Career Success Coach | Driving Career Growth for 6-Figure Professionals | Higher Pay | Better Opportunities | Greater Job Fulfillment | sWorks! Signature Series |

A Global Technology SVP walks into a wealth management firm as their new CIO. 

A Director of Analytics moves from MarTech into a VP role in Higher Education.   

A Director of Sales in Financial Services lands Senior Director at a $200M SaaS company.   

A Corporate Controller launches a Fractional CFO practice serving Series B startups.      

Same experience. Different leverage.      

That's The YES Factor™.      

Senior leaders don't lose opportunities because they lack experience.     

They lose them because the people making the decision can't see where that experience takes the business next. 

The narrative is historical. The decision is about the future. That gap is where strong candidacies stall and where external moves quietly fall apart.      

We build what closes that gap.   

The leverage that makes the decision easy for the people who need to say yes.      

I work with Senior Managers, Directors, VPs, and CxOs to build the narrative that hands the decision-maker exactly what they need to say yes and sell it internally.     

Corp-to-corp. Corporate-to-advisory. Expanded scope, new industry, or building a fractional practice from the ground up. 

The path doesn't matter. The leverage you walk in with does.      

I bring something most coaches don't. 

I've sat on the side of both sides of the table where risk is weighed, scope is defined, and one direction is chosen over another. 

I know what decision-makers need to see. 

I know what makes it take to move forward and what makes them hesitate.     

That perspective shapes every piece of work I do.      

I've recruited across Fortune 100 boardrooms and early-stage startups. 

I've built enterprise sales practices from the ground up. I've been the one in the room deciding who moves forward and why.  

That's not background. That's the lens I bring to every leader I work with.      

400+ corporate leaders supported.   
15+ years on the decision side of hiring.   $50M+ in enterprise B2B sales.      

What this looks like in practice:    

One focused Advisory Session. 

90 minutes plus a written strategic deliverable you can use immediately.      

An ongoing Retainer for leaders who are actively in motion and need a strategist in their corner as the moves get bigger.      

When decision-makers can see what changes because of you, the yes follows.      

The next move starts with a conversation. 

DM me or book a call directly from my profile.      

📍 The YES Factor™ 📧 melissa@sworkable.com

Melissa Hodgins

People don’t actually choose the best option.

They choose the one that feels easiest to back.

The human brain is remarkably capable.

It built civilisations.  
It invented aeroplanes.

It also quietly avoids anything that feels mentally expensive.

Because uncertainty creates tension.

Certainty creates relief.

Have you ever watched a room look at two strong candidates and move toward the one that simply felt easier to place?

Not better.

Easier.

That is how many senior decisions actually get made.

Not through spreadsheets.

Through emotional relief.

A large part of my work is making sure that when someone’s experience is evaluated, it doesn’t create friction the room has to work to resolve.

Because when something is effortless to understand, trust builds quickly.

And when trust builds quickly…

Momentum usually follows.

📍 The YES Factor

The Corporate Leader’s Career Transition Coach | The YES Factor™ | When Decision-Makers See What Changes Because of You, The Yes Follows

She didn’t know why.

That’s what she told me when she reached out.

Over 20 years of experience.
Real results.
The right roles.
The right industries.

Doing everything right.
Still not getting chosen.

And that’s the part nobody talks about.

It’s not the leaders who are coasting that struggle.

It’s the ones doing everything right who quietly start wondering what
the market is seeing that they’re not.

Here’s what I saw the moment I opened her resume.

She was telling decision-makers everything she’d done.

Not one word about what their business gets next.

She didn’t have a visibility problem.

Her value was invisible.

There’s a difference.

We fixed that inside The YES Factor.

She walked into a CFO’s office talking about his problem.

She got the VP role.

📍 If everything looks right on paper but the decision keeps going
another way, it’s rarely about experience. It’s about what the room can
immediately see.

📍 The YES Factor

Most senior leaders don’t aim too high.

They aim at what they can see.

And what they can see is usually what they’ve done.

Not what it’s actually worth to the business.  
Not what changes when they walk in the door.  
Not what the organization gets next.

Just the history of it.

So they pursue roles that match that history.

Roles they’re credible for.  
Roles they can defend.  
Roles that make sense on paper.

And they get them.

Which is exactly the problem.

Because capable and correctly placed are not the same thing.

I had a client who was convinced her title was holding her back.

We didn’t change the title.

We changed what she could clearly see about what moved in the business because she was there.

She stopped aiming at roles the market thought she deserved.

She started moving at the level she had already reached.

The shift was significant.

📍 When the business value is easy to see, the level conversation changes quickly.

📍 The YES Factor

Every board conversation mentions AI.
Every investor deck includes it.
Every strategic hiring discussion is looking for leaders who actually get it.

And when decision-makers look at your background
resume, LinkedIn, pitch, narrative
the AI piece is completely missing.

Not because you're not using it.

You're using AI. You're driving results with it.

But you're not making it visible as part of the business outcome.

The M&A integration you led that closed 40% faster
AI powered the due diligence.

The retention spike
AI identified the churn pattern no one was seeing.

The operational efficiency gain
AI removed the bottleneck that had been there for years.

You know this.

Decision-makers don't.

Because it's not in your narrative.

And right now, that gap is costing you opportunities.

The corp-to-corp role that goes to someone who made AI capability obvious in the room.
The strategic seat where they are looking for AI fluency and you did not show it.
The advisory client who needs someone forward-thinking and your narrative still reads like 2019.

From inside your own story, this gap is almost impossible to see.

But it is exactly what decision-makers are reacting to.

And it is costing strong leaders conversations they should already be in.

If you know your track record is stronger than what the market is giving back right now, we should talk.

📍 The YES Factor™

You left corporate to build something of your own.

No more approvals. No more getting your calendar hijacked. No more
brilliant ideas that die in committee.

Finally, your expertise. Your terms. Your future.

Except now you are three months in and the calls are not coming the way
you thought they would.

You are available for strategic advisory work.
You are open to fractional leadership opportunities.
You are leveraging years of experience.

And it sounds impressive. Credible. Senior.

It is also completely forgettable.

Because when someone has a problem that is keeping them up at night,
they do not search for strategic advisor.

They think: Who do I know who has solved this exact thing before?

That is the gap.

You left corporate with a title, a network, and a belief that the
expertise would speak for itself.

And now there is a realization no one knows what to call you for.

Not because the expertise is not strong.

Because the market does not know the one thing you solve decisively.

You are known for being capable of many things.

And general does not get the call.

Here is what shifts it.

Stop describing what you can do. Start owning what you are known for.

Not scope. Not capabilities. Not range.

The problem people called you for when you were still in the seat.

You are the one who makes acquisitions close without imploding.
You are the person pulled in when retention is bleeding and nobody knows
why.
You are who gets called when compliance is about to kill the deal.

That sentence, the exact thing you were known for, is the business.

And the moment that becomes clear, the calls change.

Because people do not buy fractional VPs.

They buy the person who solves the problem that is costing them right
now.

Here is where most leaders get stuck.

From inside a long corporate career, the title is loud.

The reason people pulled you in is quieter.

And that is what the market buys.

That is the work inside The YES Factor™.

📍 The YES Factor | Become the Expert They Hire | Become the Expert They
Buy |

Rooms make decisions before anyone speaks.

That’s not cynicism.

That’s just how evaluation actually works.

By the time someone is sitting across the table, the conclusion is
already forming quietly in the background.

And if something feels uncertain, unclear, or hard to place —

the brain doesn’t work harder to understand it.

It looks for an easier option.

Charlotte (not her real name) wanted VP. Then C-suite.

When we looked at her next move, tech was the right path.

Not because it was obvious.

Because when I looked at what she’d actually built — her results, her
markets, her growth story — it was exactly what a serious tech firm
needs.

But there was a risk.

The room was likely to see: not SaaS.

And once that conclusion forms, strong leaders rarely get the chance to
correct it.

So before she ever walked in, we made that conclusion impossible to
reach.

We didn’t change her experience.

We changed what the business could quickly understand about it.

Her language. Her framing. Her focus.

All of it translated into the vocabulary of their world.

By the time she sat down, the room wasn’t working against her.

It was already moving toward her.

Five rounds. A full case study built around their sales challenges.

She won every one.

📍 The room isn’t waiting for someone to explain their background. The
YES Factor ensures the right conclusion forms early.

I once sat across from the CIO of one of Canada’s largest companies.

He was my client.

I didn’t spend that conversation establishing credentials.
I didn’t walk him through my background.
I didn’t try to convince him I was worth listening to.

We talked about the business.

About the customer.
About what was possible next.

And that conversation reinforced something I see over and over again.

Authority isn’t built by explaining yourself.

It’s built when the room can quickly see what changes because you are
there.

Here is what many senior leaders do when they are preparing for a move.

They explain themselves.

Their background.
Their experience.
Their track record.

All of it logical.
All of it quietly working against them.
And in senior rooms, that is usually where the evaluation quietly
changes.

Because authority isn’t what gets declared in the room.

It is what decision-makers conclude when they can clearly see the impact
of choosing you.

And the moment the conversation turns into proving, the evaluation has
already shifted.

The leaders who get trusted quickly aren’t the ones with the most
impressive answer.

They are the ones who can hold the business problem in front of the room
and move it forward.

That is the shift behind The YES Factor.

📍 The YES Factor

You have been rehearsing the same answer for three days and it still sounds wrong.

"I know I have not worked in this industry, but let me show you how my experience translates."

Every time you say it out loud, you hear it. You are asking them to overlook something.

And the interview is next Thursday.

Here is what is happening in that room that you are not saying out loud.

They are not deciding if you are close enough. They are deciding what their business looks like if they choose you. And if you make them do the work of connecting your background to their problem, they will not do it.

Most people walk into that room explaining their past and hoping someone sees the fit.

You do not have that kind of time.

I had a client in round 3 this week. Director role. SaaS company. 15 years of exactly what they needed. Zero SaaS experience.

She was carrying the same sentence you are carrying right now.

We eliminated it. We did not manage the gap. We made it the reason.

She walked in Tuesday showing them what becomes possible because she is a builder and they have never had one. Not her history. Their future.

Two hours of focused work.  
We changed how she would be evaluated in that room.

She is not hoping they overlook something anymore.

If you have a conversation next week that decides your next year and you are still rehearsing the wrong answer, you are out of time to figure this out alone.

DM me.

📍 The YES Factor™ | Become the Expert They Hire | Become the Expert They Buy |

You already know what the next level looks like.

You’ve been in those rooms.  
You’ve led those conversations.  
You’ve solved the problems that were keeping the business up at night.

And somewhere in the last few months, something started to feel off.

Not doubt. You’re past doubt.

Something quieter than that.

A growing impatience with a process that keeps measuring the wrong thing.  
That keeps asking you to prove what you’ve already proven.  
That keeps putting you in rooms where you have to over-explain what experienced leaders recognise quickly.

That gap — between who you are in the room and how the market is reading you — is one of the most frustrating places to sit.

Because you’re not starting over.  
You’re not figuring it out.  
You’re already operating at the level you’re aiming for.

But the market isn’t reading you that way yet.

And you’re no longer waiting for the market to catch up.

That’s the work inside The YES Factor™.

Making what already moves because of you unmistakable the moment the room starts forming a view.

📍 The YES Factor

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