Nobody gave me the job. I built the case and took it.

What Was Actually Happening

I came in as a 100% commission closer at The Human Reach. No title, no authority, no mandate to fix anything. Just a sales rep trying to make money.

Where Everyone Was Looking

Show rate across the team was sitting at 57%. Leads were spotty and most reps were blaming the leads. Nobody was doing anything about it.

What I Did Instead

I started with first principles. What actually causes someone to show up to a call they booked? They have to want it, they have to trust it is worth their time, and they have to feel like they are talking to a real person.

So I connected with every booked lead on LinkedIn before the call, started a short conversation, told them I was looking forward to talking and to reach out if they had questions. By the time the call happened there was already some comfort built. If they were not going to show they would usually message me beforehand instead of just ghosting.

My show rate hit 72%. Team average was 57%.

Once I had it working I rolled it out team wide.

Ran trainings whenever I had a free hour.

Someone canceled a call, I posted in Slack asking who wanted to train. I made it fun. People showed up, started roleplaying, got locked in. Every month after that, we kept breaking records.

When the Head of Operations role opened up I put my name in. After the interviews I asked what I needed to do to get the job.

There was a CRM problem. Duplicate leads, bad data, nothing was accurate.

I spent the next week working 18 to 19 hour days, taking sales calls during the day and fixing the CRM at night. Knew nothing about the CRM configuration going in. But I figured it out anyway and fixed all of the problems in that week.

That is what got me the job.

What Happened

My personal close rate of 20 to 21% call to close. Show rate of 72% against a team average of 57%. After rolling out the process team wide, team show rate went from 55 to 57% up to 63 to 65%. Close rate stayed flat but revenue went up because more people were showing up. More swings at bat, more cash collected per booked call.

How I Saw It

Most sales reps would have complained about the leads and just waited for their calls to show up rather than do something about it. I saw it constantly even after I became Head of Operations. Reps saying the leads were not good, not showing, not converting, while doing nothing differently. They weren't following up. They were not doing outbound in their free time. They were not treating the hours between calls as hours they could be working.

I just decided to actually work. And when I noticed something that was working I didn't keep it to myself. I made sure everyone knew about it and trained for those that needed it.

The Principle Behind It

Show rate is a trust problem before it is a sales problem. People book calls and ghost because whatever happens between the booking and the call made them feel like it wasn't worth showing up for. One LinkedIn message changed that. It was not a tactic. It was just treating a person like a person before asking them to get on a call.

The broader lesson is that the biggest competitive advantage in most sales environments is just doing more than everyone else in the hours you are already there. Not more hours. More in the hours.