What this one proves: you can sell like yourself and finish a quarter 5th in EMEA.

Somewhere along the way you picked up a belief about what it takes to be good at sales. Pushy. Always-on. A type.

You're not that type.

So when the bad quarters come, your brain offers the obvious explanation: maybe you're not cut out for this.

That's where Matthew was when he started.

The Before

Matthew was a Senior Account Executive at Shopify. After six years as a Solutions Engineer, including time at Salesforce.

Ten months into the AE seat, two of his three quarters had been self-proclaimed: bad.

The day after a quarter closed: chest tight on the couch. In his own words:

"essentially sitting there with almost like a panic attack."

His words:

"Too many times I wake up check my email and then the rest of the day is determined by what is in that email."

He had a calendar block called "prospecting" that had never once contained any.

He nearly didn't book at all: he couldn't tell whether what he needed was coaching, therapy or psychology.

His three words at the start:

Scattered, Motivated, Doubtful.

The statement that resonated most on his scorecard:

"I often feel I'll get found out."

The Work

The Focus work started with a 3x3 daily prospecting rhythm. Three emails, three calls, 9 to 9:30am, every day, paired with a small reward at the end of the block.

The Mindset work went after the belief underneath his cold-calling avoidance. We challenged that limiting belief live in a session, evidence first.

Then he made the calls.

Five connects, one meeting booked, four clean nos, and Matthew's own verdict:

"not that scary."

Then the belief he'd arrived with:

"I knew I can be a fantastic salesperson. I think one of the things that I don't think I can be very good at is the grittiness."

Over the programme, that belief flipped. The "art" of sales was not pushiness. It was selling like himself.

Matthew built his own frame for it: do it his way, and get a little better every day. That was the only part he could control.

The identity line, when it came, was matter-of-fact:

"I'm not just loyal to Shopify. I'm loyal to myself and I'm loyal to my reputation."

By the back half of the programme he was self-coaching between sessions, and had built a values-and-behaviours document so he could return to the work on his own.

This isa fraction of what twelve weeks on the Sellers OS using the LOOP Method covered.

The After

He finished the quarter ranked 5th in EMEA.

A new Head of Global Sales rolled out a punitive activity dashboard and Matthew was flagged for underperformance. He stayed grounded, treated it as data about one slice of the work, and kept going.

The energy came back too. Squash and paddle, strength training three days a week.

As he put it:

"I haven't felt this energetic about a role since I started as an SE."

His manager asked him to teach the wider team his approach to the hardest part of the product to sell.

By the end he'd answered the question he arrived with:

"I actually see myself staying in this role for a long time. Right? Because... I kind of see that you don't have to change the way you operate."

His three words at close:

Calm, Fulfilled, Energised.

The statement on his scorecard went from "I often feel I'll get found out" to:

"I often feel calm and in control."

Same role. Same employer. A different operating system underneath.

"Ben really helped me reflect on which sales person I wanted to be and build an operating system that allowed me to progress even on bad days."

• Matthew, Account Executive, Shopify

From Matthew's Testimonial

"He gave me a framework for separating fear-based narratives from evidence - and made me run it on actual situations which I still use today when I do my worst activity - cold calling."

"I was recently flagged on an internal activity underperformance dashboard, sat in a room with fifty people processing the same news, and felt nothing - because I knew my pipeline and activity levels better than the dashboard did. Two quarters ago, that conversation would have spiralled me for a week."

"I would recommend Ben to anyone considering the program."

• Matthew, Account Executive, Shopify

If you've been wondering whether you're cut out for this role, the next step is a conversation, not a commitment.

Book a Game Plan Call below. 15 minutes on where you're stuck and what's underneath it.

Name changed to protect the individual's privacy.