William Ballance

👋 Hey, I'm William. My team and I design technology that combines communication psychology with AI. Want to write better emails faster? We built software for that. 👇

1. Install for free to use our AI Email Assistant at https://install.lavender.ai (for Gmail, Outlook 365, Outreach, and Salesloft)

2. Are you a student or unemployed? We give you Lavender for free until you have a full time job.

3. Want to start a startup one day? I write a lot about our startup journey + happy to help if I can.

4. Want to generate passive pipeline on autopilot? We built Ora, Lavender's new intelligent AI sales agent to help with just that. www.ora.im


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about me:

👨‍💻 I'm a sales rep turned startup founder. 

🇲🇽🗽🍑 I spent a year and a half remote working in Mexico. We built most of Lavender during this. I'm based in New York but we got our start in Atlanta. 

🎨 🏛 I've been designing software since I was a kid, but went to school to study Government and Economics. 

🌍 I'm passionate about entrepreneurship. I wrote my senior thesis on using micro-finance to encourage entrepreneurship and bottoms-up development of emerging economies.

🦊 I'm most proud of starting a series of campaigns to help save a historic women's college, Sweet Briar, from closing. 

👩‍🎓The school was saved by its alumnae, and this experience led me to leave my job and start my first startup: an alumni social chat and mobile fundraising app. 

🧠 Through that I was introduced to the cognitive sciences, met my co-founders, and pivoted. We built technology for marketers that leveraged personality and decision making science.

💜 COVID happened and we pivoted again, applying our communication psychology research to sales.

🙌 Now Lavender helps thousands of sales people around the world write better emails faster.

👉 Learn more about Lavender at www.lavender.ai and www.ora.im

Strategic Advisor

William M. Ballance

I help Benefit Advisors and HR Leaders streamline manual actuarial processes through software and consulting ➕ I help Employee Benefit Pros increase revenue through coaching and GTM Advisory.

twelve years ago, i was running grain elevators in rural south carolina.

$34,000 a year. 90 hours a week. no leverage, no upside, no path out.

linkedin changed my life.

it took me from manual labor → to the insurance business → to partner in a company i helped scale and sell → to head of sales for multiple high-growth teams → to running a portfolio of multi-six-figure businesses built on writing, relationships, and human-first selling.

i’m not special.
i just learned how to show up online in a way that builds trust, connection, and inbound opportunities at scale.
now, that’s what i help other people do.

today i’m the founder & principal of tillirson consulting group, the co-founder of red flag writing collective, and president of the board at pathways to healing.

i’ve spent the last decade inside carriers, enrollment firms, and benefits tech companies from pre-seed to fortune 500, which means i understand this ecosystem from every angle.

how i support businesses:

• group training for revenue teams who want predictable pipeline from simple, authentic outbound
• fractional revenue leadership for benefits vendors & brokerages with ~$0–$75m in annual revenue
• mastermind-level writing & social sales programs for people who learn best together
• keynote speaking on modern sales and resilience

outside the office, i’m a dad, a tattoo enthusiast, a multi-instrumentalist, and a community volunteer.
i live in forest acres, sc with my wife brianne, my boys jack and george, and our dog doc holliday.

if you’re here because you want to grow — your pipeline, your brand, or your confidence — you’re in the right place.

currently supporting:

RefMed - UCR and Fee Schedule medical pricing data
Glove Benefits - DPC + ICHRA + Healthshares
Spirence - Preventative Mental Health with 1200% higher utilization than traditional EAPs

𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹: 803.727.5620
𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹: sims@tillirsonconsulting.com

Sims Tillirson

Patrick Moore won’t let me tell you the name of the company we’ve been working on together for the past 90 days because we have more inbound business than we can handle. 

this morning’s board meeting made one thing clear.

we’ve figured out how to grow without compromising the work.

if you thought i was out of the benefits game, you were wrong.

human-first revenue strategy is the vehicle.

making healthcare more affordable and accessible is the mission.

human-first revenue strategy for the benefits ecosystem | founder | non-profit board chairman | keynote speaker

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last year i paid $25,000 for coaching on a credit card, not knowing if i’d make enough to pay it off.

this year i’m paying that same coach the same $25,000.

the only difference is i can actually afford it this time.

i wasn’t ready. i did it anyway.

i took the meds like a good little boy for over a decade.
things didn’t really get better until i stopped.

i still get deeply depressed, suffer high anxiety, have panic attacks, and get shaky in crowds.

it’s just true a lot less often.

i’ve been off antidepressants and benzos for over a year.

some things i didn’t expect:

- i need wayyy less caffeine to stay awake (consumed 400 mg while medicated)
- i have much higher highs and similar lows emotionally
- i’ve cried more this year than i have in the last 10 (mostly while watching movies on planes)
- i’m far more dependent on my wellness routine to stay regulated

my days only work when i take care of the basics.

talking to people who actually know me.
walking outside with my dog or my kids.
eating mostly decent food.
plant medicine (iykyk)
lifting heavy shit.
breathwork.
writing.
sleep.

meds saved me when i needed them.

now i’d rather feel more of life.

numb was easier.
this is better.

giving you permission to be real AF | founder | non-profit board chairman | keynote speaker

i wanted to bitch about waking up at 3:45 am for a flight.
then i remembered that last year i was praying for this.

“some days i start dialing before i’m mentally there, and it feels like I’m drowning until i dial my last number. i don’t know if you’ve ever had days like that”

a sales rep i coach said that to me yesterday after we wrote him a new cold call opener. 

he had no idea what was going on when i ran to my bathroom to grab this affirmation card. 

i’ve been in sales for a while and have had a lot of success (and a lot of failure). 

i still read this card every morning. 

because if i don’t have complete belief i’ll win, i won’t.

remote workers logging into the first meeting of the day 5 minutes late with their camera off

i almost left sales for good in 2022 because i didn't think i was good enough to win.

things weren’t going great after i left a VP role at a private equity backed company to take a chance on a pre-seed startup.

we started hot. landing logos like MLB, the lakers, build-a-bear, and some large tech companies.

then things took a turn.

a few big customers churned, and we couldn’t keep paying the bills.
so we laid off everyone, and i helped identify a buyer for the company.

when the fire sale was over, i didn’t just feel disappointed.
i felt like i had failed.

i couldn't separate the company struggling from me struggling.
or the product failing from me being bad at sales.

in my next role, i carried that with me,
but i kept selling the same way i always had.

i ended up with $13M ARR in sales in my first year.

now i coach some of the most successful sales teams in the US.

looking back, i wish i had understood this sooner:

sometimes the thing that fails isn’t you.

yeah, your buyer is definitely going to want to talk to you because of all the great ai pics you post.

you can’t trust a skinny chef, and you sure can’t trust a sales coach that doesn’t have receipts. 




Devin Ryder is a c suite cybersec leader (a little different than the insurance, healthcare, and recruiting folks i usually play with). 

and this week he used my sales strategies to book 3 meetings (1 inbound and 2 outbound) 

social sales and human-first outbound will work for anyone, in any industry 

as long as they’re willing to put in the work. 

hell yeah Devin

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

it took me 20 years of work to find a job i actually like. 

when i started working at 13, i just assumed i’d go to college, get a good job, and work at the same company forever. 

but i’ve been all over the place since then

guitar teacher
feed mill laborer
radio station DJ
assistant hs tennis coach
bar band frontman 
it support specialist
grain elevator superintendent
billing specialist 
risk manager
premier client consultant
singer-songwriter
national broker partner manager
director of business development
contemporary worship leader
middle school youth director 
national director of business development
vp of client solutions
vp, partner
regional director of consultant relations 
svp, sales and broker partnerships
founder 

if you woke up today dreading work, you might just be in the middle of your list. 

betting on yourself over and over will get you to the end.

when you’ve had 7 drinks and suddenly spot your biggest prospect across the exhibit hall

i’m performing at a benefits conference in a week, and i need your help. what songs should i play?

if you make your prospect feel like an idiot, they won’t respond to your outreach.

this is the biggest problem i see sales teams make when they move from feature dump/ pitch slap messaging to problem-based messaging.

instead of using an outside force or an internal process as the problem,
they make their prospect the enemy.

which is bad.

here’s what that looks like.

if you’re a benefits person selling into a nonprofit, you might say:

“most nonprofit leaders we work with are struggling to control rising benefits costs.”

sounds reasonable.

but that cold call or cold email you just wrote?

you just called your prospect an idiot.

even if they are struggling, they’re probably not going to respond.

so what if instead you said:

“cuts to voca funding are forcing many nonprofit leaders we work with to make difficult decisions about benefits costs.”

now you’re not blaming the prospect.

you’re naming the outside pressure.

and you’re making it clear the problem to be solved is not them.

hope this helps.

i drink way too much coffee while i’m traveling, but nothing tastes better than the one i make at home. 

when that’s not an option, i’m drinking one of these:

- local shop (get a rec from someone who lives there and order what they order. shouts out to Jake Thomas for treating me on wednesday )

- gas station (QT and Circle K are the jam) 

- starbucks (unless I’m in Boston, dunkin tastes better there)

- hotel room (not all created equal. the nespresso model at Pinehurst goes way harder than the one at the Vinoy)

- airplane (yeah I’ve heard how gross their coffee pots are and I don’t care) 

where’s your favorite place to get coffee?

i have this fancy coffee machine, but i can’t pass up a good cup of joe from a gas station. 

does any convenience store do it better than QT?

taking hundreds of kids skiing over MLK weekend as a youth pastor really prepared me to be a business owner with two little kids who are out of school again.

i don’t coach theory. i sell beside my clients so we know what actually works.

we write new emails, cold call scripts, and objection handlers.

then we test them live.

RefMed has completely changed the game for UCR data and Medicare/WC fee schedules. 

if you need data like this, you should go ahead and reach out. 

otherwise, Cooper Ellis is going to cold call you until you have to change your phone number.

“we’re excited to invest in you.”

a head of sales enablement got to tell their team they weren’t getting a one-and-done SKO workshop.

they were getting support after.

most sales trainings are loud for a couple hours and then everyone goes back to figuring it out on their own.

this team decided to build something to make the training stick faster.

120 minute workshop
just-in-time 1:1 coaching for 90 days
weekly 60 minute live training for 90 days
an online community that doesn’t disappear

we complain a lot about companies that don’t invest in their people.

this is what it looks like when one does.

if you’re a seller, you already know the difference.

i've got a bunch of free time in St. Petersburg, FL on wednesday. 

what are some can't miss activities? 

(i love the outdoors, music, coffee, tattoos, food, plant medicine, shoes, etc)

taplio

The Battle

William M. Ballance

Sims Tillirson

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The Battle

William M. Ballance

Sims Tillirson

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Engagements

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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);}Sims Tillirson's LinkedIn Performance

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