I’ve spent years building and leading hospitality teams that have generated millions in revenue, and now, I help professionals like you tell your unique story on paper.

As an executive resume writer with hands-on experience in operations, I partner with leaders who have well-deserved accolades but struggle to position themselves for the next significant step. 

I've sat on the other side of the table as a hiring manager, so I know what stands out. I excel at transforming your complex, behind-the-scenes accomplishments into clear, compelling narratives that grab attention.

Whether your background is in hospitality, operations, or broader business leadership, my goal is simple: 
To position you as the clear choice for high-profile roles, promotions, and opportunities that truly align with your skills and aspirations.

Specialties include crafting executive and professional resumes, optimizing LinkedIn profiles, and guiding career transitions in the hospitality and operations fields. 

I take pride in working with a select number of clients each month, ensuring a personalized and high-quality experience for each one. If you’re ready to take your career to the next level, let’s connect!

Luke Duggan

There’s one question I ask that tells me almost everything:
“What did you fix that no one asked you to fix?”
Most answers start with tasks.
Strong answers reveal judgment.
They talk about noticing friction.

Seeing patterns others ignored.
Making a decision when there wasn’t a clear playbook.

Leadership shows up before permission does.

Anyone can execute what’s assigned.
Not everyone takes responsibility for what’s missing.
The difference isn’t confidence.
It’s awareness.

When someone can explain why they acted, not just what they did, you’re hearing how they think under pressure.

That’s what hiring teams listen for, even when they don’t say it out loud.

📍How would you answer that question?

Luke Duggan 

Executive Resume Writer | Led Multimillion $ Teams, Now I Help You Land High-Visibility Roles

At the senior level, the best resume isn’t the one with the longest list of accomplishments.
It’s the one that shows you understand tradeoffs.

Most candidates highlight wins.
Few highlight the decisions behind those wins.

“I improved efficiency by 20%” is good.

But “I redesigned workflows to reduce staff burnout and still increased efficiency by 20%” is better.

Senior leaders get hired for how they think, not just what they achieved.

📍 What’s one line on your resume that could say more about your judgment?

There’s a point in every career where hard work stops being the differentiator.
Most professionals stay stuck in output mode: how much they produce, how fast they respond, how many responsibilities they can absorb.

But the roles people want, director, VP, GM, aren’t awarded for volume.
They’re awarded for how your work influences others.

Influence may sound abstract, but it’s practical:

 • People change how they operate after working with you.
 • Teams feel steadier because of how you communicate.
 • Leaders rely on your perspective, not just your execution.

Your resume should show that transition.
That doesn’t mean more metrics.
It means clearer causality: What changed because you were there?

📍 Where has your influence quietly reshaped a team, a process, or a result?

Here’s a thought:
Most people underestimate their strongest work because it came naturally to them.

You solved a conflict without escalation.
You rebuilt trust after a setback.
You mentored someone who now leads confidently.

Those aren’t soft moments, they’re leverage points.

A career story isn’t built on big wins.
It’s built on moments that reveal who you consistently are.

📍 What success felt small at the time but says something big about you now?

Not every gap is a liability.
Sometimes it signals intention.

The period in which you rebuilt, recalibrated, or realigned.

Hiring managers don’t care that you stepped away.
They care whether you can articulate what the return means.

A gap without a story feels defensive.
A gap with clarity feels strategic.

📍 If you reframed your gap as a turning point, how would you describe it?

Every professional reaches a moment where experience no longer fits inside job descriptions.

You’ve led people without the title.
You’ve solved problems that weren’t yours.
You’ve stabilized teams without getting credit.

And for years, you wrote resumes that hid that truth.

Then something changes. Maybe a rejection, maybe a chance conversation, and you realize the story you’ve been telling is too small.

That’s the year your career changes:
when you stop hiding the leadership you exercised quietly.

Documents don’t move careers.
Honesty does.

📍 What truth about your work have you avoided saying out loud?

Executives hire patterns.

They look for three things:
 📌 Judgment
 📌 Ownership
 📌 Transferable impact

If your resume reads like a job description, you’re not giving them any of those.

The fastest way to stand out:
Show the moment you carried the weight no one else wanted to touch.

📍 What moment of ownership belongs on your first page?

I once took on a project thinking it was “small.”
I took a conservative approach but positioned myself like a commodity.

The client was shocked at how genuine the finished version was.

We didn’t rewrite their resume.
We rewrote their identity.

Their confidence grew.
Their interviews changed tone.
Doors opened that they thought were closed.

I didn’t underprice the work.
I underpriced what it felt like for someone to be seen.

📍 When did you realize your value wasn’t in the task, but in how you helped someone transform?

You don’t get promoted because you’re busy. Everyone's busy.
You get promoted because you make other people’s jobs easier.

And that shows up in quiet ways:
 The meeting you de-escalated.
 The decision you clarified.
 The standard you held when no one else wanted to.

📍 What’s one invisible contribution you make that deserves a line on your resume?

Most job seekers chase volume.
Few chase relevance.
You can apply to fifty roles this month, or you can apply to five with clarity.

When your resume, profile, and outreach all signal the same message, 
This is exactly who I am, and this is the value I move, doors open faster.

The best candidates aren’t everywhere.
They’re unmistakable when they choose to show up.

📍 What would your search look like if you optimized for relevance instead of activity?

Every new year comes with a list of ambitions.
But most careers shift because of one habit, not ten.

For some people, it’s clearer communication.
For others, it’s finishing the work before the self-doubt kicks in. Damn you, imposter syndrome.
And for others still, it’s finally asking for what they’ve earned.

One habit creates the momentum that goals rely on.

📍 What habit, just one, would change the trajectory of your work this year?

Your profile is doing one of three things right now:
Making you look transactional.
Making you look dated.
Making you look like a leader with a point of view.

Most profiles fall into category one or two because they focus on tasks, not transformation.

If your profile doesn’t say who you help, how you think, and what outcomes you create it’s not competing in the right rooms.

A strong profile isn’t a summary.

It’s positioning.

📍 What message do you want people to take away after reading yours?

Most resumes fail quietly.
Not because they’re weak.
Not because the candidate lacks experience.
But because they don’t help the reader decide where to place trust.

A hiring manager isn’t asking, “Can this person do the job?”
They’re asking, “Can I rely on this person when things go sideways?”

That’s a different question, and most resumes never answer it.

Listing responsibilities doesn’t reduce risk.
Metrics without context don’t build confidence.

What does?
Judgment. Ownership. Decision-making under pressure.

When a resume shows why you made a choice, how you navigated constraints, or what changed because of your leadership, it stops being a record and starts being a signal.

The strongest resumes don’t try to impress.
They make it easier for the reader to say yes.

If your resume could belong to anyone in your role, it’s not telling the story that gets calls.

📍Which line on your resume would make a decision-maker trust you faster, if it were written differently?

I used to price my work based on effort.
Hours. Revisions. Scope.

Then I worked on a project that forced me to rethink everything.
The work wasn’t complex, but the clarity it created quickly changed outcomes. Decisions sped up. Confidence returned. Momentum followed.

That’s when it clicked:
People aren’t paying for effort. They’re paying for leverage.
The ability to see what matters.
To articulate it clearly.
To shorten the path between confusion and decision.

Once I understood that, I stopped undervaluing my contribution and stopped attracting work that treated it like a commodity.

📍Where in your work are you still pricing effort instead of impact?

No one is coming to champion you.

Not your boss.

Not HR.

Not even your closest mentor.

Your opportunities scale with two things:
 📌 How clearly you articulate your worth.
 📌 How consistently you deliver it.

📍 What advice would you give your younger self about ownership?

Every week has noise.
But patterns are quiet.

What you resist.
Where you hesitate.
What you avoid.
What you keep doing even when exhausted.

Patterns tell the truth about who you’re becoming.

📍 What pattern do you want to break before Q1 ends?

Being reliable keeps things running.
However, it doesn’t always move careers forward.

Leaders advance when they’re known for:
• resolving ambiguity
• making decisions that move the business forward
• raising standards without drama

If your brand is “dependable,” you may be overdue for a repositioning.

Reliability is what's expected of you in this role.
Impact must be your differentiator.

📍 What do people rely on you for, and what do they recognize you for?

It isn’t strategy.
It isn’t communication.
It isn’t even execution.
It’s discernment.

Knowing what deserves urgency, what needs a conversation,
what needs escalation, and what needs to wait.

Discernment is how senior leaders create calm inside complexity.

And it’s the skill hiring managers assume but rarely see.

📍 Where has discernment made your work easier this year?

Some progress is loud.
Most isn’t.

Success often shows up as:
• Better decisions
• Clearer boundaries
• More aligned opportunities
• Fewer tasks that drain you

Growth rarely announces itself.

But you can feel it when your work starts pointing in the right direction.

📍 What’s one quiet sign that your career is shifting in a healthier direction?

There’s a plateau that hits after competence.
You’re good at what you do.
You deliver results with ease.
You’ve earned trust where you are.
And yet, nothing moves.

More effort doesn’t create momentum.
More output doesn’t create opportunity.

That’s because advancement stops being about execution at this level. It becomes about articulation.

I’ve seen talented leaders stall here for years. Not because they lack ambition, but because they assume their work will speak loudly enough on its own.

It doesn’t.

Decision-makers don’t see your full body of work. They see fragments, resumes, conversations, and impressions formed under time pressure.

If you don’t translate your impact clearly, someone else fills in the gaps. And they rarely fill them generously.

This is the shift most people aren’t prepared for:
Working harder stops helping. Communicating better starts mattering more.
The leaders who break through this plateau learn to name their value without posturing. To frame their experience without inflating it. To make their judgment visible, not just their output.

📍Have you felt yourself working harder without moving forward, and wondered why?

🔢I Coach Sales Teams to achieve consistent results by prioritizing accountability, strategic coaching, ICP focus and performance metrics | 1 on 1 and Group Coaching | LI Live and Podcast Host

When I first got into sales, I had a similar path as most. I was trying to figure out how to sell, and once I did that had my eye on being the top performer on my team, so I would be thought of as a leader and have a chance to be promoted into management.

A short year and a half later, I did all of that and was promoted. I was going to change everyone's life and get to teach the low performers how to be successful and sell. About a month and a half later, I was wondering what happened. Nobody seemed to be listening to me or at least improving like I thought they should. I was really good at chasing and closing deals because that is all I knew how to do. My boss kept telling me you are trying to be a hero "You can't save everyone."

My problem was I was subjective and emotional about everything. I had no management process. It wasn't until I figured out that I had to take the emotion out of it and make everything objective that I started to see results. 

Fast Forward 10 years later, with many successes and failures I created a 6 step process that helps takes the complication out of managing salespeople with a heavy focus on your team's Structure vs Pipeline:

1. ATM Approach- Where am I at with my team today
2. Interview Process- How do I hire more awesome Reps
3. Onboarding- How do I get new reps to revenue faster
4. Expectations- Set clear expectations so people know if they are good at their job or not
5. Coaching- How do I develop people using data
6. Ideal Customer Profile- Who are your target accounts

If interested in learning more you can visit my website to book a call or download my e-book on the ATM Approach.

mattdferguson.com

Matt Ferguson

Sometimes it takes longer than you think.

If you told Curt Cignetti back in 2008 that he wouldn’t get his first Power Five head-coaching job until 63, he would’ve laughed.

And he would have laughed harder if his only opportunity was Indiana.
The worst program in college football history.

But that’s what happened.

One of my favorite quotes ever is from Herb Brooks.
Coach of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team.

“Great moments come from great opportunity.”

You don’t know when your opportunity is coming.

Some people get theirs early.
Some people have to wait.
A long time.

But the people who eventually win?
They keep moving forward.

Small wins = Big Wins

My friend and fellow Hoosier Fan Greg Stanley sent me photo that last night.
Can't get enough of the coach Cigs Memes.

GO HOOSIERS!

People always ask me about going out on my own.
Because they want to do it.

My response is always the same.

What are you making right now?
What's your situation at home?

Because if you make a bunch of money
And your spouse/partner isn’t on board.

You don’t have a great shot of making it.

Thankfully for me.
My wife has a good business of her own.

And has always supported me.

Not once over the first couple of years was it:

Make more money or go get a job.
If it were, I prob wouldn’t have stuck through it.

Today is our 7 Year Wedding Anniversary.

Going out on your own is hard.
Doing it without support is almost impossible.

Small wins at home.
Made the Big wins possible.

Happy 7 years to my best teammate

I laughed at the situation below.
The truth is, I find it sad.

And I see it far too often.

Big Companies
Small Companies
Start Ups

It doesn't matter- I have horror stories for Days.

My biggest problem with the situation below.

No real data, plan, or path to get to the bigger number.
When noone hit the smaller number last year.

When you do this, your reps:

Have no belief and are demoralized.
Sending texts and talking behind your back.
And yes, probably looking for another job.

Your biggest job as a leader is selling your team.
Just like you used to sell your clients.

How did you do that?
You took them through a sales process.

What’s the problem?
How do we fix it?
Here is how we can do it.

It’s so easy to forget.
But if you don’t have buy-in.

You don’t sell anything.
The same goes for your team.

If they don’t believe
They won’t sell anything either.

What’s the “MAGIC” behind the biggest turnaround in sports history?
Here’s the answer every sales team needs to hear.

When the Hoosiers’ head coach was asked, “What’s the magic?”

His response was simple:
“There is no magic. It’s fundamentals.”
“A leader with a blueprint and a plan.”
“Create the intangibles: culture, mindset, philosophy.”

There’s no magic in sales either.
If you're wondering why your sales team is struggling, ask yourself if you have the things above in place.

My sales fundamentals have always been the same:
- Do we have the right people?
- Are we targeting the right accounts?
- Do we solve problems people actually care about?
- Is there a clear process from start to finish?

And the real differentiator:
Are you sticking to them and coaching them every day?

Will this guarantee the biggest turnaround ever?
No. But I guarantee it will create better results.

My dad has talked about the Rose Bowl my entire life.
Growing up in freezing Cleveland, it always felt unreal that it could be warm and sunny somewhere on Jan. 1st.

When Indiana made it this year, we finally went.
He grew up visiting his aunt in Bloomington and watching IU practices in the summer.

We watched one of the historically worst programs dominate a former powerhouse, 38–3.

Amazing what fundamentals can do.

Go Hoosiers.

You don’t have to Google him anymore.
2 years ago, very few knew who Curt Cignetti was when he said, “Google me, I win.”

Now everyone does, and the team he built will be studied by leaders forever.
He turned a team around so fast that some wondered if he was cheating.

How does he do it?

No 5 stars
Players who had been passed on
Fits the culture he was looking to build

One of the stars of the game last night was the WR Becker.

Kirk Herbstriet remembered him from high school.
“He was a solid player, but not highly recruited.”

He did not drop a ball this year and made every big catch last night.

I am often asked, what should I look for in salespeople.
My answer is simple:

“What type of culture do you have or are you trying to build?”

Then find some people who have had some success and fit the traits you want, then build them from there.

What it's not is go find “A players” (5 Stars) and hope they fit.
Why? Because I have found that “A players” often don't fit the way you want them to.

Indiana may be the best example of that I have ever seen.
Hopefully, we all learn from it.

Sales Leaders- If you micromanage one thing, MICROMANGE this.



YOUR LISTS

I learned this lesson years ago, when we created an SDR Team.

A couple of months in, the AE team was complaining.
So we looked at the meetings that were booked.

I laughed. I wouldn’t have run any of those meetings.
So I took a look at the comp plan.

They were paid the same for every meeting.
So they did what every sales rep does.
Took advantage of the plan.

Booked meetings that were easier to book.
Smaller companies that weren’t a fit.

Easy fix:
-Objectively define the ICP.
-Create the lists based on this.
-Pay them based on the quality of the meeting.

Problem solved.

A mutual complaint all sales leaders have when I first start working with them?

Our team closes too much of the wrong stuff.
There is only one person to blame.

-Objectively define your best accounts.
-Make it easy to understand why they are.
-And then hold people accountable to it.

And if you have to MICROMANGE- Do IT.
Everyone will thank you later.

Target the right accounts = closing the right accounts.

If you have hired a sales rep within the last year, you should listen to what Chris Mader says below in 64 seconds.

What I have experienced over the years is similar.
The mistake people make is thinking people should be better sooner.

It takes time!

Chris, Casey, and I talked for over an hour about all we have seen in 2025, working with over 50 Sales teams.

Topics Include:
- Why so many teams are missing quota
- Strategies for B and C Players
- Building a culture of Trust
- Understanding your reps and how they want to be led

If you want to hear more, links to Apple and Spotify are in the comments.

Hopefully, your customers don’t view your company like I view my Car wash.

A couple of months ago, my car wash changed names and ownership.

I never had any issues with the old one.
Every time I went to the new one, I notice issues:

-My car is soaking wet after going through
-Always a vacuum not working
-No clean towels

And the best part my monthly fee went from 15.99 to 24.99.

Yesterday, when I was about to go through I recognized the employee directing me in.

I asked, “Hey, you worked here before the name change, right?”

“Yes”

“Have people been complaining since the change?”

“Ya, a lot.”

“What’s the biggest difference?”

“The old one was family owned, and they cared; now we're owned by corporate.”

That was all I needed to hear.

The family owner cared much more than the corporate owner.

Leadership starts at the top.

Customers don’t feel ownership changes.
They feel standards slipping.

When leadership stops caring:
-Small issues pile up
-Prices go up
-Pride goes down

Culture shows up in the details.
Leadership always does.

A couple of things I wish I had known earlier in my Sales Management career.

25 Seconds to better discovery on your sales calls.

How do you stay top of mind, without being annoying?

A question I get asked a lot.

My advice is simple. Be different than everyone else.

A simple way I have used over the years.
And the text below is a perfect example of it.

Before the break, I had a meeting with someone.
We set the next steps, and I wasn’t able to make it.

And the next steps were never set after that.

Instead of hounding me every day to book the meeting, he used a tactic of mine without even knowing it.

He sent me a text about something else we had discussed.

I saw it and responded, and it reminded me of him without me being annoyed.

The timing for me just isn’t right at the moment.
But sooner or later it will be.

Salespeople have a bad reputation for always asking for something.

Differentiate yourself by not doing that.

Send something interesting about
-The Industry you are both in.
-Personal you may have learned about them.
-A topic that was discussed on the call.

And then don't ask for anything else.

You will separate yourself from all of the people “Checking in”
I can promise you that.

Bad Math leads to a Bad Path
It's why I always question it.

I have a new client who is starting a sales team.
He asks great questions on how we should judge them.

Without much data, it is hard to know.
He has done most of the selling.

The good thing is that he has good relationships in his industry.
Which means he can get some info.

When going through the math, I kept questioning one area.
He stood by it.

When we did the math, an A player could do over $1 million.

Which pumped him up, because it meant it would be easier to recruit top talent based on the commissions they could pay.

As I was still questioning the math, I received a text from him.
He admitted he had misunderstood the math.

Which cut the outcome by almost 1/3
Good catch, early.

Because bad math doesn’t just miss targets.
It creates bad expectations, comp plans, hires, and culture

Fix the math first.
Everything else depends on it.

You might be surprised by the type of REP that used to annoy me the most.

And it wasn’t the bottom performers.
It was the middle performers.

Yesterday, I listened to a client complain about a rep for a while.

When I asked where he ended up last year, I knew the answer.

“He hit his goal for the year.”

I understood why he said it.
He felt the goal was low.

Why, because the manager used to sell way more than that.

Here is what we forget.
Most people aren’t A players like we were.

Teams break down like this.

- Top Performers- Awesome Reps- 0-20%
- Middle Performers- Typical Reps- 60-80%
- Bottom Performers- Mess Reps- 0-20%

I have run my ATM exercise with clients for over 3 years.
Over 60 Times on teams from 7 different Countries.

I have never seen the %’s change much.

If you are frustrated all the time because people don't perform like you.
It’s gonna rub most of your team the wrong way.

Once you lose your team, your job becomes a lot harder.
Don’t be annoyed because people aren’t you.

If you would like to learn more about ATM
Send me a DM, and I can send you some info.

2 Types of Discovery Sales Reps miss too often.

Most discovery refers to pain.
And yes, we need to find pain to close deals.

Here are 2 others that are overlooked and also lead to more closed deals.

1. WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?
Personality
Nice
Mean
Open
Closed
Tell you anything
Tell you nothing
Talks sports
Hates sports

You can usually tell right away.
And need to adjust based on who it is.

2. HOW DO THEY BUY?
Is it easy
Is it hard
What's their process
Who would be against it
Who wants it
Who else is involved
What's the biggest hurdle

Some are as much project managers as salespeople these days.
The more you know, the more you can navigate.

Don’t think of Discovery just as pain.
There is so much more to uncover.

Sales Managers- It’s the first week of February.
Ask yourself these questions about January.
(Reps, ask yourself if your manager doesn't.)

What did my reps do well?
What didn’t they do so well?
What obstacles can I remove?

What data do I have that supports the answers?

What can I do to help them get better?

Q1 will be over before you know it.
Don’t waste another day.

People will follow your lead if:

You make their lives easier.
Help them get better.

Small coaching conversations now

Beat big excuses later.
Lead early. Lead often.

Below is a classic mistake so many reps make.

I am not gonna lie, the $200 gift card was intriguing.
And the product could be something I need.

But like most LI spam messages, I have seen this one before.
Not even here to hate on it.

Just a lesson a lot of people need to hear.

I am not their ICP- Not even close.

Not only is it a waste of my time
It’s a bigger waste of their time.

The biggest mistake I see Reps make.

They want to sell everyone:
-They will be bigger someday.
-This will lead to something better.
-If we can get this ROI, they said they will spend more.

I have heard it all, and it rarely comes true.
And leads to so much wasted time.

Every second you spend on something that is not a fit.
You take time away for something that is.

Easy to say, Hard to do.
But is it the path to better deals and more success.

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