"Don't Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life."

Don Miguel Ruiz

Allow this wonderful quote to become the eye-opener you as an executive need when it comes to your sales team.

My belief is that many leaders assume their salespeople are already selling from the heart, meaning they’re being authentic, building trust, and putting the client first.

You know what? Assumptions are a dangerous game to play. Without courageous questions and open communication, you might just have a bunch of empty suits in the field, salespeople who look busy but aren’t engaging with authenticity.

Let's bring some stark reality to the forefront:

• For God's sake, stop the assumptions. Don’t assume that because someone is hitting quota, they’re selling from the heart. Numbers alone don’t reveal authenticity. You must ask deep questions about how they’re building those relationships, what meaningful value they’re providing, and how they're showing up for clients.

• Find the courage to ask questions. As a leader, courage means digging deeper. Are your salespeople having genuine, trust-building conversations with clients, or are they relying on scripts and surface-level tactics? Courageous coaching questions uncover whether someone is truly authentic.

• Communicate clearly to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. When leaders struggle to clearly communicate what selling from the heart really looks like; authentic relationships, meaningful value, inspirational experiences and disciplined habits, salespeople fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. That’s where drama and missed expectations creep in.

• With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. The same is true for your sales culture. Imagine the shift if every salesperson not only hit numbers but also sold with authenticity, integrity, and care. That’s where real transformation in trust, loyalty, and revenue happens.

Don’t assume authenticity, inspect what you expect. Coach with heart, ask hard questions, the necessary questions and make selling from the heart the standard, not the exception.

As we start our journey together, I ask you, will you find the courage to get with your team to discuss what you really want, from the heart?

Why This Matters for a CEO or President

Dashboards will tell you what's happening but not the why behind it. Revenue growth, margins, and retention are outputs. The hidden input, well, that's the fuel behind sustainable growth.

This is all about whether your sales team shows up with authenticity and trust.

Clients and possibly even yours are fatigued by empty pitches, pushy tactics, and shallow relationships.

What they crave are sales professionals who:

• Build Authentic Relationships (AR). Without relational depth, they’re just another vendor.

• Deliver Meaningful Value (MV). It’s not about features; it’s about helping clients achieve their goals and outcomes.

• Create Inspirational Experiences (IE). Memorable experiences create differentiation in crowded markets by reducing churn and open doors for referrals.

• Model Disciplined Habits (DH). Consistency, not one-off heroics drives predictable revenue.

Together, these make up The Trust Formula, which is the leading indicator of revenue growth, client loyalty, and market differentiation.

Would you know if your sales team is Selling from the Heart?

This may sound like a soft question, but its impact is anything but soft. In fact, the degree to which your sales team embraces authenticity, trust, and heart has direct consequences for your revenue growth, profitability, and client sustainability.

If your sales team isn’t Selling from the Heart:

• You’ll see stalled deals and more no-decisions.

• You’ll face eroding margins because client's default to price when trust is absent.

• You’ll struggle with retention as clients feel like transactions instead of partners.

We all know, as the leader, you set the tone. If your desire is exponential growth, it won’t just come from pipeline math or marketing spend.

It comes from embedding authenticity and trust into your culture because trusted teams win more, keep more, and grow more.

So, the real question is... Are you willing to measure what matters most, the heart behind the numbers?

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The Competitive Edge You Can’t Afford to Ignore

Authenticity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s your competitive differentiator. The business world is overloaded with information and plagued by distrust, clients are no longer looking for the slickest pitch, they’re looking for someone they can trust.

Trust isn’t accidental, it’s built intentionally through the Trust Formula:

• Authentic Relationships is about showing up as yourself, not an empty suit.

• Meaningful Value is about tailoring your insights to what matters to each decision-maker.

• Inspirational Experiences is about creating moments that instill confidence in the buying journey.

• Disciplined Habits is about following through consistently so clients know they can rely on you.

When your sales team sells from the heart, three powerful things starts to happen:

1. Revenue grows more consistently. Authentic professionals win net-new opportunities by building trust quickly and expand inside existing accounts by going deeper, not just wider.

2. Profits increase as trust shifts conversations from price to value. Clients will pay more for a partner they know has their best interests at heart.

3. Long-term client sustainability strengthens. Loyal clients don’t just stay longer, they bring referrals, as they become your most credible advocates.

Selling from the Heart is not a soft skill, it’s a hard-edge growth strategy. The heart always comes before the head.

Authenticity is not a tactic, it’s a way of being that fuels consistent revenue, higher margins, and lasting loyalty.

Why CEOs and Presidents Struggle to See This

Here lies the challenge, most executive scorecards aren’t designed to measure authenticity.

Dashboards glow with numbers, things like closed-won deals, revenue growth, and profit margins. All those are just lagging indicators. Granted, they reveal outcomes, not the integrity of the path that produced them.

Let's look at the following and then you choose which one:

• A salesperson who cuts corners, hides behind product pitches, or chases numbers without integrity may deliver impressive short-term spikes. Yet beneath the surface, they're quietly depleting the trust capital of the business. Over time, these wins turn into churn, margin pressure, and a reputation that’s difficult to repair.

• A salesperson who chooses the harder, slower road by investing in authentic relationships, bringing meaningful value, and consistently following through, may take longer to register their first win. But once that trust is earned, it compounds. Clients stay longer, spend more, and invite others into the relationship.

This is where many leadership teams miss the mark. They manage what can be measured, the numbers but overlook what cannot be easily quantified, that being trust, authenticity, loyalty, and relational depth.

The way revenue is generated matters just as much as the revenue itself. Executives who ignore this run the risk of mistaking short-term activity for long-term health.

Four Questions Every CEO Should Ask About Their Sales Team

If you truly want to know whether your sales team is Selling from the Heart, ask yourself and your executive team the following:

1. Are our salespeople building authentic relationships, or just managing transactions?

Meaningful, genuine relationships drive revenue sustainability. Authentic relationships are rooted in trust, transparency, and care.

Ask yourself... Are our salespeople known as trusted advisors, or just vendors competing on price?

2. Do our clients see meaningful value beyond our products and services?

Clients today expect more than features and benefits. They want insight, perspective, and value that speaks directly to their business outcomes.

Ask yourself... Are our salespeople delivering that?

3. Is the client experience inspirational or forgettable?

Clients rarely remember a sales pitch, but they always remember how they felt. Sales professionals who sell from the heart create inspirational experiences that differentiate your company from competitors.

4. Are our salespeople consistent in their habits?

Authenticity isn’t a one-time event; it’s built through disciplined habits. Trust grows when your team consistently follows through, communicates openly, and shows up prepared.

What If Authenticity Is the Growth Strategy You’ve Been Overlooking?

Authentic sellers don’t burn energy chasing every deal. They focus on real opportunities, increasing efficiency and lowering the true cost of sales.

Executives are fluent in metrics around revenue growth, profit margins, client retention. But what often goes unseen is the engine beneath those numbers. What if the biggest driver of sustainable growth isn’t a new sales process, a fresh tech stack, or a clever campaign but the authenticity of your sales force?

Consider the ripple effect of authentic selling through the metrics CEOs and Presidents care about most:

1. Revenue growth, as Selling from the Heart creates trust, the currency that accelerates referrals and fuels cross-selling opportunities.

2. Profitability, as rust pulls you out of the race to the bottom. Clients pay more for partners they believe in and stay loyal to.

3. Client sustainability, as revenue stability requires client stability. Authentic relationships weather market shifts and fend off competitors’ fancy pitches.

Here’s the deeper question for leaders... Are you managing only the outcomes or are you examining how those outcomes are achieved?

A salesperson who cuts corners may post quick wins, but those wins come at the cost of reputation and retention. Conversely, a salesperson who earns trust may take longer to show up on the scoreboard but when they do, their results last, multiply, and attract others.

Authenticity compounds just like interest in a bank account, its impact grows over time.

Short-term gains are easy to measure; long-term trust is harder. Yet the latter is what separates companies that survive quarters from those that thrive for decades.

The real business case for authentic selling isn’t just about hitting targets this year. It’s about building a sales culture that produces consistent revenue, stronger margins, and client relationships that endure long after the next sales playbook is forgotten.

Where Do You Begin?

As CEO, you don’t need to flip a switch and overhaul your sales department overnight. But you do need to lead the shift by asking different questions, challenging old assumptions, and modeling the culture you want to see.

You might begin by:

Auditing your sales culture, as numbers only tell part of the story.

• How are your salespeople showing up in the marketplace?

• Do clients describe them as trusted advisors or transactional order-takers?

• Are your salespeople bringing meaningful insights that move the needle for clients, or simply pitching products?

• When clients think about your salespeople, do they feel confidence or caution?

Redefining success metrics, as revenue and margins matter but they don’t tell you everything.

What if you expanded your metrics to include trust signals such as client retention, referral volume and client satisfaction?

These aren’t soft indicators; they're leading predictors of long-term growth.

Modeling the behavior as culture cascades from the top.

Think about this:

• Do your people see authenticity in how you lead, communicate, and negotiate?

• Are you transparent in your decision-making, or do you hide behind the numbers?

Leaders who embody authenticity give permission for others to do the same.

What message would it send if your next award went not to the fastest closer, but to the one who turned a skeptical client into a loyal advocate?

A Challenge to CEOs and Presidents

Your business will only ever be as strong as the trust your clients place in your salespeople.

Your salespeople will only ever be as authentic as the culture you model from the top.

Would you truly know if your sales team is Selling from the Heart or just going through the motions?

And if you’re uncertain then... How much is that blind spot quietly costing you in revenue, profit, and long-term client loyalty?

This isn’t about adding another metric to your dashboard. It’s about confronting a deeper truth that growth without authenticity is fragile.

The time to act is now as I encourage you to lead the cultural shift. Champion authenticity as the non-negotiable standard.

When you build a sales culture rooted in trust, you don’t just build a company that grows, you build one that endures.

Originally published on Larry Levine's LinkedIn.