SaaS founder · new sales lead
For Series A SaaS founders still doing sales and customer success themselves, and sales leads in your first leadership position
Think of this as a temporary fractional. You can ask me questions, send me things for feedback, have me look at your demo or your pitch deck, whatever that is for you, for a stretch of time we agree on.
It's all asynchronous. I don't do calls, and I work on it outside business hours.
Some examples of what people send
Feedback and recommendations. You write and send using your own judgment.
Series A SaaS founders
You're still doing sales and customer success yourself.
- The person who bought it has gone quiet.
- A customer's IT or finance person is blocking the rollout.
- A customer wants a “rollout plan” from us and we don't have one.
- Renewal is coming and their executive wants a “business case.”
- Watch a demo I gave.
- Tell me what's wrong with my pitch deck or my sales page.
- A prospect wants a proposal, a pilot, or to “socialize it internally.”
- We're raising prices, retiring a plan, or migrating everyone to a new version.
- My first hire pushed back on me in front of a customer.
- My co-founder keeps reopening decisions we've made.
- An investor's reply got short.
- I wrote something angry at midnight.
Sales leads in your first leadership position
You got hired to lead sales at a startup, or at a company that's new to you, and customer success is yours too for now. Nobody has written anything down, so you're building all the playbooks yourself, and you're managing people for the first time while you do it.
- My onboarding emails, kickoff agenda, or “what to expect” page.
- The handoff from sales to customer success.
- A renewal or expansion playbook, before I run it the first time.
- An account that's stalled.
- I'm about to hire my first customer success person and I need to describe the job.
- How to run a pipeline review, a one-on-one, or a forecast conversation when I've never run one.
- My founder wants a plan by Friday and I don't have one.
- Anything on the founders' list. It's the same work.
Kits, the DANCE System license, and the book
Every tool in the kits is a form, a scorer, a checklist, or a reference you use on a live account. Not a course.
Find Who Can Say Yes
Eleven tools for finding the person who can actually say yes: what to look for in a company, who to prioritize, and how to interpret the replies you get along the way.
Unstick the Account
Twelve tools to work out who a stalled account is waiting on, what's holding them back, and what they need to move forward.
Both kits are built on it
The DANCE System™
A communication system for creating stability while a change is under way.
Individual license · $197
See licensingChange the SaaS
Follows one account through all three seats, SDR to AE to CSM, to the renewal. Thirteen worksheets in the back, ready to copy into your account record.
Posts on rollouts and renewals
Every post answers one question you'd type into a search bar.
Founder
Whitney Stout, JD
Founder of Think Shift Lead™ and creator of the DANCE System™. She holds a J.D. and worked as a trial attorney before moving into change management and technology rollouts for legal teams in large multinational firms. Her work has also included strategic operations in higher education.
THINK · SHIFT · LEAD
Part of the DANCE System™ ecosystem by Think Shift Lead™. © 2026 Whitney BA Stout, LLC. All rights reserved.