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.
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
8 Sept 2026
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
25 Aug 2026
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
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