Mellonie Francis

Founder

Serial Entrepreneur | Personal Brand Expert | Investor

Lending millions to entrepreneurs taught me one thing: I was born to be one of them.

For over a decade, I thrived in the corporate finance world, lending $20 million, sometimes $30 million, to business owners.

I loved the hustle of the corporate ladder—big paychecks, promotions, and the feeling of constant growth.

But while I was climbing this invisible ladder, I started closely watching these entrepreneurs with awe.

They weren’t necessarily smarter than me—they were just bolder.

They took risks, created opportunities, and built legacies.

They shaped the lives of hundreds of employees while I stayed stuck in a cycle of paying taxes and working for someone else’s vision.

That’s when I made the leap.

My first entrepreneurial venture was a SaaS platform that connected beauticians with local buyers—an “Uber for beauty.”

But when COVID hit, I pivoted, transitioning it into a software development agency where we built platforms and marketplaces for other entrepreneurs.

During the software development journey, I learned one vital thing: marketing is everything.

So I dove deep into SEO, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads, but LinkedIn became my playground.

On LinkedIn, one organic post was generating three or four leads.

I turned my success on LinkedIn into a personal branding and lead-generation business.

The business exploded.

While it was exploding, I decided I wanted to travel and work from a remote paradise.

PS: I think I had just finished watching Heist, and I imagined an island like Panama.

Then Bali happened.

In Bali, from the moment I arrived, it was hard to ignore the potential in property development.

There was a housing crisis in Uluwatu.

The market was under-supplied.

I ran a few Airbnb rentals and made a killing.

I decided to invest the money I was making from my LinkedIn personal branding business and buy a 1,000-square-meter plot where I would go on to build five villas.

Within six weeks of launching the marketing campaign, I sold three of those villas off the plan.

Encouraged by that success, I expanded, acquiring an additional 1,300 square meters and partnering with a construction team to deliver seven more villas.

Today, I’m not just building properties—I’m building opportunities for others to create wealth and live life on their terms.

Whether it’s through property development, branding, or entrepreneurship, I’m passionate about sharing the knowledge and opportunities I’ve gained.

If you’re ready to take your next big leap, grow your wealth, or connect over bold ideas, let’s talk.
.


Still scrolling, huh?
Hey, I don’t blame you 😁

But here’s what you really need to know about me:

I help brilliant FOUNDERS get attention, build trust & credibility at scale on LinkedIn through powerful LinkedIn content, outreach strategies, emails, LinkedIn paid ads and more.

The truth is: 

You CAN break through and get your story heard:

All you need is:
◾A great product/service
◾ A genuinely human origin story
◾The right positioning, messaging, timing and outreach
◾Experimentation and creativity
◾Consistent value-add - to build trust, credibility and relationships
◾A long-term mindset

And that’s what we bring👇🏼
✅Creativity and deep expertise in LinkedIn
✅World class team of strategists, copywriters, video editors, graphic designers, content distribution specialists
✅Proven linkedin secret sales systems
✅All done for you service from strategy to content creation, distribution, growth hacks, reporting and more. To save you time.

Results:

📈25,000,000+ views in 24 months with $0 ad spend for our clients.
📈Inbound leads from brands like Mercedes Benz, Foxtel.
📈$100 Million+ dollars driven in partnerships.
📈Outreach strategies that book calls from customers, investors.

We weaponise LinkedIn for you. Are you ready? Visit our website:
https://www.areyoub2b.com

Building Winning Sales Team By Recruiting Top Sales Talent

🚀 I’ve spent the last 5+ years obsessed with one thing: helping companies build sales teams that actually win.

🔥 Before founding Jayce Grayye Consulting & Recruiting, I was in the trenches leading sales teams, hiring closers, and learning firsthand how expensive the wrong hire really is. I built my agency to take that pain off your plate and make sure every new hire is a revenue driver, not a liability.

💼 Today my team and I have placed more than 1,000 sales professionals across SaaS, tech, and high-growth startups. We deliver killers who ramp fast, close hard, and stick.

📈 Recent wins this month:
✅ Placed a COO in under 3 weeks
✅ Built an SDR team of 4 in one shot
✅ Delivered multiple VPs of Sales and Account Executives for scaling SaaS companies

⚡ What makes us different is simple. We don’t push paper. We don’t sling resumes. We build revenue machines by finding the right talent, fast. Data-driven recruiting + relentless focus on results = teams that dominate.

🔥 If you’re scaling and you need closers who bring the fire, this is where you come to win. Let’s talk: buildawinningsalesteam.com

Jayce Grayye

The difference between a $400k rep and a $1M rep isn’t skill.

It’s not territory, the product, or even luck.

Here’s what actually separates them.

The $400k rep works the pipeline they have.
The $1M rep obsesses over the pipeline they’re building.

The $400k rep follows up twice, then moves on.
The $1M rep follows up until they get a yes or a definitive no, and they’re fine with either.

The $400k rep knows their pitch cold.
The $1M rep knows their prospect’s business well enough to write the pitch for them.

The $400k rep treats a closed deal like a finish line.
The $1M rep treats it like an opening, who else in that org needs this?

The $400k rep goes home when they hit quota.
The $1M rep goes home when they’ve maxed the day.

None of this is talent.

It’s standard.

The standard you set for yourself when no one’s watching.
The calls you make when you’re already at 100%.
The follow-through that happens after every other rep has clocked out.

The gap between good and great in sales isn’t a skill gap.
It’s a standard gap.

And you can’t train someone to raise their standard.
They either have it or they’re building it.

I Build Winning Sales Teams By Recruiting Million-Dollar Producers in 21 Days or Less | Featured On Forbes | Book a Call Below

Stop hiring for these things.

They don’t predict sales performance.

Years of experience:

I’ve placed reps with 2 years of experience who outperformed 15-year veterans. Experience tells you what someone has done. It tells you nothing about what they’ll do for you.

Prestigious company names on the resume.
Big companies give reps big territories, big brand recognition, and big support teams. Take all of that away and see what happens. Plenty don’t survive the transition.

“Polished” interview presence:

Some of the best closers I know are awkward in interviews. They’re not performing for you, they perform for prospects. Stop confusing interview polish with sales ability.

Industry experience:

“They need to know our space.” No. They need to know how to sell. Product knowledge takes 30 days. Hunger takes a lifetime to build.

A great LinkedIn profile:

I don’t care how well they brand themselves online. I care how they handle a prospect who’s gone cold for 45 days with $80k on the table.

Here’s what actually predicts performance:

What they do when a deal falls apart.

How they talk about the rep who outsold them.

Whether they ask better questions at the end of the interview than you asked at the beginning.

Stop screening for signals that feel safe.

Start screening for signals that are real.

A founder called me last week, ready to hire.

We got on the phone. Energy was good. They had a budget. They were serious.

Then we got to compensation.

I told him the truth: mid-market account executives right now are running 130 to 150k base.

He lost it.

Got defensive. Got rude. Hung up.

And honestly? Best outcome possible.

Here’s what that call actually was:

A test.
A test of whether I’d lower my standards to land a client.

Whether I’d pretend the market was something different than what it actually is.

Whether I’d compromise who I work with to make a number happen.

I didn’t.

And here’s the thing nobody says out loud in recruiting:

The clients you turn away are just as important as the ones you take.

The ones who get upset when you tell them the truth about the market?

They’re the same ones who’ll blame you when they can’t attract talent at penny-on-the-dollar pricing.

They’re the ones who’ll demand you do the impossible because they refused to do what’s realistic.

I could’ve softened it. 
Could’ve said “let me see what I can find.” 
Could’ve strung him along hoping he’d come around.

Instead I just told him what the market actually pays.

And he chose to hang up rather than adjust.
That’s not my problem to solve.

Your standards aren’t negotiable just because someone gets upset about them.

The right clients? They respect you more for having them.

The wrong ones? They were never going to work anyway.

You just found out faster.

💬 When’s the last time you turned down a client or opportunity because it didn’t align with your standards?

Building Winning Sales Teams By Recruiting Million-Dollar Producers | Featured On Forbes

Your sales rep isn’t the bottleneck.

You are.

I know that’s hard to hear.

But I’ve seen this pattern in enough companies to say it out loud:

The founder is so involved in the sales process that the rep can’t actually do their job.

Every proposal needs your approval.
Every pricing conversation needs your input.
Every deal above a certain size needs you on the call.

You’re not supporting your rep.

You’re replacing them.

And then you wonder why they’re not performing.

They’re not performing because every time they build momentum, they hit a wall called “waiting on the founder.”

Prospects lose interest.
Deals go cold.
Reps get frustrated.

Here’s what I’ve seen work instead:

Set the guardrails once. Then get out of the way.

Define the pricing boundaries. Define the personas they can close without you. Define the scenarios that actually require escalation.

Then trust the person you hired to do the job you hired them to do.

The founders who scale fastest aren’t the best salespeople in the room.
They’re the ones who built a sales process that runs without them.

That’s the goal.

💬 At what point did you stop being the bottleneck in your own sales process?

"We can't afford a top sales rep right now."

You just raised a seed round.

Sit down.

Same founder with the same excuse. 

Same empty pipeline six months later.

Let me translate that sentence:

"We'd rather stay broke than invest in the person who stops us from being broke."

Here's the math nobody wants to do:

A mediocre rep at $60k who closes nothing costs you $60k.

A killer rep at $120k who closes $800k in new revenue costs you $120k.

One of those is an expense.

The other is a money printer.

The founders who can't afford top talent are usually the same founders who:

→ Spend $40k on a rebrand nobody asked for.
→ Fly business class to a conference with zero pipeline.
→ Hire three junior reps instead of one senior one.

You don't have a budget problem.

You have a priority problem.

Revenue fixes everything. 

But only if you hire someone who can actually create it.

The best investment a founder can make isn't software.

It isn't marketing.

It's the person who can walk into any room and come out with a signed deal.

The best reps don't cost you money.

They print it.

Start acting like you know the difference.

Founders, what's the hire that changed everything for you?

“Fired my SDRs. Replaced them with AI. Revenue up 40%.”

I keep seeing this same post recycled every week now.

Founders celebrating, reps are panicking.

And a few people in the comments calling B.S.

Those last ones are onto something.

Here’s the truth nobody’s saying out loud:

Companies aren’t replacing their sales teams with AI.

They’re using AI as an excuse to stop hiring average ones.

Fewer reps.
Higher bar.

Bigger paychecks for the ones who make the cut.

The SDR who just dials and pitches a script?

That role is dying. Slowly but surely.

The SDR who thinks, builds relationships, and uses AI to do it faster?

That person just became the most valuable hire in the building.

And here’s the part that should end half these conversations immediately:

The FTC banned AI and robotic outbound calling.
So before you fire your team and hand the phones to a bot you might want to google that first.

And the real kicker?

Every company out here posting about replacing humans with AI?

Currently hiring sales reps.
Every. Single. One.

Because nobody at the enterprise level is closing a six figure deal with a robot.

They want a human, you know someone they will like, know and trust. 

Someone who listens. Adjusts. Gives a damn.

You can’t automate that.

AI didn’t kill the SDR.

It just made mediocre ones impossible to hide.

💬 Are the companies pushing “AI replaces SDRs” the same ones quietly posting sales job listings? Go check. I’ll wait.

A founder almost left $700k on the table.

Because a candidate was 26.

I heard it in July.

"She's 26. I need someone with more experience."

I pushed back.

"Tell me one thing about her track record that concerns you."

He paused.

"Nothing. The numbers are great. She just seems… young."

She'd been a top-5 rep at her last company for two consecutive years.

Average deal size $40k.

Promoted to lead a pod of three at 24.

Young + Ambitous.

I said: "Give me one reason her age affects her ability to close your deals."

He couldn't.

We moved forward.

She's been in seat for eight months.

$700k closed.

Highest average deal size on the team.

Two of her clients have expanded into new product lines.

Last month, the founder called me.

"I can't believe I almost passed on her."

I know.

Here's what that story is really about:

Bias in hiring doesn't always look like bias.

Sometimes it looks like "I just think we need someone more seasoned."

Sometimes it looks like "I'd feel better with someone who's been in the industry longer."

Sometimes it looks like a gut feeling that's actually just pattern-matching on the wrong things.

The best hire for your next stage of growth might not look like what you expect.

That's kind of the point.

What assumption almost made you pass on a great hire?

A mentor told me something I didn’t want to hear.

“You’re playing small.”

I’d just walked her through everything I was building.

The clients. The placements. The momentum.

I thought she’d be impressed.

She wasn’t.

“You’re solving problems for people who already found you. You’re not going after the ones who need you most.”

I sat with that for a week.

Because she was right.

I was comfortable.

Comfortable with the clients I had.
Comfortable with the referrals coming in.
Comfortable with the version of the business that didn’t require me to push.

And comfortable was making me average.

The version of my business I was building in my head, the one that actually makes a dent, required me to do things that felt uncomfortable.

Cold outreach to founders I admired.
Saying no to clients who weren’t the right fit.
Charging what my work was actually worth.

I did all three within a month of that conversation.

Business changed immediately.

Not because I got smarter.
Because I got honest about where I was holding back.

The most expensive thing in your business might not be a bad hire.
It might be your own comfort zone.

💬 What’s the uncomfortable move you’ve been avoiding that you already know you need to make?

It’s Sunday.

I am not thinking about pipelines.

I am not thinking about comp plans.

I am not thinking about the founder who hung up on me last week.

(Okay maybe a little bit about that one.)

But mostly?

I’m doing absolutely nothing that requires a calendar invite.

And I’m calling that a win.

To every recruiter, founder, and sales rep reading this on their day off:

Put the phone down.

The deals will still be there Monday.

The pipeline will still need filling Monday.

The inbox will absolutely not have fixed itself by Monday.

But you’ll be sharper for having ignored all of it today.

Rest is a strategy too.

A wildly underrated one.

Happy Sunday.

AI screening candidates is the fastest way to lose the best ones.

🙄 

I came across another AI screening tool this week.

The pitch was the same as always:

"Saves time."
"Removes bias."
"Creates consistency."

And I thought:

Have any of you actually asked a candidate how it feels to be screened by a bot?

Because I have.

I'm in the weeds of hiring every single day.
I talk to candidates constantly.

I have not heard a candidate say this, even once:

"You know what made me excited about that company? The AI that interviewed me."

Here's what they actually say:

"I felt like a number."
"It was impersonal and cold."
"I couldn't tell if they even cared about hiring me."
"I answered their questions and got ghosted anyway."

AI screening optimizes for one thing: 
The company's time.

Not the candidate's experience.
Not the relationship.
Not the first impression.

And here's the brutal truth:

The candidates who have options?
They're not sitting through your AI screening.

They're taking calls from companies that respect them enough to put an actual human on the other end of the conversation.

The only people who complete AI screenings
are people who don't have better offers waiting.

You're not filtering for quality.
You're filtering for desperation.

Now… I'm not anti-AI.
We use AI everywhere in our process.
Sourcing. Outreach. Scheduling. Research.

But the moment a candidate enters your process?

That's a human conversation.

Because hiring isn't a transaction.
It's a relationship that starts the second they hear from you.

And if your first impression is a bot asking them to record answers into the void, don't be surprised when your best candidates walk.

I'm open to being proven wrong.

But until I hear from a single top performer who loved being AI-screened, I'm calling this what it is:

A solution built by people who've never been on the other side of the hiring process.

💬 Candidates, be honest. How do AI screening tools make you feel?

💬 Founders, have you ever asked your hires what they thought of your AI screen?

Four bad hires in two years.

He came to me after the fourth.

Not angry. Not frantic.

Just tired.

The kind of tired that comes from doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he said.

I asked him to walk me through his last hire.

He posted the role. Got 200 applications. Picked the one with the best resume.
Did three rounds of interviews. Checked references. Hired.

Textbook process.
Textbook result.

Mediocre rep. No pipeline. Gone in seven months.

Here’s what I told him:

“You’ve been hiring the resume. We need to hire the person.”

We spent two hours building the actual profile.

Not the job description. The person.

What they’ve overcome. How they handle rejection. What they do when a deal goes cold for 60 days and the commission check is nowhere in sight.

We found that person in 18 days.

She’s been in the seat for five months.

Closed $520k.

Pipeline sitting at $1.4M.

And she’s just getting started.

Same founder. Same business. Same market.

Different hire.

That’s the whole game.

💬 How many hires did it take before you found the one that actually changed things?

My first sales job paid me $11 an hour.

A list of names and a phone.

Cold calling past customers with no script.

Working at a car dealership.

Six days a week.

Fourteen hour shifts.

All commission.

They sent me back to the wolves on day one.

“You’re gonna learn from the wolves,” they said.

Told HR manager:

“If they send me to the wolves, I’ll come back leading the pack.”

I was young. Hothead. And absolutely certain nobody was going to outwork me.

I spoke two languages.
Most reps saw that and were intimidated.

I saw it as a way to solve problems for more people.

That’s all I cared about.

Solving the problem.

Within thirty days I closed fifteen cars.

Thirteen new with two used.

Then I didn’t stop.

I dominated it.

But here’s what got me recognized by the general manager wasn’t the numbers.

It was how I treated the customer’s time.

There was this brother and sister who came in looking for a car for their dad’s Christmas gift.

Every other rep passed. Walked away.

Too much work. Not enough commission.

I spent four to five hours with them.

Made calls. Fought with finance. Kept pushing until they got approved.

They drove off the lot in a car their dad didn’t even know was coming.

That’s the job, it’s not about the close, but the actual giving a f**k.

That job paid me $11 an hour.

It gave me something worth infinitely more:

The ability to sit in discomfort and not quit.

The willingness to do the work nobody else would do.

The refusal to take shortcuts with people.

Every rep I’ve placed who’s gone on to do serious numbers?

They have that same thing.

It’s not charisma.

It’s not a perfect pitch.

It’s not natural talent.

It’s showing up when it’s hard.

Staying when others leave.

Caring when caring costs you time.

That’s still the whole job.

What’s the first sales job that taught you something you still use every single day?

The most powerful man at McDonald's just proved one thing:


You can run a billion-dollar company and still have no idea how to sell it.

By now you've seen the video.

Brand new burger.

Tiniest bite you've ever seen in your life.

Then looks dead into the camera and goes:

"That's a big bite for a Big Arch."

Buddy.

That was not a bite.

That was a kiss on the cheek.

And then, AND THEN, he called it a "product."

Not a burger or a lunch, but a product.

Burger King didn't even wait 24 hours.

Posted their president eating a Whopper with sauce all over his face like a normal person who has eaten food before.

No apron or hesitation.

The internet did what the internet does.

But here's what I keep thinking about:

Your team knows when you don't believe in what you're building.

Your candidates know when a founder is overselling a role they know isn't ready.

Your clients know when you're pushing a placement you're not confident in.

You cannot perform conviction.

It doesn't work on camera.

It doesn't work on a sales call.

It doesn't work in an interview room.

The moment you call your own burger a product, everybody already knows.

Lead with honesty or don't lead at all.

Also, please just eat the burger. 😂

💬 What's the most unconvincing "sell" you've ever watched someone try to pull off?

The meeting where your best rep decided to leave?

You weren’t even in the room.

Nobody quits out of nowhere.

They quit after the fourth time you did one of these things.

1. Moving the target mid-quarter:

Nothing kills momentum like grinding toward a number and having it shifted.

Top performers plan their effort around a goal. Change the goal and you change their trust. Change their trust and you change their commitment.

2. Praising activity over output:

“You made 80 calls this week, great job.”
Meanwhile the rep with 30 calls closed three deals and got nothing.

You train what you reward. Reward the right things.

3. Handling the escalations themselves instead of coaching through them:

Every time a manager jumps in to rescue a deal, they send a message: “I don’t think you can handle this.”

Coach through it, stay on the call, but let them lead.

4. Only showing up when something’s wrong:

If your reps only hear from you when there’s a problem, your presence becomes a bad sign.

Show up when things are good. Celebrate the wins loudly for everyone to notice. And let the coaching happen consistently, not just in crisis.

Your best reps don’t need the best territory.

They need a manager who actually deserves them.

Which of these have you seen most, or been guilty of yourself?

The perfect sales hire doesn't exist.

And the six months you spent waiting for them just cost you $500k.

I've been in recruiting long enough to know this:

The candidate with every box ticked, every industry checked, every tool mastered.

Available immediately, willing to work for what you're offering?

They're a unicorn.
And unicorns aren't real.

But here's what's real:

6 months of an empty seat.
6 months of pipeline not moving.
6 months of leads going cold.
6 months of deals your competitor closed because you were still deliberating.

At an average deal size of $40k, that's not a hiring problem.
That's a $500k decision you made by not deciding.

Here's what you actually need:

Someone hungry.
Someone coachable.
Someone with a track record of finding a way to win.

That person will outperform your perfect candidate every single time.
Because production isn't about perfection.
It's about drive.

Stop waiting for the resume that checks every box.

Start looking for the fire that no resume can capture.

The perfect hire isn't the one who looks best on paper.

It's the one who refuses to lose.

And they've been out there this whole time.

While you were waiting for someone better.

How much did your last empty seat actually cost you when you added it all up?

The résumé is dead.


And nobody’s mourning it.

I just read that Business Insider piece about résumés becoming obsolete.

Work trials. Portfolio reviews. Social presence checks.

Recruiters are moving away from the one-page document that never told the whole story anyway.

And honestly?

Good.

The résumé was always a terrible hiring tool.

It tells you where someone worked.

Not how they worked.

It tells you what they claim they did.

Not what they actually delivered.

I’ve seen résumés that look like works of art.

Perfect formatting. Impressive logos. All the right keywords.

And the person behind it couldn’t close a deal to save their life.

I’ve also seen résumés with typos and gaps.

And the person on the other end became the best hire the company ever made.

Here’s the truth nobody wants to say out loud:

Résumés optimized for ATS and AI screening tools.

Not for finding great people.

Candidates learned to game the system.

And companies built hiring processes around a document that rewards good writing over good performance.

Now the rules are changing.

And the people panicking the most?

The ones who were relying on their résumé to do the talking.

Top performers don’t need a résumé to prove they’re good.

Their work speaks.
Their references speak.
Their results speak.

If your entire hiring process hinges on a PDF
you’re not hiring for talent.

You’re hiring for formatting skills.

The résumé isn’t dead because it got replaced.

It’s dead because it never worked in the first place.

💬 Honest question: have you ever made a great hire based purely on their résumé?

Bam Adebayo scored 83 points last night.

83.	

And I’m happy for him. I really am.

But Kobe scored 81.
And Kobe did it without fouling out an entire team at the free throw line.

36 free throws made.

36.	

I’m not saying it’s not historic.
I’m saying Kobe did it in a way that made your jaw drop differently.

Anyway.

This is not about that.

This is about what Bam did that nobody’s talking about this morning.

His career high coming into last night was 41 points.

41.	
He had 43 by halftime.
Already past his best ever.

And instead of coasting?
Instead of being satisfied?

He kept going.

62 after three quarters.
83 when it was over.

That’s the lesson.

Most people hit their personal best and celebrate.

The ones who make history don’t even notice they passed it.

They’re already onto the next quarter.
In sales. In recruiting. In business.

The reps who break records aren’t the ones watching the scoreboard.

They’re the ones who forgot to stop.

Congrats Bam. Genuinely.

Just know Kobe did it cleaner. 😤

No alternative text description for this image

FOUNDERS: You’re burning $300,000 and calling it a “hiring strategy”

I’ve seen it play out a thousand times in this exact way:

You chase the “sure thing” rep and find someone who ticks boxes.

They’ve got big logos on the rèsumè.
They’re a smooth talker in the interview.
Their references sound impressive.

You think you’ve struck gold.

Six months later, you’re writing a severance check and explaining to investors why the pipeline’s empty and payroll’s torched.

It happens because you hired BACKWARDS ⏮️

Experience first.
Skills maybe.
Culture and attitude last (if ever).

Doing things in that order, you might as well go find a roulette table and chuck 300k at red or black.

The only order that actually works:

1️⃣ ATTITUDE
2️⃣ CULTURE
3️⃣ SKILL
4️⃣ EXPERIENCE

Because a stack of past jobs doesn’t close deals.
People who can actually SELL do.
The best people don’t wow you with a CV. 
They simply don’t need to.

What they have is way harder to fake:

→ HUNGER you can feel in the first conversation.
→ CURIOSITY that makes them ask the right questions.
→ GRIT to hear “no” a hundred times and keep plugging away.
→ A CHIP on their shoulder that makes them outwork everyone.

You can’t demonstrate these things on paper or on a LinkedIn profile.
Where it actually shows up is in REVENUE $$.

Who’s going to be honest: 
What’s the most expensive hiring screw-up YOU’VE made?

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Inside Sales Marketing Manager

Business

Car Salesperson

The $300k Hiring Mistake

The worst client I ever took taught me the most important lesson in business.

They were referred by someone I respected.
The budget was real.
The role was in my wheelhouse.
Every sign said yes.

So I said yes.

Six weeks in, I knew I’d made a mistake.

The goalposts moved every week.
The feedback was contradictory.
The urgency was constant, but the decisions were nonexistent.

I spent more time managing the relationship than doing the actual work.

Three months in, they ended the engagement.

Said we “weren’t the right fit.”

And honestly?

They were right.

But here’s what that client gave me that no good client ever could:

Clarity.

On who I will work with.
On what I won’t tolerate.
On the questions I ask before I take any engagement.

Now I have a filter.

Not just for candidates, but for clients as well.

And every time I’ve been tempted to skip the filter because the money looked good?

I think about those three months.

And I pass.

The right clients aren’t just good for your revenue.
They’re good for your standards.

Don’t let urgency talk you out of them.

Most candidates don't fail interviews. 

They fail positioning.

Saying you're: 

"hard worker" or "team player" 

means nothing.

Every candidate says that. 

What hiring managers actually want is clarity: 

What problem did you walk into, what did you change, and what happened after?

If you can't explain your impact without buzzwords, you're forcing the interviewer to guess and they don't hire guesses. 

Before your next application, you need to answer one question in under 30 seconds: 

"How do I make this company money, save it time, or reduce risk?"

Can't answer that cleanly? 

You're not failing interviews. 
You're entering them unprepared.

taplio

The Battle

Mellonie Francis

Jayce Grayye

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taplio

The Battle

Mellonie Francis

Jayce Grayye

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jayce Grayye's LinkedIn Performance

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