How I Lead
My leadership style is that of a servant leader driven by competition and curiosity.
I lead with clear communication and a bias toward action, prioritizing culture, collaboration, development, and results. My goal is to give every seller and leader I coach the confidence, skill, and tools to run their business so they can easily navigate to minimize roadblocks and require minimal guidance.
Group one
Philosophy & Guiding Pillars
Leadership
How I Think
My thinking starts with curiosity. I look for gaps and solve for them. I stay adaptable and keep asking the questions that push us forward:
What can be better?
What else is possible?
What is not working and how might it get fixed?
These questions keep us honest. They force us to examine how we move fast enough to create real impact now without moving so fast that we miss something important or compromise on quality, integrity, or relationships. Timeline matters. Winning in the face of change and competition requires clarity on how we differentiate, what customers and employees actually need, and what we must do to stay ahead rather than simply react.
I believe in continuous learning. Staying relevant means understanding what I still need to learn and do differently. It means studying the market, the competition, and the people I work with so decisions are grounded in reality instead of assumptions. Innovation is not a slogan. It is the daily practice of noticing what is missing and closing the gap.
Get close to the work
Strategy written far from the field doesn't survive contact with a real deal. I sit in the calls, read the pipeline, and talk to the sellers before I decide what to change.
Plan so most fires never start
I plan for what's coming so most fires never start, and if something still breaks, I know exactly who to mobilize.
Sharp, kind, and a little funny
I'm a builder by instinct and a coach by preference. Work is better when the people around you are sharp, kind, and let their sense of humor shine.
Standards
Guiding Pillars
Lead the way I'd want to be led
These are the standards I hold myself and my teams to:
Reliability
- Show up
- Do what you say
- Get it done
Organization
- Log notes and activity
- Follow up
- Plan
- Time management
Accountability
- Know your stuff
- Be the expert
- Own the number
- Call your shot
- Deliver
Results
- Understand the end goal
- Plan the course
- Anticipate obstacles
- Deliver
Integrity
- Do what's right
- Always
Respect
- Yourself
- Your coworkers
- Your customers
- The business
- Your contacts
Support
- Teamwork
- Team wins
- Encourage
- Share
Growth
- Yours
- Your team's
- Ask questions
- Challenge yourself
- Listen
- Learn
- Feedback
I build culture by example. I put in the work I expect from others. I set fair, clear expectations from the beginning. I communicate respectfully. I help other people win, not because it is in a job description or because it will increase my own compensation, but because when that behavior becomes the norm, the entire environment improves.
Strong team members, and leaders especially, must be both confident and humble. They should welcome and apply feedback as readily as they share it.
Coach until it runs without me
My goal is to equip people with the skills and tools they need so they can operate at a high level without me in the room. I challenge individuals to think beyond their current role and I intentionally develop the next generation of leaders. When the culture is healthy, people invest in each other, share what works, and raise the standard together.
Group two
Leading & Developing People
Working together
What it's like to work with me
What you can expect
- A clear plan within weeks, not quarters, with the gaps named out loud.
- Forecast discipline: pipeline inspection that's useful to sellers, not just to leadership.
- Direct, specific coaching. I'll tell you what I see and what I'd do next.
- Cross-functional cover. I do the alignment work with Product, Ops, Finance and Marketing so my team doesn't have to.
What I need to do my best work
- Access to the real numbers and the real problems, early.
- Room to build the thing that doesn't exist yet.
- Partners who'll debate the idea and then commit to it.
Insights Discovery
Red · Blue · Yellow · Green
Working Genius
Invention & Galvanizing
Working Competency
Discernment & Tenacity
First 90 days
How I plan for success in a new role
- 01Create strong, collaborative relationships and share the vision.
- 02Listen and learn the similarities and differences between regions.
- 03Use data to drive decision-making and build the plan around it.
- 04Assess what's working and replicate it.
- 05Identify what isn't working, or what's missing, and solve for it.
- 06Lead through my team and peers, empowering them to execute.
- 07Drive change, adoption and alignment: bring initiatives to life.
- 08Foster a culture of curiosity, creativity, unity, fun and ownership.
- 09Build a business plan with goals, priorities, risks and an execution path.
- 10Keep a project tracker so leaders always see status and next steps.
Team building
Hiring & Onboarding
A good hire is not just about what someone has done in the past. Past results matter, but they are only one part of the picture.
I look for:
- Drive and genuine ambition
- Skills, including transferable ones
- How they present themselves
- The ability to speak clearly about what they have done and the impact they created
- Storytelling skill
- Energy
- Knowledge and curiosity
- Demonstrated desire to learn, including real examples of challenging themselves with something new and difficult
- The ability to tell an honest story about failure, what they learned, and how they improved
- How they handle conflict and losses that were not necessarily their fault
- Time management
- Track record of success
- Clear goals
- Coachability
There is no single persona that defines a strong salesperson. Still, certain traits show up again and again in people who perform at a high level and fit well on a team.
My former colleagues and I used to joke that it might be best to hire someone with expensive taste, big goals, and no money who is ready to work for it. There is some truth in that. Hunger, combined with standards and the willingness to put in the work, is hard to fake.
When those qualities are present, onboarding becomes much more effective. Clear expectations, early wins, consistent coaching, and a culture that values both feedback and accountability help new hires ramp faster and contribute sooner. The goal is not just to fill a seat. The goal is to bring in people who will raise the standard of the team.
Group three
Coaching the Sales Craft
Sales Leadership
Complex Sales: High-Stakes B2B, B2C, SaaS, Tech & Beyond
High-stakes sales is not limited to enterprise technology deals. It exists in B2B and B2C environments alike. The stakes can be high whether you are selling complex solutions to large organizations or premium experiences, services, or products to individual customers. Even in non-tech businesses, we still leverage technology to position the company, understand the customer, streamline the process, and facilitate the sale. Technology is a tool. The real work remains understanding people, building trust, and delivering results.
We've come a long way since BANT. Today the landscape includes Sandler, Challenger, consultative selling, MEDDPICC, PAPR, and many other methodologies. Sales styles come and go. There is learning in each of them, but the fundamentals that actually win deals stay consistent.
The sellers who succeed are the ones who:
- Gather the right information before the first conversation
- Ask thoughtful questions when given the chance
- Follow up consistently without overwhelming
- Communicate with clarity and transparency
- Build real relationships
- Deliver on what they promise
- Challenge the customer to take a situation from an alternate angle or holistic view
- Hold their customers accountable to what they've committed to
- Read the room and adjust in real time
- Push back when called for
- Are proud of what they're selling
- Can paint a picture like a great storyteller
A solid product or service still matters. So does the genuine desire to do the right thing for the business, the seller, and the client. It is always a balance.
Getting in the door
Getting in the door is often the hardest part. Lead with what the other person is likely dealing with right now. Research their market, competitive pressures, recent news, and current initiatives. Knowledge is power.
No one wants to respond to “Got a minute,” “Are you responsible for…,” “Congratulations on your new role,” or “I have a gift card if you talk to me for 20 minutes.”
Even only 10 years ago, competition was much lighter. Now dozens of people from around the world may be competing for the same attention in a single week. You stand out by showing you understand their world, their challenges, and their goals.
The craft
Every situation is unique. Leading a conversation that uncovers the right information and builds the relationships needed to drive business requires both framework and finesse. It means knowing when to push forward and when to slow down, how to tell a compelling story, how to assess whether an opportunity is real, and when to walk away.
Emotional intelligence matters. So does situational intelligence: the ability to read a room, hear what is not said, and understand what is implied. Complex sales is an art. I am an artist, and I teach people the craft.
I know the frameworks. I also know the work will look different with every seller and every buyer. We cannot win every deal. With the right expectations, disciplined qualification, and genuine trust, sellers give themselves a real shot.
What high-performing teams do differently
Winning teams adapt, and they adapt together. The seller, the leader, and the cross-functional partners have to move in sync so the organization can keep pace with changing customer needs. Looking around corners is part of the job. So is the grit to take a no or a loss, learn from the mistake, and keep moving forward. That resilience is essential for any leader and for the people they lead.
The strongest sellers and teams also:
- Multi-thread early and build relationships across the full buying committee
- Coach internal champions so the solution keeps selling when they are not in the room
- Quantify the cost of inaction so urgency is rooted in business reality
- Create shared process control through mutual action plans
- Speak the language of financial impact and outcomes, not just features
- Apply rigorous qualification and have the discipline to walk away from deals that will not close
- Treat complex sales as a team sport and bring the right internal experts in at the right time
Closing with Confidence
Everything identified early gets confirmed and acted on at close. I coach leaders and sellers to:
- Confirm expectations at signing, reconfirming what was aligned on early so nothing surprises anyone when the ink dries.
- Ask for the business directly, rather than waiting for the buyer to bring it up.
- Handle objections with value-based questions, circling back to the metrics and problems the client already identified as the reason for the change.
- Hold the line on price with confidence. If the number truly has to move, change the solution or scope to hit it, not just cut the price and cheapen the value.
Sales is bigger than the number on the board
It includes playbooks and rules of engagement. It includes clearly defining what the business stands for and its non-negotiables. It includes operating procedures, cross-functional communication, and real teamwork. It includes understanding how things actually work, using imagination, implementing AI where it creates advantage, partnering with marketing on collateral, documenting expectations before and after the sale, and making sure the client receives exactly what they paid for, on time.
It is continued learning. It is the willingness to try new things. It is the shared understanding that change is constant and adaptability is required for success.
That combination of structure, judgment, emotional intelligence, thoughtful research, collective adaptability, and relationship-building is what I teach and model.
Customers
How I Work with Customers
I coach a consultative approach, no matter what's being sold or who it's being sold to, listening for cues and using them to move the conversation forward in a way that shows the client how best to partner with them, either by solving problems or helping them achieve their goals.
I coach sellers to invest time understanding the full picture:
- Needs, goals, challenges, and frustrations
- Priorities, timelines, and how they measure success
- Technology environment, growth plans, and future outlook
- Market position, competition, and decision-making process
- Limitations, history, organizational structure, and leadership team
- Communication preferences and internal dynamics
The goal is never simply to close a transaction. The goal is to create an excellent experience with the seller and their team. That experience builds trust, strengthens the relationship, and opens the door to future business and referrals. When a client thinks well of the seller, the team, and the brand, that positive perception becomes one of the most valuable assets the business has.
Clear expectations, honest alignment on goals and strategy, thoughtful stakeholder involvement when needed, and consistent follow-through are non-negotiable. I coach sellers to understand the solutions well enough to speak fluently to their value in the context of what the client actually cares about.
I also coach leaders and sellers to identify these early, not leave them until the deal is closing:
- A timeline for when the solution needs to go live, then work backward to a deadline for signature, so everyone's aligned on how the deal needs to move from day one.
- Who else is in the picture. Getting in early, framing the solution around what matters most to the client, and identifying where there's real separation on something they truly need.
- What's included in the purchase or subscription, what support looks like, and what falls to the client, so nothing surprises anyone later.
Pipeline
Forecast discipline and pipeline math
Knowing your business means knowing what's real. I inspect the ratios (contact attempts to leads, leads to opportunities, opportunities to sales) and the close rate at each stage. Then I work backwards to what needs to be in the pipeline to hit the target.
This discipline shows up in forecast accuracy, cleaner pipeline reviews, and teams that know exactly where they stand.
Feedback
In Their Words
“I've had the opportunity to work alongside Christina and she was so impressive, I recruited her to join my team as a Director of Sales Strategy. I could workshop a strategic idea with Christina, and then have full confidence that she would take the idea and make it into reality, AND exceed expectations of the vision.”
Gerry Brinkman
Sr. Director, Sales Strategy · Comcast Business
“Christina worked with my director team to develop specific goals and KPIs that we rolled out across 5 different regions across the company.”
Allison Bennett
Global Director of Sales
“Christina is a talented leader and strategist with a strong record of achievement and a genuine commitment to people.”
Sonya Callahan
VP, Sales & Marketing
“Her ability to connect strategy to results has set a new standard of excellence within her organization.”
David Trujillo
Director of Business Operations
“She is a go-getter with an excellent attitude and nonstop drive to make improvements for our enterprise field teams.”
Karen Zibits
Senior Manager, Sales Strategy · Direct Report
“Christina has been a great peer and partner, always ready to share best practices and help those around her grow, develop and succeed.”
Ruth Doellefeld
Inside Sales Partner
“I wanted to be on your team so I could be successful. I knew I'd get the most there.”
Jeremiah Nordby
Small Business Account Executive · Report
I wouldn't be where I am without the people who bet on me. I try to honor that by proving their decision was well made, and by paying it forward, helping others develop and find success too. That, plus showing my daughter we define our own limits, is what keeps me moving.