“I hired the best head of sales I could find. It didn’t work.”
I hear some version quite often.
The agency that generated unqualified leads. The referral partnership that produced one meeting in six months. The LinkedIn ghostwriter who built an audience that never converted. The business coach who was good but didn’t affect results.
The diagnosis is always the same: bad vendor, wrong strategy, bad timing.
The actual problem is never any of these things.
Here is what is actually happening.
The consultant running this business is a Project Leader (or a Maker). Their entire professional identity is built around delivery. They became successful by being the best person in the room at the work. Excellent outputs. Strong client relationships. A reputation built over years of doing things properly.
That identity got them to where they are.
It is also what is keeping them stuck.
In contrast, a Growth Leader (or a Multiplier) operates from a different centre of gravity. They have made a decision that building the business is the job – not a distraction from it. Pipeline, positioning, and visibility are not uncomfortable obligations they squeeze in between client work. They are the work.
The Project Leader/Maker has not made that decision. So every growth initiative gets quietly undermined from the inside.
It shows up in five specific ways:
🔒 1. Holding onto low-yielding work – because busyness feels safer than the discomfort of growth
🔒 2. Resistance to stepping into a genuine marketing role – because it feels beneath the expertise
🔒 3. Avoiding visibility and rejection – because putting yourself out there feels risky to a reputation built on quiet excellence
🔒 4. Inability to replicate themselves in delivery – because nobody else will do it to their standard
🔒 5. Refusing to invest in systems that reduce short-term profit – because the ROI feels uncertain and the cost feels immediate
Each one feels like a practical problem with a practical solution.
None of them are.
They are identity problems. And identity problems do not respond to better vendors, smarter strategies, or more sophisticated tools.
In my experience, the shift from Project Leader (Maker) to Growth Leader (Multiplier) is not a skills upgrade. It is a decision about who you are in your business.
Until that decision gets made, the next head of sales and the next agency will disappoint you for exactly the same reason.
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