Summer Poletti

What to Do Before and After You Hire Sales and Why it Matters $150K is the floor. $500K is the real cost when a sales hire doesn't stick — and for founder-led or founder-dependent orgs, it usually isn't the person's fault. This session isn't about hiring better. It's about what has to be true before you hire at all — whether it's your first sales hire, your second through fourth as you scale a small team, or a re-hire after the last one didn't work out. The strategy almost never lives anywhere but the founder's head. You can't onboard someone into a system that doesn't exist. That's not a people problem — it's a sequencing problem, and there's a right order to solving it before the search even starts. Key Takeaways: The real cost curve of a sales hire — why ramp time is the exposure nobody budgets for What breaks internally (team confidence, client relationships, market perception) that never shows up in the hiring budget The three things that have to exist before the job goes live, and three that can build while the search runs And what to do after day one to ensure success

Most growth-stage companies aren't struggling because they lack ambition. They're scaling their problems. More people, more tools, and more AI on top of broken systems doesn't produce profit — it produces a more expensive version of the same problem. This talk covers the five most common profitability gaps — follow-up, sales process, marketing alignment, customer success, and partnerships — and shows leaders how to identify which one to fix first.

How to build career capital that belongs to you — before your employer makes the timing decision for you You’ve spent years building a career. You’re good at what you do. You have a strong reputation, a network, a track record, and people who know your value. But how much of that actually belongs to you? If your job disappeared tomorrow, would the market know what you’re good at — or mostly the people inside your current professional bubble? Would your network create opportunities? Could someone who doesn’t already know you find evidence of your expertise and results? And if your Plan B is consulting, fractional work, advisory work, or simply finding another senior role, how long would it take to turn your experience into your next reliable source of income? Those questions matter more right now. The corporate job market is brutal. Layoffs, reorganizations, AI and economic uncertainty are changing jobs and career paths quickly. And senior professionals don’t always get to choose when their next transition begins. Meanwhile, going independent can look like the obvious safety net: I know how to do this work. I’ll just do it for myself. What you don't see on LinkedIn are nearly as many posts about the slow pipelines, unstable revenue, credibility rebuilding and years it can take independent professionals to establish sustainable demand. The safest time to build your next option is while you don't need it yet. In this live 60-minute workshop, you’ll learn how to distinguish the career capital attached to your current position from the portable capital that goes wherever you go. You'll identify where you're most exposed and walk through five practical ways to strengthen your personal brand, reputation, relationships, proof and visibility without turning career preparation into another part-time job. Before you leave, you'll choose the two highest-leverage, lowest-lift moves you can start now. You need to make sure that if the timing of your next career move isn't yours to choose, you aren't starting from scratch. This is not a quit-your-job workshop or a formula for becoming a consultant. It's for senior professionals who want more control over whatever comes next — even if they fully intend to stay where they are.