That CFO who hadn’t replied in six months suddenly invited a conversation.

The multimillion-dollar deal that was stalled? It restarted.

The global client who saw them as “just another vendor”? They became trusted advisors.

What changed?

The Partner stopped trying to sell them anything.

Here’s how it happened.

I was running a group coaching session for Big 4 Partners who were missing their growth and profitability targets.

Halfway through the session, one of them confessed his frustration:

“Venkat, we’re doing everything, more proposals, more pursuits, more reviews. But that CFO still won’t respond. Our pipeline is stalled. What are we missing?”

I could see heads nodding around the room. They were all facing similar challenges, opportunities going silent, deals stuck in limbo, CXOs who had become unreachable.

That’s when I asked them a question.

“When was the last time you had a conversation with a CXO where you weren’t trying to close something?”

The room went silent.

The realization was dawning on them: they’d been so busy selling that they’d forgotten how to connect.

I offered them two behaviors to practice for the next 30 days.

Both felt completely counterintuitive to everything they’d been trained to do:

First: Build one emotional bank account every day.

Not a transaction. Not a pursuit. Just a genuine investment in a relationship without expecting anything in return.

Think about it, when was the last time you reached out to a client just to check how they’re doing? Just authentic curiosity about their world without any agenda or pitch deck.

Second: Have one CXO conversation daily to understand them, not to sell to them.

One Partner immediately pushed back.

“We don’t have time for that.”

I smiled and said something that felt harsh in the moment but necessary:

“You don’t have time not to.”

Here’s the thing, we’ve built entire sales machines around efficiency, velocity, and conversion rates. But somewhere along the way, we forgot that we’re dealing with human beings who crave authentic connection.

They committed to the experiment.

What happened over the next 30 days surprised even these seasoned professionals:

That silent CFO? He finally replied and invited them to a meeting.

A stalled multimillion-dollar project restarted.

A global client moved them from “vendor” to “trusted advisor.”

Internal collaboration increased too. When Partners started building emotional bank accounts with each other, the entire culture shifted.

The shift happened because the Partner started showing up differently, with genuine curiosity instead of a hidden agenda.

At our next coaching session, a senior Partner shared something that’s stayed with me:

“Venkat, our numbers didn’t change at first. We changed first. And then the numbers followed.”

Think about that for a moment.

We spend so much energy optimizing our processes, refining our pitch decks, and perfecting our proposals.

But the real leverage isn’t in doing more activity.

It’s in bringing more humanity to the activity we’re already doing.

After 25 years of coaching Fortune 500 sales leaders, I’ve seen this pattern repeat itself countless times. The breakthrough doesn’t come from adding another layer of complexity to your sales motion.

It comes from remembering that every CXO conversation is a human-to-human interaction first, and a business transaction second.

That’s when the real opportunities emerge.

What’s the most counterintuitive advice that ended up moving the needle for you? I’d love to hear your stories, hit reply and share them with me.

Looking forward to helping you win more.

Venkat

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