Field Notes
Where Sales Strategy Meets People Strategy
Practical, research-backed lessons on hiring, leadership, HR, and building sales organizations that produce predictable results.
Professional Services Growth Beyond Founder Referrals
A professional services firm can keep the strength of referrals while making growth easier to plan.
Should You Cap Sales Commissions? Why the Ceiling Costs More Than It Saves
The cap feels like discipline. Then your best rep hits the ceiling in October and quietly stops closing until January. Here is what a commission cap really costs, and what to build instead.
Signs Your Business Needs Fractional Sales Leadership Instead of a Full Time Hire
The signs you need fractional sales leadership, stalled growth, founder-dependent closing, no reliable forecast, uncoached reps, and a gut-built comp plan, often mean a full time VP hire is the wrong-sized fix for your stage.
Stop Playing Chess With Your Pipeline: Sales Is a Game of Poker
Stop treating your sales pipeline like a game of chess. Learn why sales is actually a game of poker and how probabilistic thinking drives more closed deals.
What Is a Fractional Sales Leader and When Do You Need One
What is a fractional sales leader? It is senior, part-time, embedded sales leadership, the missing middle between running sales yourself and hiring a full-time VP of Sales, and here is when you actually need one.
Fractional Sales Management Explained for Founders Who Have Never Hired a Sales VP
Fractional sales management gives a founder who has never hired a sales VP a seasoned part-time leader to build the pipeline, forecasting, comp, hiring, and coaching engine that founder-led selling never creates.
Fractional Sales Leadership Explained
Fractional sales leadership gives Canadian SMBs a VP-level sales leader part-time, without the salary of a permanent hire. This hub explains what it is, who it fits, what it costs, and how it works, then links to the deeper posts on each.
When to Hire Your First HR Person (and Why Most Ontario Businesses Wait Too Long)
Most Ontario businesses get the timing wrong on when to hire their first HR person, waiting for a headcount number instead of the moment people risk starts costing them. Here are the real triggers, and why a fractional HR executive often fits before a full-time hire does.
When should you hire your first sales manager?
Wondering when to hire your first sales manager? Promoting your best rep is the default that backfires. Here is the real trigger, the research, and the Ontario legal trap to avoid.
Fractional VP of Sales in Ontario
A fractional VP of Sales for founder-led Ontario companies. Senior sales leadership a few days a month, $1,000/day, no full-time cost. Guelph-based, serving Ontario and SMBs across Canada.
I Used to Think an Employee's Money Stress Wasn't My Problem
The cost of living is a business problem, and paying more is not where to start. A note to Canadian small business owners on competitiveness, AI, livable wages, and letting people share the upside they create.
Are Sales Bonuses a Waste of Money?
Sales bonuses are not inherently a waste of money, but companies waste a fortune paying for behaviours they never actually wanted. Here is what the research, and my own mistakes, taught me about designing a plan that buys the right behaviour.
What LeBron Is Teaching Us All About Retaining Top Performers
LeBron James just handed the Lakers his notice. If an organization with that much going for it can’t keep someone, what is a small business actually supposed to do when its best person walks in with the same news?