Built for the K–12Education Market.

A sales leadership team wanted to build pipeline in markets where there was room to grow. There was plenty of activity, but the territory plans reps were building weren’t showing enough strategy for turning that activity into opportunity.

Large districts were obvious targets because of their size. They were also obvious to every other vendor trying to get through the same front door. A big account on a territory plan isn’t much of a strategy if there isn’t a credible path into it.

I advised the team to get much more deliberate about where and how to compete: identifying higher-fit markets and needs, looking for stronger paths to access, bringing greater discipline to RFP pursuit, and using funding conditions as one more signal of where opportunity may be actionable.

We’re using that intelligence to shape where the team researches, builds relationships, pursues opportunities, and invests its time.

A strong territory plan connects where to compete with a credible strategy for getting in and creating business.

The company saw its website as something that could wait. I saw one of its most visible sales assets underselling the company.

The company had plenty to work with: respected partners, meaningful results, deep expertise, and strong stories to tell. But too much of that credibility was buried, missing, or written primarily for end users rather than the leaders making the buying decisions.

The people inside the company knew how good the work was. The materials facing the market weren’t doing that work justice.

That was the gap.

Credibility carries outsized weight in K–12 adoption decisions. District leaders want to know who has trusted you, what changed because of the work, and whether there is enough evidence to believe it can work in their context.

A website isn’t there to check a box. Sales materials aren’t there to look pretty. They have a job: make the case when no one from the company is in the room to make it, and leave prospects leaning in and wanting to know more.

Our work is to bring the proof forward and put those assets back to work. We are sharpening what makes the company differently better, giving district leaders a clearer understanding of what it does well and why they should trust it to deliver.

District leaders will look you up. What they find should build on the interest that brought them there.

A CRO came to me with what looked like a rep-underperformance problem. As I looked more closely at how the company was hiring sales reps, I saw something upstream.

Candidates looked qualified on paper. Their résumés showed K–12 sales experience, while the interviews spent meaningful time on prior roles and relationships, along with expectations around CRM use, activity, accountability, and following the company’s chosen sales process.

That could establish whether someone was willing to operate inside the system. It wasn’t establishing whether they could create business inside it.

“Who do you know?” is not the same question as “How do you think?”

I’m working alongside HR and sales leadership to make the sales-rep hiring process more focused, evidence-based, and predictive without making it longer. A more intentional interview gives leadership better evidence of fit before the hire and gives candidates a better opportunity to show how they actually think and work.

As we’ve begun putting that approach into practice, candidates who looked strong on paper have revealed important gaps much earlier. That’s exactly when leadership needs to see them: before the offer, not months into a long K–12 sales cycle.

The best time to establish whether the capability is there is before you’re counting on the performance.