Chasing Impact, Not Sales

Mandy Minitello
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Weekly

Whether you're a founder, sales leader, or just tired of icky tactics and pressure-heavy pitches, Chasing Impact, Not Sales podcast is your new home. Join Mandy Minitello as she shares battle-tested strategies, tips and tricks, and behind-the-scenes stories from nearly a decade in the sales consulting world. From scaling startups to supporting multi-million dollar brands, she brings a fresh perspective on how true impact—not manipulation—builds unstoppable growth.

  1. 3d ago

    Diagnose Before You Pitch: The Call Mistake Costing You Sales

    I am coming to you solo this week, and I have something on my heart that I think is quietly costing a lot of people sales they should be winning. Discovery calls. Consult calls. Closing calls. Whatever you call them in your world, this is one of the biggest places where sales opportunities are lost and most people never even see it coming because the call felt so good while it was happening. Here is the thing. The problem is almost never your pitch. The problem is that you pitched before you ever really understood the problem. And there is a massive difference between a discovery call and a presentation. One is a diagnosis. The other is a feature dump. And if you are showing up to your calls ready to tell people everything your offer can do before you have uncovered what they actually need, you are doing it backwards. By the time someone gets on a call with you in this day and age, they have already Googled, ChatGPT-ed, Clauded, whatever-ed everything they could find about your product or service. They are not there to be presented to. They are there to find out if you understand their problem well enough to solve it. So in this episode I walk through a simple four-part framework for every discovery call, no matter what you sell. We talk about why setting the context in the first 60 seconds changes everything, why rapport and discovery are not the same thing and confusing them is costing you time, and why the most powerful thing you can do is stop telling people what their problem is costing them and start asking what it would cost them if nothing changes. The difference in how that lands in someone's body is everything. I also get into something I talk about with sales leaders all the time. If your results depend on one naturally gifted closer, you do not have a sales process. You have a people-dependent process. And that is a very fragile place to build a business. Diagnose first. Pitch second. That is it. That is the whole thing. Let's go. Connect with Mandy: Book a free consult: https://calendly.com/mandyminitello-consult/30min Grab the KPI Cheat Sheet: https://mandyminitello.kit.com/cheatsheet

  2. Oct 13

    Sales Is a Craft, Not a Con — with Dean Curtis

    I have to be honest. Dean Curtis sent me an introductory email and I almost did not know what to expect. Another educator turned corporate sales professional? What are the chances??? And then he said five words that stopped me cold. Sales is a craft, not a con. And I was like, okay, we need to talk. Dean is the CEO of Ingage, a sales content platform built for home improvement contractors who want to show up to the appointment ready to win. But what makes this conversation so good is not just what he has built. It is how he thinks about sales, because it sounds a whole lot like what we talk about every single week on this podcast. We get into the 70-30 rule his team lives by and why their close rate goes up when his reps stop talking. We talk about why showing up with a feature dump is one of the fastest ways to lose a deal and how finding the three things that actually matter to the person in front of you changes everything. And his advice for CEOs at the end of this episode is something I genuinely needed to hear too. Stop muscling through it alone. Get in rooms with people who have already done what you are trying to do. Send the elevator back down. This one felt like a conversation between two people who just get it. I think you are going to love it. Let's go. About Dean: Dean Curtis is the CEO of Ingage, a former math teacher turned Apple enterprise technologist, helping contractors make the presentation their strongest asset since 2017. Connect with Dean: Instagram: @deancurtis23 | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/deanc23 | Facebook: Dean Curtis Connect with Ingage: Instagram: @ingage.io | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/ingageio Connect with Mandy: Book a free consult: https://calendly.com/mandyminitello-consult/30min Grab the KPI Cheat Sheet: https://mandyminitello.kit.com/cheatsheet

  3. Sep 29

    Interest Creates Conversations. Readiness Creates Movement.

    Happy Q4, friends. And yes, I said it. Q4 energy is my favorite energy. Not Q1. Q4 is what sets the tone for everything that comes after it, and if you are a sales professional who wants Q1 to hit differently, this episode is exactly where to start. Because what I want to talk about today is a tiny nuance that is quietly wrecking pipelines everywhere. The difference between interest and readiness. Here is what I am seeing in the field right now. Someone engages with your content. They ask great questions. They hop on a consult call without hesitation. Everything in your gut says HOT lead. But then the call goes nowhere. And then the next one goes nowhere. And suddenly you are staring at a pipeline full of people who love your offer and wondering what is wrong with your process? Nothing is wrong with your process. You have an interest problem, not a readiness problem. Those are two completely different things. Interest means I want this. Readiness means I am prepared to do something about this. An interested buyer is curious, engaged, and can absolutely see the potential. BUT they are also thinking "maybe someday", or "I need to figure a few things out first." They are showing you curiosity, not commitment. When you treat curiosity like commitment, you burn your calendar chasing conversations that were not going to convert. A ready buyer is different. They have already connected the problem to the cost of staying exactly where they are. They do not just recognize that you might be their answer someday. They are prepared to participate in the solution right now. They welcome the questions, they push back on their own objections, and they understand that something has to change because the cost of staying put is no longer acceptable. That is what makes the close feel easy. Not your script. Not your closing technique. The readiness of the buyer walking into the room. So here is the challenge I want to leave you with. Look at your pipeline right now, especially your "hot" leads, and ask yourself a different question. Not do they want what I sell, but are they ready for what it will require? Because your job in sales is not to turn every interested person into a buyer. That is marketing's lane. Your job is to recognize when interest becomes readiness. And when someone is truly ready, your role shifts from convincing to simply joining hands and helping them make a clear, informed decision. Interest creates conversations. Readiness creates movement. And knowing the difference is what separates chasing sales from chasing impact. Let's go. Connect with Mandy: Book a free consult: https://calendly.com/mandyminitello-consult/30min Grab the KPI Cheat Sheet: https://mandyminitello.kit.com/cheatsheet

  4. Sep 8

    When You Create a Win for Them, You Create a Win for You — with Guest Jonny Havey

    Anyone who has followed me for any length of time knows that before I ever stepped into the world of sales and business, I was an educator. So when someone comes across my radar who has built an entire business around the bridge between education and impact, and can connect it all the way through to the bottom line, I am going to find a way to get them on this mic. Jonny Havey is the founder of eLearning Partners, a former CPA and IT auditor at Price Waterhouse Coopers, and one of the most uniquely positioned people I have had the pleasure of sitting down with. Right brain, left brain, numbers and storytelling, all firing at once. And what he has built out of that combination is something I think every business owner, sales leader, and founder needs to hear. Here is what stopped me in this conversation. Jonny did not get his job at PwC because of his accounting degree. He got it because of his film degree, and because he spent 45 minutes talking about Lord of the Rings with the director who interviewed him. That story alone tells you everything about what he believes, and everything about what we talk about on this podcast. Connection closes. Credentials just get you in the room. But where Jonny takes it from there is where things get really interesting. Because what he has spent years building is a framework that most businesses are desperately missing. The ability to identify and articulate the return on investment not just for the company, but for the customer and the team member as well. He calls it the win-win-win, and when all three of those circles align, something remarkable happens. Education becomes a competitive advantage, profit leaks get plugged, and the impact scales. We also get into why so many incredible training and education initiatives inside organizations never get the funding or the attention they deserve, and what it actually takes to tell that story in a way that moves the needle on the income statement. If you have been focused on closing deals and checking quotas, this episode is going to reframe the whole thing. Get obsessed with the triple win, and watch everything else follow. Let's go. Connect with Jonny: Learn more about Jonny and eLearning Partners and join his Plug the Profit Leak Challenge at plugtheprofitleak.com Connect with Mandy: Book a free consult: https://calendly.com/mandyminitello-consult/30min Grab the KPI Cheat Sheet: https://mandyminitello.kit.com/cheatsheet

  5. Aug 25

    Coach the Play, Not the Sale.

    Every Monday my son's football team sits down and watches the film. Not just the final score. Not just the last play. Every single series, every single moment that led to the outcome. Because a good coach knows the score is just the symptom. The real work happened long before the clock ran out. Sales coaching works exactly the same way, and most coaches are getting it wrong. If you are a sales leader, a sales manager, or a consultant who has ever sat across from a struggling rep and said we just need to work on closing, this episode is for you. Because here is the truth that most coaching misses entirely. The close is not where deals are won or lost. It is where the truth of everything that already happened in the conversation is finally revealed. By the time you get to the close, clarity has either been built or it has not. Trust has either been established or it has not. The buyer either feels the weight of their problem or they do not. And no closing technique, no objection handling script, and no amount of pressure coaching can fix what the conversation failed to do. When a deal stalls at the end, that hesitation is not the problem. It is the symptom. And when coaches obsess over the symptom instead of rewinding the tape to find the real cause, they send their reps back out with better scripts and more pressure, which creates friction on both sides and rarely results in a close that actually sticks. The fix is almost never at the end. It is at the beginning. Obsess over the quality of the conversation. Obsess over every play. Because when the conversation creates clarity, trust, and alignment, the close does not feel like a moment. It just feels like what happens next. Stop coaching the close. Start leading better conversations and watch everything else follow. Let's go. Connect with Mandy: Book a free consult: https://calendly.com/mandyminitello-consult/30min Grab the KPI Cheat Sheet: https://mandyminitello.kit.com/cheatsheet

  6. Aug 12

    Smart Doesn't Sell. Clarity Does

    There is a trap that high performers fall into, and most of them never even see it coming. It does not happen because they are not good at what they do. It actually happens because they are really good at what they do. It is the need to sound impressive. And in a sales conversation, that need is quietly costing people deals they should be winning. Here is what it looks like in real life. The conversation is going well. You are using the right language, bringing strong insight, demonstrating your expertise. But somewhere along the way the goal shifts. Without even realizing it you stop trying to help the buyer understand and start trying to prove that you understand. And the moment that happens, clarity gets replaced with performance. The buyer is not evaluating how smart you sound. They are asking themselves one question the entire time. Do I get it? And if the answer is no, they do not move. They nod, they hesitate, they throw out objection after objection without ever being able to articulate why, because they never walked away clear. They walked away still trying to process something that did not land. The strongest sales leaders are not the ones who sound the most impressive. They are the ones who take something complex and make it feel simple and relevant for the person sitting across from them. Not dumbed down. Relevant. There is a big difference. So the next time you are mid conversation, stop asking yourself how you sound. Start asking whether they are clear. Because you do not win deals by being the smartest person in the room. You win them by being the clearest. When the buyer truly understands, the decision does not feel risky. It just feels like the obvious next step. Let's go. Connect with Mandy: Book a free consult: https://calendly.com/mandyminitello-consult/30min Grab the KPI Cheat Sheet: https://mandyminitello.kit.com/cheatsheet

  7. Jul 28

    From the Cockpit to the Boardroom: What Fighter Pilots Know About Impact with Guest: Boo Boucousis

    div]:bg-bg-000/50 [&_pre>div]:border-0.5 [&_pre>div]:border-border-400 [&_.ignore-pre-bg>div]:bg-transparent [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8"> _*]:min-w-0 gap-3 [&_>_*:last-child]:mb-0 print:block print:[&_>_*_+_*]:mt-3 standard-markdown"> From the Cockpit to the Boardroom: What Fighter Pilots Know About Impact with Guest: Boo Boucousis I saw his story and I knew immediately. Fighter pilot turned CEO. Worked with NFL teams. Thirty plus years of building one of the most unique companies I have ever come across. I had to get him on the mic. Boo Boucousis is the CEO of Afterburner, and what he brought to this conversation stopped me in my tracks more than once. Because what he shared is not just about flying jets or leading elite military missions. It is about the way the best performers in the world think, debrief, iterate, and grow. And it applies directly to every sales professional, every leader, and every founder trying to figure out why they keep getting busy without getting better. Here is what hit me hardest. Eighty three to eighty five percent of businesses lack the clarity of objectives needed to drive genuine execution. They are not failing at closing or delivering. They are failing at defining what they are actually trying to hit in the first place. Sound familiar? Boo breaks down the ORCA method, a four step framework born in the cockpit that fighter pilots use on every single mission. Objective, result, cause, action. It is the debrief culture that took performance up four hundred percent in the Air Force, and it is the same framework that Afterburner has taken into boardrooms, NFL locker rooms, and sales teams around the world. We also get into what it really means to be aware versus just existing, why the hunter killer sales role is done, and what the future of the SDR looks like in a world where machines are starting to both buy and sell. And his final question to the audience is one I am still thinking about. Are you existing on earth, or are you aware on earth? This one is worth every minute. Let's go. Connect with Boo: Visit callmeboo.com or search Boucousis on any AI platform or Google. His family is the only one on earth with that name, so you will find him. Connect with Mandy: Book a free consult: https://calendly.com/mandyminitello-consult/30min Grab the KPI Cheat Sheet: https://mandyminitello.kit.com/cheatsheet

    From the Cockpit to the Boardroom: What Fighter Pilots Know About Impact with Guest: Boo Boucousis

  8. Jul 14

    The Hidden Cost of Over-Explaining in Sales

    I am back, feeling good, and ironically talking a lot today about talking too much. We have all been there. You are on a sales call, things are going well, and then the buyer pauses. Maybe they ask one more question. And something in you shifts, and you just start talking. And talking. And talking. You know it is happening, you can feel it, and you just cannot stop it. That word vomit moment that every single sales professional has experienced at least once, and if you say you have not, I do not believe you. Here is what is actually happening in that moment. The instinct to explain more comes from a good place. We want clarity. But when we cross that line from explaining into over explaining, we do not create clarity. We create confusion. And a confused mind does not say yes. When a buyer hesitates, they are rarely asking for more information. They are processing. They are almost there. But when you pile on more details and more justification, you make the decision feel heavier and more complex than it was a second ago. You shift from leading the conversation to convincing. And we all know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that. The move is simple but not always easy. Pause. Ask them what feels unclear, or what part of this feels biggest for you right now. Those two questions will do more for the conversation than any amount of re-explaining ever could. Let them give you the answer key. Clarity does not come from adding more. It comes from removing the confusion. And you cannot remove it until you know where it is. Let's go. Connect with Mandy: Book a free consult: https://calendly.com/mandyminitello-consult/30min Grab the KPI Cheat Sheet: https://mandyminitello.kit.com/cheatsheet

    The Hidden Cost of Over-Explaining in Sales
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Whether you're a founder, sales leader, or just tired of icky tactics and pressure-heavy pitches, Chasing Impact, Not Sales podcast is your new home. Join Mandy Minitello as she shares battle-tested strategies, tips and tricks, and behind-the-scenes stories from nearly a decade in the sales consulting world. From scaling startups to supporting multi-million dollar brands, she brings a fresh perspective on how true impact—not manipulation—builds unstoppable growth.

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