I love to share the story about how our AI forecasting tool at one company hit a 2% margin of error by the second week of the quarter, for 16 of the 17 quarters we used it. That's the kind of accuracy that changes what a board conversation sounds like.

But the tool only works alongside the boring part — every seller ranking their own deals as committed, best-case, or unlikely, every week, so you can see who's chronically optimistic and who's sandbagging before it costs you a quarter.

We also talked about something less tactical: personal brand. My own career has been a string of three-to-five-year stints as PE ownership changes hands, and the data says most people now will hold over a dozen jobs in their career. If your credibility lives entirely inside one employer's badge, it disappears the day that badge does. I've built mine — writing, speaking, showing up — on purpose, not because I love self-promotion, but because the alternative is starting from zero every few years.