Christina has been a guide for just under a year, in Madison, Wisconsin. Ask her what background you need and the answer is short: management experience in some business, and self-awareness. That’s the list. She’s more interested in what happens after you start — the pleasant persistence it takes when it’s five or seven follow-ups before someone will talk to you, and what she got from a Sales Mastery group that wasn’t only newbies.

Patrick had four kids, a multi-six-figure income, and time at General Electric and Texas Instruments behind him when he walked away at 45. He’d run his own companies before, so it wasn’t the risk that scared him — it was the consistent salary he’d be leaving. What tipped it wasn’t a spreadsheet. His wife told him she wanted to be with the guy she married again.

Erik’s first Pinnacle client wasn’t a cold lead. It was someone he’d already worked with — a relationship built long before Pinnacle was on his radar, which meant the conversation was an introduction rather than a pitch. He talks about why trust is the whole currency in this business, what it looks like to nurture a relationship in the months when there’s nothing to sell, and why he came away from his first Summit with four or five real connections instead of a hundred business cards.

Justin flew Apaches for the Army for 20 years before he retired in 2019. He almost went a different direction with coaching until a Pinnacle guide showed up in his LinkedIn feed. He talks about what the military taught him, why his clients treat him like part of the executive team, and what he had to unlearn about forcing everyone into the same box.

Brett spent 27 years at one company, coached and led teams across 42 countries, and worked with 20 of the Fortune 100 — and still wasn’t sure he had enough to bring to the table. He’s direct about how wrong that was, and about the part that genuinely is hard, which isn’t the room. It’s building the book of business. He gets into what changed between his first and second Sales Mastery, and the reframe that made the selling bearable.

Three years guiding leadership teams and CEOs, and Garry still talks about the moment the lights come on: when a client finally has a way to handle the conversation they’ve been ducking. He gets into the toolkit, why structure beats the latest hot idea, and what changes when teams stop firefighting.

Kelly was a CEO before she was a guide. She built her firm during the pandemic on her own terms — room to travel, sit on boards, do the volunteer work she cares about. What surprised her was the reach. She thought the impact would happen in the session room. Turns out it happens everywhere.

Eric was running another system at his own company, hitting the ceiling on rocks, strategy, people, and process. He asked a peer in a Toronto coaching session what else was out there. She told him to call Greg Cleary. He compares the Pinnacle toolkit to open-source software — frameworks he fuses for whatever the client in front of him actually needs.