Performance Partners

Performance Partners is a strategic affiliate consulting agency for DTC Brands. We help grow your affiliate channel by connecting you with the right partners that can generate high-volume sales.

Our Mission:
Our mission is to forge dynamic partnerships that drive growth for DTC brands by connecting them with the world's leading affiliates. We're dedicated to fostering relationships that propel businesses to new heights, ensuring mutual success and excellence in the affiliate marketing landscape.

Specialties:

Affiliate Program Strategy, Systems and Process: We will teach you the strategy we used to build 8-figure affiliate programs for Goli and Onnit.

Super Affiliate Introductions: With over 15 years in affiliate marketing we have built a portfolio of the top affiliates in the world and can make direct introductions.

Affiliate Recruitment Strategy: We will teach you the process we use to recruit super affiliates to join your program.

Affiliate Management Strategy: Learn how to manage affiliate who specialize in paid media

Affiliate Program Optimization: Discover ways to make your program more attractive to super affiliates

Affiliate Network and Preferred Vendor Recommendations: Get access to our network of trusted vendors for content and funnel development.

Chief Executive Officer

iLife Technologies

iLife's mission is to make selling and buying life insurance faster, easier, and more enjoyable for agents, brokers, and customers. 

With iLife Technology, agents and brokers can sell more policies from anywhere in a fraction of the time. Consumers can easily compare plans from over 670,000 policy options, submit preliminary information to apply online in just a few clicks. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Affiliate Partnerships @ iLife Technologies

Carousel

Headquartered in Toronto, Carousel is a comprehensive digital and performance marketing platform that helps D2C brands across multiple industries acquire customers at scale.

I interface directly with senior client executives at global media agencies and e-commerce brands to build and/or revamp strategies across search, social, mobile and display channels. Integrating both strategy and implementation capabilities, we serve as extensions of in-house media teams to effectively allocate marketing spend, and develop the requisite infrastructure for long-term marketing success. Some of my other business development-focused responsibilities include:

♦ Lead and planned performance marketing campaigns strategy to efficiently scale growth across both paid and organic channels for some of the most inventive D2C ecom brands 
♦ Worked with media buying teams to evaluated existing digital marketing plans and infrastructure of clients to identify gaps, and propose data-driven recommendations on search, social, mobile, and display campaign optimization
♦ Provided insights internally on new developments and trends in performance marketing and user acquisition, and helped key stakeholders to think in the context of LTV and ROI

Agency Partner - Team Lead

Senior Agency Partner

Jumbleberry

As a Senior Affiliate Manager, I was responsible for developing and growing a multi-million dollar performance marketing portfolio in the Direct-To-Consumer vertical. I worked closely with the business development team to negotiate deals and acquire customers online for my clients.

Affiliate Manager - Team Lead

Office Ink

Office Ink was an office supply e-commerce venture that eventually scaled to 8+ employees across Canada servicing 600+ customers.

Taking ownership of a nationwide customer base and pipeline, I put together a sales and service team, and we collectively built the client book from the ground-up through a structured approach to prospecting and lead generation. I also led the development of commercial and go-to-market strategies, making key decisions in marketing, pricing, and promotions to win market share from incumbents in competitive markets. 

As a company, we leveraged our dedicated coverage and customer service capabilities to carve out a competitive advantage, and retain the confidence of SMBs and institutions.

Co-Founder & President

Mogenio

Spearheaded sales of a multi-million dollar affiliate portfolio with leadership of a team of 5. Played a central role in the establishment and growth of the satellite office in Luxembourg.

Director of Distribution

Mundo Media

As the Senior Affiliate Manager at Mundo Media, I worked closely with affiliate media buyers (web & mobile media buyers, websites, application owners, search marketers, etc.) to help facilitate promotional efforts for our advertising clients on a CPA/CPL/CPI basis. I analyzed publisher statistics on a daily basis to maximize revenue, identify opportunities, optimize campaigns and troubleshoot issues.

Director Affiliate Sales

As the Bilingual Online Marketing Coordinator at AIG, I developed several regional marketing plans for online quoting software. Tasks included: conducting primary market research, identifying regional client needs, communicating new sales and marketing strategies, implementing marketing plan through client presentations, promotional materials and an online presence.

Bilingual Online Marketing Coordinator

You've built a 7-8 figure health & beauty DTC brand. I will connect you with the top affiliates in the world

Hi - I’m Fred!

For over 16 years, I have been managing and scaling profitable affiliate programs that help DTC brands grow revenue.

Some of the questions I get asked are:

▪️ How do I recruit the top direct-response affiliates who specialize in paid media? 
(Email, Display, Tik Tok, Snap, FB, Google, Push)

▪️ How can I increase revenue with lower acquisition costs?

▪️ How can I reduce risk exposure and reliance on a small number of channels?

▪️ How do I structure commission payouts to ensure my brand's and affiliates' profitability?

▪️ How do I build direct response content to get customers to buy now?

▪️ How do I maintain brand, content, and messaging integrity?

In my experience of building/managing affiliate programs for networks and brands, and as an affiliate myself, I’ve worked in all facets of affiliate marketing, and I consider it my domain of expertise. 

I’ve also helped recruit affiliates for some of the biggest global DTC brands, including Goli, Onnit and FluffCo.

My job is to maximize your investment in affiliate marketing, educate you on the technical strategies, and deliver results that surpass your marketing goals.

👉 WHAT I DO:
- Affiliate Program Strategy, Systems and Process
- Super Affiliate Introductions
- Affiliate Recruitment Strategy
- Affiliate Management Strategy
- Affiliate Program Optimization
- Affiliate Network and Preferred Vendor Recommendations

CORE VALUES FOR SUCCESS: 🙏
1. Prioritize the needs and goals of the client 
2. Strive to be the best version of myself (Mamba Mentality)
3. Never shy away from difficult conversations
5. Be organized
5. Always take accountability for both the wins and losses

When I'm not working away, I love spending time with my wife & 2 kids, training for long-distance races and "attempting" to win my NBA fantasy league. 

If you're interested in learning more about how I can help solve some of your acquisition/affiliate challenges, drop me a message, and let's schedule a free call.

Frederic Jean-Bart

Just got back from Miami with 10 friends I've known for 22 years.

Most of us are married. Most have kids. Most of us run our own business. Few work as C-suite executives. Endless professional commitments. 

Taking time out for a trip every year is not easy. 

But here's what I've learned: Carving out time for friendships like these isn't optional.

We make it happen every quarter for dinner. Every year, for a bigger trip together. And every single time, I come back more motivated and inspired.

More than that, when we get together, it's nonstop laughs, stories, and memories. The inside jokes. The kind of connection that's only possible after two decades of showing up for each other.

Success means nothing without people to share it with. Social media may glorify the ‘build alone’ idea. But I’ve realized that in the long term, it makes zero sense.

You can pursue what you want, build exceptional companies, and get higher promotions. But don't forget to protect the relationships that make the journey worthwhile. 

And I’m sure people in their 30s and 40s will agree to this.

Affiliate Partnerships for 8-9 Figure DTC Brands | CEO @ Performance Partners | 17-Year Expert In Affiliate Recruitment

Performance Partners turns 3 today!

What started as a small vision for an affiliate marketing agency has grown into a fast-moving, premium partner for some incredible DTC brands.

Here’s what the journey has looked like so far…
from year-one experiments to scaling real, profitable programs.

To everyone who played a part in this: 
Thank you.
You helped build this.

P.S. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Link is in the comments.

Journey of building Performance Partners

I’m 41, running a 7-figure affiliate marketing agency remotely and have generated $250M for my clients in the last 17 years.

2009: I started as a jr. affiliate manager.
2025: Building & scaling Performance Partners 

It's been almost a 17-year journey in affiliate marketing. Here’s why I think affiliate marketing could replace paid media as the #1 growth channel for DTC brands in the next 5 years.

1. Paid ads are underperforming.

CRMs are up. ROAS is down. Meta and Google aren’t what they used to be.

2. Affiliate marketing builds trust.

People trust people, not ads. Creators, experts, and reviewers have more influence than banners. Affiliate marketing is relationship-driven, not algorithm-driven

3. Smart brands are shifting budgets.

Brands are already partnering with:

- Niche publishers
- Content creators
- Performance-driven media buyers

4. Tech platforms are enabling scale.

Platforms like TikTok Shop are leading the way. They make it easy for brands to partner with creators, track performance, and scale successful campaigns. It is turning creators into high-performance affiliates

It’s a sign that traditional ad platforms are going creator-first.
The future is performance-based and trust-led partnerships.

And that’s why I’m so bullish on the potential of affiliate marketing for 8 & 9-fig DTC brands.

We just activated one of the biggest listicle affiliates in the industry for two of our clients. A media buyer who consistently spends up to six figures a day during Q4.

When you're dealing with affiliates at this level, activation is the hardest part. 

They're getting hit up by everyone: networks, agencies, brands. Everyone knows they're big, so the competition for their attention is intense.

And we got them on board. Revenue is already flowing. 
And the growth looks incredible.

They're going to be a major driver of our Black Friday and Cyber Monday numbers for both clients; exactly what these brands wanted when they came to us looking for real affiliate media buyer partnerships.

And we're not stopping here. We have more high-performing listicle affiliates in the pipeline.

Big wins in the affiliate space are always strategic. 

They happen when you've built the relationships, proven the value, and can cut through the noise to get top-tier partners activated.

P.S. In the next issue of my newsletter, I am sharing my 5-step framework to scale any program to 5-figures a month in the first month. Subscribe here: www.freddysfastfive.com

When I was leading the affiliate growth strategy for a portfolio of $50M+ D2C brands, our client launches were a mess. Broken pixels. Messy tracking. Last-minute “Can you fix this today?” DMs on Slack.

Every new brand took forever to get live. And clients got annoyed (quite understandably) because results were slow.

One day an affiliate media buyer said:
“We need a simple launch system.”

So we rebuilt the whole thing from scratch using a very basic 3-step setup:

1. Foundation check: We verified pixels, events, audiences, and product feeds in 20 minutes. 

2. Starter campaign pack: We launched one search, one social, and one display affiliate with proven templates that always worked for other D2C brands.

3. First 7-day scorecard
Track only four numbers: EPC, CVR, CAC, and revenue. Ignore everything else until week two.

That’s it. No 50-slide audit. Almost zero friction. 

And within two months:

• Launch times dropped from 10 days to 3.
• CAC improved because campaigns went live cleaner.
• Clients and affiliates were satisfied because they saw results early.

That is a lesson every brand and affiliate manager needs to understand (and put into action):

Most ‘complex’ growth problems get solved by simple systems and smaller steps. Making your system less ‘overwhelming’ for your partners and clients should be your #1 priority.

P.S. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter 'Freddy's Fast Five': www.freddysfastfive.com

I’ve taken 47 programs past $100K/month using this exact blueprint. Most of them were struggling to make $20K consistently. Because they all were making a common mistake. A mistake that most brands make now too.

Most programs take a passive approach to affiliate recruitment.

They set up the affiliate program…
Publish a sign-up page…
And wait for inbound applications to roll in.

On paper, this sounds efficient.
In reality, it caps your revenue.

Passive recruitment attracts bottom-tier affiliates:

- Coupon sites looking for new programs
- Deal hunters browsing affiliate directories
- Affiliates who compete only on discounting

These partners don’t grow your revenue, they leech off conversions you would have gotten anyway.

Here’s the bigger issue most brands never see coming:

Your top-producing affiliates will never apply to you. 

Premium partners operate differently. The only way to get their attention is by strategic outreach.

Media buyers don’t look for programs; they get pitched by brands that want scale High-value influencers choose brands that take initiative.

These are the affiliates who drive 80–90% of revenue in scaled programs.

And when you rely on passive applications, you’re not just missing potential partners,  you’re handing them directly to your competitors who are actively recruiting them. That’s the actual cost.

You can’t scale to $100K+/month by sitting back and hoping the right affiliates find you.

Programs that grow aggressively do one thing consistently:
They treat affiliate recruitment like sales.

I recently sat down with Sean Lang for his podcast to talk about building and scaling agencies.

We discussed many things during our conversation, and it was one of those discussions that reminded me why putting yourself out there and having real conversations with other founders matters.

Here's what we discussed:

1. Scaling teams effectively: How to build and grow a team that can handle growth without breaking your operations
2. Sticking to your ICP: Why staying focused on your ideal client profile is critical, and the costly mistakes that happen when you don't
3. Lessons learned building an agency: The hard-earned insights from years of trial and error that I wish I knew earlier

These conversations always push me to think differently about how I'm running my business. 

Sean asked great questions that made me reflect on decisions I've made and where I'm headed next.

If you're an agency owner or thinking about starting one, I think you'll get a lot of value from this episode.: https://lnkd.in/gzxius95

In the last 45 days, we brought 2 major changes to the way we operate at Performance Partners. Here’s what I changed in the back end.

1. We launched a 30-day sprint package for brands that aren’t our ICP.

The reason was simple: 
- To onboard brands faster.
- To build trust quickly through quick wins.
- To create a low-friction entry point for new clients.

Many brands don’t want to commit to long-term retainers immediately. This offer makes it easier for them to experience the value without a big commitment.

It also protects our interests because not every brand is a brand we want to work with long-term. So it helps us to get an idea about the future collaboration scope.

This has resulted in:

- Improved cash-flow consistency because payments are upfront.
- Better client-fit filtering (only the right clients convert to retainers)
- Prevents long-term situations with poor-fit clients.

We built a complete SOP with the operations team that maps every step required to complete the sprint engagement.

2. We opened up affiliate recruitment across the entire team (not just affiliate managers) and tied it to performance bonuses.

Affiliate managers were splitting time between recruitment and client management, creating a bottleneck.

But with this operational change, if anyone recruits specific types of affiliates and gets them activated, they earn a bonus.

As a result, recruitment velocity increased (more affiliates pitched and activated weekly). And affiliate managers are freed up to focus on optimization and strategy.

Operations are about removing friction, creating incentives, and enabling your team to move faster. And that was the core idea behind these 2 changes.

P.S. Another intense discussion in our weekly call. I can guarantee that it was not about scaling programs, lol!

What you think top affiliates want:

Higher commissions
Longer cookie windows
Better payouts
A pitch like “We’re a great product, please consider us”

What top affiliates ACTUALLY need:

Test budgets ($500–$2,500) to offset risk when trying your brand
Flat-fee + commission deals so they can forecast returns
Exclusive placement windows (30–60 days) to make your offer worth prioritizing
Access to proven content, creatives, and funnels 

An elite affiliate, who sends millions in traffic every month, will never be fascinated by a few % more ONLY. 

Show them that you care about their predictability.
Show them that you are trying to minimize their risks.
Show them that there is a huge upside potential of the deal.

P.S. The next issue of my weekly newsletter goes live in 24 hours. Subscribe here: www.freddysfastfive.com

Open article: Freddy's Fast Five by freddysfastfive.com

I have scaled my company to 7-figures in 2.5 years. 
One mistake I wish I hadn’t made:
Saying ‘Yes’ to every single client.

Initially, we wanted to grow fast. So we worked with every client that came our way.
(Most early-stage founders can relate to this.)

We didn’t care about the niche.
We didn’t care about their budget.
We didn’t care about the market fit.

That means we had to create different offers, proposals, and plans for every client.

But it took me 18 months to realize: 
(after some tough experience)

- Some brands had unrealistic expectations.
- Some brands weren’t ready for affiliate marketing at all.
- Some clients were far outside their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

The lack of results wasn’t due to a lack of effort or skill on their side.
It was simply a misalignment in fit.

As a result, some clients were unhappy, my team felt discouraged, and the internal team morale suffered.

Now we prioritize onboarding the right clients.

It shows we’ve:

Refined their ICP.
Improved their screening process.
Built confidence in long-term success.

Result:
Better results for the clients
Long-term partnership
Predictable revenue

So, if you’re in the B2B space, looking for sustainable and scalable growth, nail down your ICP and STICK to it. (You can thank me later!)

BFCM 2025 is officially wrapped. This year, our team at Performance Partners supported over 30 DTC brands. Worked with 2,400+ affiliates. Activated 900 new affiliates in Nov. Here are my top 3 predictions for the next 12 months.

1. Media buyer partnerships will become the foundation of every high-performing affiliate program.

Brands that saw their biggest spikes during BFCM will realize those wins came from media buyers who could scale fast with the right CPA and the right funnel. More brands will shift budget toward media-buyer-friendly offers and treat these partners like a core acquisition channel rather than a side experiment.

By next BFCM, media buyers will be the top revenue driver for most mature affiliate programs. Mark my words.

2. Editorial and listicle partners will start locking Q4 placements even earlier.

This year, the best publishers filled their BFCM calendars before October. Next year, it will happen in September. Early outreach will no longer be an advantage; it will be a requirement.

Brands that aren't pitching listicles and deal pages by late summer will miss out entirely. The window is closing faster than most people realize.

3. Affiliates will demand stronger economics and better conversion paths.

CPCs, CPMs, and competition are rising across every platform. Affiliates are tired of testing offers that don't convert or that lack strong AOV and upsell paths.

Brands that don't raise CPAs, improve checkout flows, and increase average order value will struggle to attract quality partners. The bar for what counts as a "good offer" is about to rise dramatically. If your offer isn't compelling enough to make an affiliate money in a high-traffic-cost environment, they'll move on to the next brand in 48 hours.

Do you agree? 

I have written a detailed article reflecting on this year's BFCM; breaking down all my internal strategies, wins and losses. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/d9GYh2tU

AI is changing the affiliate marketing industry silently. 
Here's something I've been thinking about lately: 

B2B affiliate marketing is messy. Way messier than B2C. You've got these incredibly long sales cycles, complex buyer journeys with multiple stakeholders, and transactions that can make or break quarterly numbers. 

Traditional affiliate strategies just don't cut it anymore.

The partner selection problem is a real challenge for any affiliate marketer. 

I've seen too many B2B teams waste months chasing high-traffic affiliates who look impressive on paper but deliver garbage leads. Because they're optimizing for the wrong metrics.

AI flips this by looking beyond vanity metrics. Instead of just traffic volume, it analyzes content relevance, historical lead quality, and industry alignment.

"Will this partner actually move the needle for our specific business?" thinks every CMO. And AI solves this exact problem.

I came across a case recently where AI identified a relatively small tech blog that consistently delivered qualified SaaS leads, even though it had a fraction of the traffic compared to larger sites. That's the kind of insight that changes everything.

Let’s look at it objectively. AI doesn't replace relationship-building or strategic thinking. But it does give you a much smarter starting point for where to invest your time and budget.

In B2B, where every partnership decision has a significant downstream impact, that intelligence matters more than most people realize.

I just had a consulting call with a supplement brand that started its affiliate program 7 months back. Hitting $7K-$11K/ month. This conversation made me realize what separates a program making $100K+ months from the ones stuck at $10K.

1. They review EPC + AOV every single week.

Top programs don’t wait for monthly reports or quarterly check-ins. They look at their numbers every week because weekly data shows real patterns. 

By reviewing EPC and AOV consistently, they always know which funnels are converting, which pages are dragging performance down, and which partners are sending the highest-intent traffic. These small, frequent adjustments compound into major revenue gains over time.

2. They build landing pages specifically for affiliate traffic.

Affiliate visitors don’t behave like paid ads or email leads. They come in warmer, with more intent, and with different expectations. That’s why the best programs build pages tailored to them. 

Faster load times, simpler layouts, cleaner messaging, and offers aligned to affiliate audiences all make a measurable difference. When the landing experience matches the intent of the traffic, conversions jump almost immediately.

3. They double down on winners.

Instead of constantly trying to sign new affiliates, high-performing programs study what’s working right now. They identify the creatives with the highest EPC, the partners sending the best traffic, and the categories consistently outperforming others. Then they shift more resources, attention, and support toward those winners. 

Scaling what already works always beats spreading thin across everything.

4. They use incentives strategically.

Incentives aren’t random. Bonuses and performance milestones are intentionally designed to guide affiliate behavior. 

High performers get rewarded so they keep pushing. Dormant affiliates get activated through targeted incentives. The entire program moves with alignment and momentum because incentives push partners toward the outcomes the brand wants most.

You don’t always need more affiliates. If you don't analyze your performance deeply enough, you are relying on pure vibe and luck.

That’s what the fastest-growing programs understand. They treat affiliate marketing like a performance channel.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter: www.freddysfastfive.com

Just wrapped up the book “The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son”, and it was an amazing read.

Most importantly, the lessons still hold true in 2025 and beyond.

And my fav part of the book: In a world filled with opportunities, patience is crucial. Cultivate emotional intelligence and decision-making based on rational needs rather than fleeting emotions. 

Have you read this book? If not, it’s a 10/10 recommendation from me.

Black Friday season is here. It’s the biggest growth period for any brand. We’ve helped clients generate $100M+ during BFCM.

Irrespective of the niche.
Irrespective of the product.
By following a proven framework.

And I’m unveiling the 7-step framework I use to scale brands: ‘Affiliate Marketing Black Friday Guide’: https://lnkd.in/gJY4im9h

Michael Ocean

SellMeThisPen

No more...

👎 CRM update dilemma
👎 Irrelevant & generic coaching & training

SellMeThisPen AI eliminates non-revenue tasks for sellers and helps leaders scale personalized coaching and practice so everyone can focus on what matters most: revenue growth! 

What SellMeThisPen can help you with: 

✨ Automated CRM updates ✨ Real-time and post-call AI coaching ✨ Role-play practice sessions with AI

Founder & CEO

GoWest.ai

Providing strategic insights on new and ongoing initiatives.

Member of the Board of Advisors

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Entrepreneur In Residence

Antler

Hopin

Online Event Platform - SaaS

80% Inbound | 20% Outbound - Founding Sales Team

- Helped build the initial sales playbook 
- 900k USD closed-won opportunities created.
- Helped scale the company from 40 Mil USD series A to 400 Mil USD series C.
- Worked closely with the marketing, support and sales ops teams to refine the sales development processes.
- Recognized as the "Pacesetter" in the last month of service.

Founding Sales 

Schedulehead

Event Scheduling Automation - SaaS

50% Inbound | 50% Outbound - First Sales Hire

- Built the initial sales playbook.
- Assisted the CEO with overall sales and marketing strategies.
- Closed, onboarded, and trained 48 SMB & Enterprise accounts in the first five months 
- Hired & trained LDRs & SDRs.

Founding Sales

Bunz

Digital Marketing - Social Media

100% Outbound - First Sales Hire

- Created the V1 outbound playbook
- Helped surpass the Q1 goal in the first month
- Brought in GTA-based clients such as Maple, TruLocal, Flexday, Workhaus and York Region Municipality
- Signed an agreement with the first outside of province client MissFresh

PayamBox

Mobile Marketing - Enterprise Software

*Iteration from M-Theory to an enterprise software solution for the Telecom industry. 

- Raised 400k seed capital 
- Implemented the solution for MTN - one of the largest operators in MENA 
- Worked closely with the technical team for two fully operational products - MBOX mobile marketing SaaS and Telegram MusicBoxBot.

Co-Founder & CEO

M-Theory

Content Production | Mobile Marketing - Telecom VAS 

*Pivoted to PayamBox.

- Helped sign a partnership with "MCI" the largest operator in the middle east
- Acquired 200k+ subscribers - Resulted in $1.2 mil USD revenue.
- Reduced the operation costs by 50% - Built an in-house video production team
- Grew the team to 10

Co-Founder

PCM: The Right Technology, Delivered.

Direct Marketing - Microsoft Cloud

100% Outbound - First batch of Microsoft licensing specialists 

- Surpassed the monthly closed deals KPI month after month
- Helped position the company as the new Microsoft Gold Partner to clients

Account Executive

Two things bugged me the most when I was a sales rep!

👎 Receiving irrelevant & generic coaching & training
👎 Feeling out the CRM 

That's why I am building SellMeThisPen AI to eliminate non-revenue tasks for sellers and help leaders scale personalized coaching and practice so everyone can focus on what matters most: revenue growth! 

What SellMeThisPen can help you with: 

✨Role-play practice sessions with AI ✨Real-time and post-call AI coaching ✨Automated CRM updates

🤝 Feel free to reach out if you would like to chat.

Natural talent is the worst predictor of sales success.


So why do so many teams still hire for “the vibe” instead of the mindset?


On the latest SellMeThisPen AI Podcast, I sat down with Thomas Waites of TW Sales, operator behind 3 successful acquisitions, and someone who’s built multiple high-performance sales orgs from scratch to unpack this exact mistake.


"I watched 'natural' salespeople plateau while awkward, determined ones surpassed them."


Thomas learned this early. He’d onboard 20–40 reps at a time and assume the charismatic ones would win.

They didn’t.

The “naturals” coasted…then stalled!


The “awkward but hungry” reps kept grinding then sprinted past everyone.
That observation shifted everything for him.
Because the real problem wasn’t skills.
It was the system those skills lived inside.


He told a story about inheriting a team where people complained about 9 a.m. meetings because it interfered with their morning golf routine.

That wasn’t a skills issue.

That was a mindset and behavior issue and no amount of training fixes that.

So he rebuilt the culture from the ground up.

Reps stopped blaming leads.
Ownership went up.
Performance followed.


Here’s the framework Thomas shared for building a winning environment instead of a “talent-dependent” one:

1️⃣ Hire and bet on mindset first
If someone owns their performance, you can develop everything else. If they blame the world, nothing you do will matter.

2️⃣ Create systems that lift the entire team
Peer-to-peer pairing, shared wins, and simple metrics make improvement unavoidable not optional.

3️⃣ Lead with belief, not fear
High performers don’t need pressure; they need support. If you treat them like losers, they’ll play like it. If you treat them like champions, they rise.

4️⃣ Reward behavior as much as outcomes
Crushing quota isn’t enough. If someone poisons culture, they’re a short-term win and a long-term loss.

If you want a team that keeps improving, you don’t build around the naturals.
You build around the mindsets that scale.


Swipe through the carousel above for the full breakdown! 👉

CEO @ SellMeThisPen.ai - AI Roleplay & Individual Sales Coaching at Scale.

 7 Pillars for Building Winning Mindset - SMTP

AI didn’t make L&D easier, it exposed who’s been coasting!


So the real question is…are you actually using it to level up, or just hoping it replaces the work you don’t want to do?


The other day on the SellMeThisPen AI Podcast, I sat down with Jen Rutsky an L&D leader with a legal background who’s been hands-on with AI long before it went mainstream. She’s worked across tech, law, finance and she’s one of those  operators who actually experiments instead of theorizing.


Jen described a shift she’s seeing: most L&D orgs still cling to e-learning modules that nobody remembers 20 minutes later. Meanwhile, learners want interactive, kinesthetic, real-time practice. And AI finally makes that possible.


She told a story about managers preparing for tough conversations. Traditionally, they’d wait for Jen to role-play with them assuming her calendar wasn’t booked for the next two weeks. Now? They can fire up a tool, simulate the scenario, and get coaching instantly. No embarrassment. No bottleneck. No excuses.

That’s the shift:

We’re not building courses anymore. We’re building systems that adapt.

Here’s the core idea: L&D relevance now comes from teaching people how to use AI not from producing content.

1️⃣ AI is the new practice field.
Your learners shouldn’t wait for workshops. They should rehearse critical conversations, pitches, and decisions inside AI-driven role-plays, the reps are unlimited, judgment-free, and instant.

2️⃣ Your value is orchestration, not instruction.
Jen’s building workflows, coaching layers, feedback loops. AI handles the repetition; humans handle the nuance. L&D pros who cling to “content creation” lose. Those who build systems win.

3️⃣ Real-time relevance is now the standard.
If a document, process, or naming convention changes, AI can update onboarding flows instantly. No more outdated links, stale PDFs, or credibility-killing errors. L&D finally becomes current instead of catching up.


In the full episode we cover:

– Why e-learning as we know it is fading fast
 – How managers should approach hallucinations with “trust but verify”
 – Building AI champion programs inside companies
 – What modern onboarding looks like when every persona gets personalized learning from day one

L&D pros -> what’s one AI use case you’ve tried that actually moved the needle?

P.S. Link to the full episode in the comments! 👇

Your L&D team isn’t slow. Your workflow is outdated.


The other day on the SellMeThisPen AI Podcast, I sat down with Jen Rutsky, Senior L&D Manager at Yext with 15+ years across banking, tech, fintech, and law. We dug into what’s actually breaking L&D’s speed and what AI is finally fixing.


“It’s helping me amplify my ideas and catch things I might’ve missed.”

Jen shared a moment every L&D leader knows too well: juggling too many trainings, rewriting the same ideas 10 different ways, and manually hunting inconsistencies across documents.

It’s exhausting. And worse, it slows down how fast the business can move.
Then she stopped doing it alone.


AI became her always-on co-author, spotting patterns, surfacing repeated themes, and keeping messaging tight across every training touchpoint.
 The shift wasn’t about shortcuts, it was about finally removing the parts of L&D that shouldn’t be manual anymore.


Here’s the core idea: L&D isn’t broken, old workflows are. AI gives you back the time to think, not just produce.


1️⃣ Offload the grunt work, keep the judgment.
Let AI scan PDFs, books, and decks for themes so you can focus on designing experiences, not cleaning data.

2️⃣ Use AI to maintain consistency across everything.
Jen uploads materials and instantly spots mismatches, outdated details, and messaging drift something humans miss simply because we’re too close to the work.

3️⃣ Turn brainstorming into a real collaboration.
Instead of staring at a blank doc, she uses AI to challenge her thinking, propose angles, and pressure-test concepts. You get better ideas, faster.


The result? Faster content, tighter messaging, and an L&D engine that finally matches the speed of the business.


Swipe through the carousel above for the full breakdown! 👉

6 Practical Ways to Use AI in L&D - SMTP

Most sales leaders don’t coach…they command.


Why are we still defaulting to “just do this” leadership when coaching creates the real top performers?


On the latest SellMeThisPen AI Podcast, I sat down with Thomas Waites, 3X acquisition CRO and the guy who keeps turning messy early-stage teams into record-breaking ones.


"Telling solves the moment. Coaching changes the rep." 


Tom shared something most leaders don’t want to admit: the majority of “coaching” inside sales orgs is actually just instructions with better punctuation. 

And when you lead that way? You create a team that waits for answers instead of creating them.


The shift came when he realized his team wasn’t lacking talent, they were lacking belief, ownership, and a system that helped them think.


Here’s the real difference between telling, training, and coaching. pulled straight from Tom’s winning-culture framework:

1️⃣ Telling -> One-way and urgent.

When a rep asks what to do with a deal, you say: “Send the contract today.”
Fast? Sure. But now you’re the crutch they lean on forever.

2️⃣ Training -> Knowledge without judgment.

You run sessions on your pitch, your product, your frameworks.
Helpful until the deal goes sideways and the script can’t save them.

3️⃣ Coaching -> Two-way, empowering, and culture-shaping.

 Rep: “What should I do with Acme?”
 You ask:
 – “What’s the real blocker here?”
 – “What options do you see?”
 – “Which path gives us the highest leverage?”

Now they think. They decide. They grow.
And suddenly, the whole team levels up, together!


In the full episode we cover:

 – Why mindset beats sales skills (and why “naturals” often plateau)
 – How to build a team culture where “we all win together” actually means something
 – The CEO–sales leader dynamic that predicts success
 – The simple, four-metric system Tom uses to scale without chaos

AND he tells the tattoo bet story, the moment his team realized their limits were self-imposed!! 

Link to the full episode in the comments 👇

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