not be tomorrow - but it will happen.

How you manage a sales team is one of the most important roles in revenue leadership, and though every organization is different, there are great staples that you can follow to get the most out of your team... while not over managing 🎯

Its always a great thing to have your work appreciated and recognized. I was invited this week onto the Founders Future Podcast by Closers.Io where I had a an opportunity to talk about Cold Calling, my journey and the value of Tonality in conversations. Hard work does pay off - but only in retrospect. You will never feel the benefits of what you are doing in the moment - only after the fact. So if all you do is chase that next dopamine hit for today - you will never do the things that are truly impactful that you need to wait for. What is a win that paid off for you this week?

Happy Monday everyone! Time for to share a hack that I live by 🤓 As a salesperson, a founder or anyone looking to understand the value your day-to-day work has on your performance-based milestone goals - data is a requirement! I reflect on my time as a sales rep about 10 years ago with ADP (the payroll company), where I was in a cubical with a marker and whiteboard trying to figure out how to be successful. Every quarter I set my goal on the whiteboard and I subtracted my sales from it after every close, to see what my gap-to-goal was and to keep me on the pulse of what my core priorities were. This is where it all began for me, and why I am so data driven today. That whiteboard was my superpower; always reminding me of the exact outcome I was chasing and giving me satisfaction and focus I needed after every sale to keep pushing. Over time I started making this into formulas - tracking my inputs to outcomes - and mathing what fuel I needed to put-in to stay on track. How many calls -> meetings? How many meetings -> proposal? How many pitches -> close? How many closes -> goal? This was my life. No one did this for me (even my managers were distracting against this focus) and I didn't have the technology at my fingertips that I have now. But the practice remains the same. 1. What must I do to be successful this quarter/ half/ annum? 2. What goal do I have ON TOP OF this requirement so I am tracking 'overachievement'? 3. What activities do I need to do, and at what frequency to achieve this? 4. How am I going to track this in a dynamic way? 5. Put that report as the first thing I do every day so I have that focus first. 6. Maintain it. If you have great tools like HubSpot, Salesforce etc at your fingertips, use those. If you don't, get a whiteboard and marker and use those - don't sacrifice the focus you need to reach the goals that you set for yourself. That is the most expensive compromise that you can make - you gotta manifest the sh*t out of it!