Strategy Execution

Jason Barnaby — The Golden Spreadsheet in the Locked Drawer

Episode notes

The conversation, captured

Date: July 14, 2026
Participants: Kristian Luoma Jason Barnaby

The Coordination Tax is a podcast by In Parallel about what actually breaks down when teams stop sharing the same reality. In this episode, host Kristian Luoma sits down with Jason Barnaby — fractional sales leader, Enneagram-certified coach, and founder of Fire Starters Inc., who companies hire to run the sales their founder is already running badly. Jason has worked with teams from 50-person shops to 100,000-person enterprises, hosts The Sales Spark Podcast, and — as he puts it — cares less every year who agrees with his opinions. The conversation runs from the "toy box" handoff founders give a new sales leader, to the golden spreadsheet locked in a drawer, and closes on an unusually honest exchange about depression and psychological safety in sales.

Summary

Founder-led sales works at the start — the founder is the product and the relationship — but it gets sticky as the company grows and the founder won't let go. Jason's pitch: a fractional leader in 8–12 focused hours beats a founder spreading 40 hours thin, and hands busy executives back a week of their month.
The episode's namesake problem: one person hoards the spreadsheet a company's sales run on, and holds the only key. Territoriality and "binders where information goes to die" turn shared knowledge into a single point of failure — including one approver for every quote from $500 to $500,000.
The highest-leverage fix is unglamorous: hire a single sales-enablement person to own the data, and sales can rise within a quarter.
An audit found a "$20M" pipeline was really closer to $10M — half the deals had close dates already in the past. Jason's rule: stages aren't gates, and "you're not in negotiations until you're redlining."
He uses the Enneagram to read how people behave under stress, and treats compensation and job-shadowing as coordination tools. His caveman logic on pay: "what they kill, we eat."
The honest close: depression, dropping the mask, and psychological safety — the people who look most "on" are often the loneliest in the building. His parting advice: run a monthly time audit, because if you're not doing 1:1s, the smoke is already there.

What was discussed

Founder-led sales: when the two sides of the business start to stick

Story

Founder-led sales works at the start — the founder embodies both the product and the relationship — but it gets sticky as the company grows and the founder can't let go.
Jason's pitch: a fractional leader in 8–12 focused hours a week beats a founder splitting 40 hours badly across the job.
His model client "did it right" — introduced him as "you're my VP of sales," giving real authority instead of a shadow role.
The payoff he sells: giving busy executives a week of their life back every month.
What brings him in: reps losing access to leadership, and the "toy box" handoff — a founder dumping a disorganised jumble of context on the new sales leader.

The golden spreadsheet in the locked drawer

Highlight

The episode's namesake: one person hoards the spreadsheet the whole company's sales run on, and only they have the key. Territoriality turns shared knowledge into a single point of failure.
"Binders are where information goes to die" — when collaboration breaks down, critical process lives in one head or one locked drawer.
The bottleneck it creates: a single approver for every quote, from $500 to $500,000.
The invisible buyer process: internally a "yes" is assumed to mean three weeks, but nobody has mapped what the buyer actually has to do.

Hire one sales-enablement pro and own the data

Key insight

The 15-minute room: get everyone to agree on the three things that matter, then let go.
His highest-leverage fix is unglamorous — hire a single sales-enablement person to own the data, and sales can rise within one quarter.

The $20M pipeline that was really $10M

Key insight

An audit found a "$20M" pipeline was closer to $10M — half the deals had close dates already in the past.
Stages vs. gates: "you're not in negotiations until you're redlining." Without gates, reps report optimism, not reality.

The Enneagram: what your best rep does when they go quiet

Key insight

Jason uses the Enneagram to map people's core drivers and how they behave under stress.
The micromanaging story: three weeks of a teammate silently wondering "does Jason not like me?" — a coordination failure hiding as a personality clash.
When your best rep goes dark, pick up the phone.

Compensation as a coordination tool

Story

Pay and job-shadowing every role are ways to align incentives across the org.
The caveman logic he's at peace with: "I'm okay with my salesperson out-earning me — what they kill, we eat."

The human layer: depression, masks, and psychological safety

Highlight

The birthdays missed, and "throwing the grenade over the fence" — the quiet cost of the always-on sales life.
A candid turn: depression, medication, and dropping the mask — the people who look most "on" are often the loneliest in the building.
Psychological safety, and the "me too" moment when one person in the room finally says it out loud.
Content note: this part of the conversation is a candid discussion of depression and mental health in sales.

Closing advice: run a time audit

Highlight