“The first fan is yourself. You can’t create fans until you are a fan of what you do.”

Jesse Cole, Savannah Bananas

Many years ago, I literally got a front row seat into what makes the Savannah Bananas the success story they've become.

Allow this quote, courtesy of Jesse Cole to sit with you all for a moment. Buckle up, our ride is going to get bumpy but in a very good way, a profitable way.

As the CEO, when you become the first fan of the mission, it unleashes a ripple effect that directly shapes the Inspirational Experience clients feel, one of the core drivers of trust and long-term revenue growth in the Trust Formula framework.

An inspired CEO inspires their people. Inspired people create inspired experiences. Inspired experiences are what clients remember, talk about, and stay loyal to.

From a growth standpoint, inspirational experiences become one huge multiplier. They fuel referrals, increase cross-selling opportunities, and amplify reputation, all of which flow into incremental revenue and profits.

When you model authentic enthusiasm and inspiration, you equip your entire team to deliver the kind of inspirational experiences that keep clients longer, expand accounts deeper, and drive the kind of sustainable company growth that only comes from genuine loyalty.

A Direct, Heart-Centered Wake-Up Call for Presidents and CEOs

Your sales team is either creating trust or eroding it. There's no middle ground.

Unfortunately, we live in a world defined by cynicism, noise, broken promises, and transactional selling, I believe your clients are starving for something your competitors aren’t giving them, and that's an inspirational experience.

Not a good meeting, not a useful conversation, not a solid presentation, but an inspirational experience. The kind of experience that raises trust, elevates loyalty, and creates a gravitational pull toward your company.

This isn’t soft or fluffy. This is about money, real money, call it recurring revenue. Call it higher margins, increased lifetime value, lower client churn and faster cross-sell.

What I'm referring to is the strategic lever most executive teams talk about but rarely operationalize.

My challenge throughout our time together is to your leadership, your culture, your expectations, and your tolerance for mediocrity in client engagement.

Because if your salespeople aren’t deliberately delivering inspirational client experiences, you are leaking revenue every single day.

Are you ready to dig in?

Experience Is Now Your Most Valuable Currency

When your clients review partners and solutions, they’re not comparing product specs.

I believe they’re comparing experiences.

• How did that salesperson make me feel?

• Do I trust them?

• Do they get me?

• Are they consistently adding value, or just checking in?

• Do they show up prepared?

• Are they helping me think differently?

All of this aligns directly with the Trust Formula, Authentic Relationships + Meaningful Value + Inspirational Experience + Disciplined Habits

Notice the third component... Inspirational Experience. Not good, professional or competent experience but inspirational.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth, your salespeople have never been trained to deliver inspirational experiences. Why? Because they have been trained to pitch, position, persuade, and present but not to inspire.

Clients want trusted partnerships. They want connection, insights and they want to feel something meaningful through every interaction.

This is where the revenue impact gets real.

Here’s What Inspirational Experiences Actually Do for Your Business

They Increase Win Rates

Inspirational experiences deepen trust. The more trust you build with all decision makers and influencers, the more deals you win. No product advantage can overcome a mediocre experience.

They Increase Client Retention

When clients feel known, valued, and understood, switching becomes emotionally and operationally expensive. Trust built high, wide and deep protects accounts and drives deeper penetration. Let's call this retention insurance.

They Drive Cross-Sell Revenue

There are two levers of exponential growth, acquire new clients and sell more to existing clients.

Inspirational experiences unlock both because inspired clients...

• Invite more conversations

• Introduce you to more departments

• Trust you with bigger, strategic problems

This is the engine of exponential growth.

They Raise Margins

High-trust relationships reduce discounting. Clients pay premiums for certainty, confidence, and care. Inspirational experiences elevate perceived value and perceived value drives profit.

They Turn Clients Into Advocates

A satisfied client might renew, but an inspired client tells others.

Advocacy leads to...

• Faster pipeline velocity

• Lower acquisition costs

• More organic opportunities

• Increased brand reach

Inspiration fuels evangelism.

What Might Be Missing?

If your salespeople are not delivering inspirational experiences today, it’s not their fault. It’s leadership’s responsibility. Guess what? This begins with you.

The experience your clients receive reflects the experience your salespeople receive internally.

If your culture is transactional, your clients will be treated transactionally. If your culture is compliance-driven, your clients will feel managed. If your culture rewards speed over substance, your clients will feel rushed. If your culture celebrates quota but not value your clients will feel like targets.

You cannot scale what you do not first model.

You cannot claim to care about customer experience while starving your salespeople of the time, tools, and emotional oxygen required to deliver it.

Inspirational experiences are not delivered by burned-out, micromanaged, under-supported sales teams. They are delivered by people who feel seen, valued, respected, and trusted.

Leadership sets the tone. This all starts with you.

What an Inspirational Experience Really Looks Like

This isn't rocket science stuff, it's all about intentionality.

Let's use the pillars of the Trust Formula as an example...

It Begins Before the Meeting

Your salespeople send value ahead of time. They prepare insight not just information. They demonstrate they understand the client’s goals, challenges, language, and industry.

This is Meaningful Value.

It Happens Through How They Show Up

Showing up prepared, curious and human. Showing up with questions that elevate the client’s thinking, not just their pipeline.

This is Authentic Relationships.

It Includes How the Client Feels After the Meeting

Do they leave energized? Do they leave feeling understood? Do they leave confident they are in capable hands?

This is Inspirational Experience.

It Is Reinforced through Consistency

Follow-through, proactive communication, promises kept and keeping to their commitments.

This is Disciplined Habits.

When these four ingredients combine, magic happens. Trust is built, win rates accelerate, client churn drops and revenue grows.

Click here to grab the Culture from the Heart weekly newsletter.

Your Role as CEO, Create the Conditions for Inspiration

You cannot delegate this or outsource it. You cannot assume it will happen organically.

You must architect it intentionally.

Here are some suggestions...

Establish a Clear Vision for Client Experience

Every high-performing organization aligns its people around a clear client promise.

Your client experience promise must be...

• Inspiring

• Simple

• Repeatable

• Non-negotiable

• Behavior-based

• Measurable

Not a paragraph, a poster on the wall or a promise.

Then you hold every salesperson accountable to delivering that promise.

Coach Salespeople to Deliver Inspirational Experiences

This requires coaching in...

• Authentic communication

• Client discovery

• Value articulation

• Insight delivery

• Trust-building

• Emotional intelligence

This must be woven into prospecting and client management.

Build a Culture That Rewards Inspiration, Not Just Quota

You get what you measure. If you measure only revenue, you will get desperation-based selling.

If you reward only closed deals, you will get burned relationships.

Balance leading and lagging indicators...

• Quality of client conversations

• Preparation standards

• Value delivered between meetings

• Client sentiment

• Trust indicators

• Referrals generated

Measure what matters, model what matters, and reward what matters.

Lead by Example

Become the Chief Inspiration Officer.

Your clients see your culture through your salespeople. Your salespeople take their cues from you.

When you...

• Show up with authenticity

• Communicate transparently

• Demonstrate genuine curiosity

• Model preparation

• Deliver insights

• Greet people with humanity

• Share stories of impact

• Celebrate meaningful value, not just revenue

Your salespeople soon will follow.

Leadership is not what you say. It’s what you allow, reinforce and how you show up.

The standard you walk past is the standard your salespeople adopt.

A Moment of Reflection

You may want to grab a mirror and look into it as you ask yourself...

• Are my salespeople inspiring my clients or fatiguing them?

• Am I expecting inspirational experiences or simply hoping for them?

• Is our culture designed for trust or transactional efficiency?

• Do our clients feel known or processed?

• Have I equipped my team to inspire or only to close?

These are not tactical questions. These are extremely important questions that will drive incremental revenue, profit and client sustainability.

You cannot grow revenue faster than you grow trust.

You cannot increase profit faster than you increase value.

You cannot scale retention faster than you scale meaningful human experiences.

If your salespeople deliver inspirational experiences, everything changes. Your sales pipeline changes, your margins change, your win rates change, and your client sentiment changes.

The Opportunity in Front of You

Every CEO wants...

• More revenue

• Better margins

• Higher retention

• Faster growth

• Greater advocacy

Every CEO already knows the marketplace is louder, more competitive, and more distrustful than ever.

The companies that win more, grab more market share and create massive amounts of sustainability in the next decade will be those whose salespeople are not just presenters, not just professionals but inspirers.

The market doesn’t need more sellers. What the market needs is more leaders, more humans, more authenticity, more value, and more trust.

It needs your team delivering inspirational experiences.

This is your moment to lead, to raise the standard, to transform how your organization shows up, and to build a revenue engine fueled not by pressure but by trust.

The opportunity in front of you is enormous. The impact is transformational.

Well, the next move is yours.

Originally published on Larry Levine's LinkedIn.