Staying useful: The real job of sales

In this edition of the Serenichron Business Insights Series, I sat down with Wendy Harris, a seasoned sales trainer, communication expert, and someone who knows the real difference between chasing a lead and building a relationship. Wendy is the founder of Making Conversations Count and leads her business, Konpasu, with a focus on helping people communicate clearly, confidently, and authentically.

Wendy brings a rare combination of hands-on experience and deep listening to every conversation. From making over 2 million sales calls in her career to training corporate teams and hosting one of the UK’s top business podcasts, she’s spent her career transforming how businesses think about connection. Her work spans telemarketing, telesales, LinkedIn presence, and storytelling, but it’s all anchored in one powerful idea: conversations drive results.

In our conversation, she unpacked practical strategies, emotional blind spots, and cultural shifts that are shaping how we sell and connect today. We talked about the psychology behind follow-up, the hidden friction in sales systems, and why empathy, far from being a buzzword, stands as a true differentiator.

If you’ve ever felt awkward about following up, struggled with explaining what you do, or wondered how to actually grow on LinkedIn, this one’s for you.

Rethinking follow-up: from pressure to partnership

Wendy said something early in our conversation that caught me off guard:

“People often hold back from following up because they worry it will come across the wrong way.”

That hesitation is common and deeply human. We picture annoying emails, awkward check-ins, or endless voicemails. Wendy approaches follow-up as an ongoing invitation, not an intrusion. It’s a way of staying present in the conversation: keeping the door open, picking up where things paused, and allowing trust to deepen over time.

She’s built her business around this philosophy: that follow-up, done with empathy, creates momentum instead of resistance. When she says,

“My job isn’t to sell to people. It’s to help them see what’s right for them and support them through the decision.”, she means it literally. The buyer leads. The salesperson listens, observes, and responds.

That shift in mindset changes everything. When you think about follow-up as a service, not a demand, the tone of your entire sales process softens. and improves. Suddenly, you’re not trying to close a deal. You’re trying to open a dialogue.

Wendy isn’t guessing here. She has made over 2 million calls in her career. She’s not working off assumptions, her experience is deeply earned and quantifiable. She knows how people respond to tone, to timing, and to empathy. She has seen firsthand how a simple change in language can shift the energy of a conversation.

Neuroscience research distinguishes between cognitive empathy (understanding perspective) and emotional empathy (feeling what customers feel), with both forms contributing to sales performance through different mechanisms.

Her approach, built at Konpasu, blends soft skills with a clear sense of purpose, because people buy when they feel heard. And they come back when they feel respected. That’s what follow-up, at its best, is really about.

Conversations collapse without clarity

Wendy pointed out a critical problem that most small business owners don’t even realize they have:

“If you can’t tell me what you do in a sentence, how do you expect me to buy from you or recommend you?”

That lack of clarity at the start? It kills momentum before it even begins. The moment someone hears your elevator pitch, they’re either curious, or confused. And confusion kills interest. If your prospects can’t repeat what you do in a sentence, they can’t buy it. They can’t explain it to their team. They definitely won’t recommend you to others.

Marketing research confirms that confusion creates buying friction, with studies showing that clarity in messaging can lead to conversion rate improvements of up to 200%.

Wendy sees this all the time in the teams she works with. In many cases, the issue lies not in the product or service itself, but in the way it’s presented and explained to others. Teams get tangled in technical terms, over-explaining, or jumping straight into features without understanding what matters to the listener.

This is where Wendy’s corporate training comes in. She runs targeted team sessions, both in-person and online, designed to help people get crystal clear on their offer, their value, and their story. Her method includes one-on-one deep dives with individual team members to tackle personal communication blocks and build confidence.

She shared a case study with CF Capital, where this clarity work led to a measurable uptick in revenue. By aligning messaging and helping the team communicate with empathy and purpose, the business saw direct financial impact.

The fix may not be flashy, but it’s essential. It’s the kind of foundational work that consistently leads to better results: getting your offer clear, short, and memorable. Make it stick in someone’s head. Because your follow-up won’t work if the first conversation didn’t land—and if they don’t remember what you do, they’re gone before you hit send.

Why timing matters more than we think

One of the most powerful insights Wendy shared was this:

“We know that the magic is usually in the fourth or fifth touchpoint, and most people give up after one.”

What Wendy highlights here touches on something deeper than sales technique: it’s a resilience problem rooted in how people manage silence, setbacks, and uncertainty in business conversations. Business owners interpret silence as rejection. But often, it’s just the wrong moment. People are overwhelmed. They forget. Their inbox buries your message. Life happens. What you read as disinterest might just be distraction.

Research consistently shows that persistence pays off in sales, with studies indicating that 80% of deals require 5+ touchpoints, but 92% of reps quit after just 4 attempts.

Wendy’s experience proves that timing is fluid, and follow-up is where you stay in the game long enough to see it shift. In telesales, this often means returning to a lead weeks or even months later, when they’re finally ready. On LinkedIn, it looks like ongoing engagement, thoughtful comments, and staying present without being pushy.

She emphasized that sales works more like a rhythm than a one-time event. And you’re out of sync with your prospect’s timing, you lose, even if your solution is perfect.

“And I always say, the job is to show up and stay useful.”

Instead of overwhelming inboxes with repeated messages, the goal is to remain visible in a way that builds trust over time, so when a need does arise, you’re already top of mind.

So no, pushing isn’t the goal. The focus is on staying visible, adding value, and recognizing that readiness often takes time to develop.

Avoidance is the real pipeline killer

We went deeper into the emotional side of sales. Wendy didn’t sugarcoat it:

“The pipeline doesn’t dry up because the market changes, it dries up because people hate following up.”

That one hit hard. That line stuck not because it was dramatic, but because it landed so plainly and truthfully. Everyone talks about sales as if it’s all strategy and systems, but in reality? It’s emotional. It’s human. It’s often uncomfortable. Beneath every missed follow-up is usually not a lack of tools or process: it’s anxiety. It’s hesitation. It’s the mental dance of “Should I reach out again?” and “What if I come across as pushy?”

“You can put follow-up in your calendar, but it doesn’t mean you’re actually going to do it.”

And that’s the heart of it. For many sales teams, there’s no shortage of dashboards or tools. What’s often missing is the confidence and internal permission to approach follow-up in a way that feels genuinely human and aligned with their communication style. Wendy sees it all the time: smart, capable professionals paralyzed by the idea of being annoying. So they retreat. They delay. They let warm leads go cold because the discomfort of the task outweighs the desire to serve.

In Wendy’s world, empathy and personality aren’t side notes but they play a central role in making communication land with authenticity and impact. She helps people build scripts they actually want to say. She works on tone, on confidence, on flow. Because when your energy is aligned, your message lands. And follow-up begins to feel less like a performance and more like a natural, supportive check-in.

This is where sales stops being a system and becomes something more durable: a practice. A rhythm. A form of care. When follow-up becomes an extension of genuine service, not an obligation, it not only gets easier. It gets more effective.

The LinkedIn layer: visibility with a purpose

One of Wendy’s biggest growth tools is also one of the most misunderstood: LinkedIn. She uses it not just to post or collect likes, but to build real relationships that move conversations forward and open doors offline.

“LinkedIn is my primary platform for business development and networking.”

Wendy sees LinkedIn as more than a place to post, she treats it like a living, breathing network of real people, where genuine conversations and lasting relationships can begin. She treats it like a room full of people she actually wants to meet. That means conversations, not broadcasts. Value exchanges, not cold pitches. She leverages the platform’s features with intention, not automation.

She organizes LinkedIn Local events to translate online visibility into face-to-face trust. These gatherings go far beyond handshakes, they focus on listening, remembering, and building rapport that extends beyond a single interaction.

Wendy also encourages small business owners to create company pages, to serve a meaningful purpose, helping separate the personal from the business narrative while establishing brand credibility. She believes that storytelling, not scheduling tools, is what builds connection. The content that lands is content that feels like a real person wrote it.

Wendy explains personal branding as the practice of showing up as yourself, consistently and clearly, so that over time, people know exactly what to expect when they see your name. And when it comes to headlines? Skip the clever slogans. Focus on clarity. “Tell people how you help them, not just what you do.”

Her success on LinkedIn comes down to the smallest, most human details: remembering birthdays, following up on something mentioned months ago, offering help without a CTA. She shows up with care, and that consistency compounds into trust, online and off.

Conclusion: Make the conversation count

Wendy’s teachings move beyond quick fixes or pre-written scripts. They offer a deeper invitation to explore how we build meaningful, trust-based connections in business conversations. Her philosophy is rooted in something simple but often forgotten: every sale starts with a conversation, and every conversation is a chance to earn trust, not just close deals. If you avoid follow-up because it feels uncomfortable, you’re not broken. You’re human. But you might also be unknowingly ghosting your next best client.

Wendy’s message is refreshingly consistent: from cold calls to corporate boardrooms to LinkedIn DMs, your success depends on how you show up, how often you show up, and how real you are when you do. Showing up everywhere isn’t the point, what matters most is being present with purpose, wherever you are.

The call here is simple, yet powerful: don’t let hesitation hold back your pipeline. Reframe follow-up as a long-term investment in trust. See it not as a nudge for business, but as a nudge toward relationship. Because in the end, people remember the ones who listened, followed through, and made the conversation count.