Then I fix it — whether it's living in sales, in marketing, in operations, or on the founder's own calendar. Ten-plus years rebuilding commercial systems for businesses that needed someone to diagnose what wasn't working and get the team executing on it.
I don't start with a favourite lever. I start by finding the specific place where good salespeople get stuck — and follow it wherever it actually leads, whether that's the pipeline and forecasting discipline, the messaging and demand generation feeding the team, the operations fulfilling what's sold, or a founder's calendar that's quietly become the real bottleneck.
A selection of what "rebuilding the commercial system" has actually looked like.
"Our pipeline looks fine on paper."
And falls apart the moment someone asks a specific rep to walk through it live.
"We hired good salespeople and they're still not hitting target."
Sometimes the rep is the problem. More often, marketing isn't handing them anything qualified, or ops can't fulfil what they're selling.
"Nobody can tell me what's actually in the forecast."
If the answer lives in one person's head instead of a system, it isn't a forecast — it's a guess with confidence.
"We're not ready for a full-time hire, but we can't keep running like this."
You need the discipline of a Head of Sales without the eighteen-month bet of hiring one against an unproven motion.
Ongoing, embedded leadership for a business that needs commercial discipline but isn't ready for a full-time executive hire. I step into the operating cadence — pipeline, forecasting, coaching, GTM — and run it as if I were staff, on a retainer or day-rate basis. When the bottleneck sits outside sales, I bring in the right people from marketing or ops rather than pretending it isn't there.
Best for: 3–12 month engagements Enquire about this →A focused, time-boxed review of your sales process, pipeline health, and team structure — what's working, what's costing you revenue, and what to fix first.
Best for: a 2–4 week engagement Enquire about this →A free, no-pressure call — tell me what's going on, and I'll tell you honestly whether I think I can help.
Book a 30-minute chat| Working with Lydia | Full-time head of sales | Traditional consultancy | Doing it yourself | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commitment | A defined engagement, not a headcount bet | Base salary + equity, whether or not the motion is proven | A retainer for hours, not outcomes | Your own time, indefinitely |
| Who's in the room | Whoever the bottleneck actually involves — sales, marketing, ops, or you | Sales only, usually | Whoever's on the deck | Also you |
| What you're left with | A working system your next hire can run | Depends on the hire | A deck on a shelf | Whatever's in your head |
| Speed to start | Weeks | Months of hiring, then a ramp | Weeks | Already stalled |
BevAlc distribution, medical technology, industrial services — different products, same job: find out what's actually stopping the team from executing, and rebuild it.
Before any of this, I was a two-time World Champion NBA cheerleader (Utah Jazz, Orlando Magic) and an NCAA Division I scholarship athlete. The discipline hasn't gone anywhere — it just found a new arena.