5D Executive
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Performance consulting

Better leaders. Stronger teams. More consistent performance.

5D Executive helps companies get better performance from the leaders and employees they already have.

We find the human factors holding your people back, then work with them directly to change what's getting in the way of results.

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Two practices

One firm. Two places performance gets won or lost.

01Founders, CEOs and leadership teams

Executive & Leadership Performance

Build a leadership team that takes ownership and operates without everything coming back to the founder.

  • Faster, better decisions
  • Executives who own their areas
  • Less dependence on the founder
Explore Executive & Leadership
02Owners and sales leaders

Sales Team Performance

Turn more of your existing salespeople into stronger performers.

  • More top performers from reps you already have
  • Higher production per rep
  • Earlier warning before good reps leave
Explore Sales Teams
The opportunity

You've already paid for the talent. Are you getting the performance?

Recruiting, salaries, training, management time. Most businesses invest heavily in their people. But hiring talented people doesn't guarantee they perform consistently.

The fix isn't always more people, more training or more accountability meetings. Sometimes it's understanding what lets your people perform at their best, what's getting in the way, and acting on it.

  • Better leadership decisionsClearer accountability and fewer decisions stuck at the top.
  • A business less dependent on its founderExecution that holds when you step back.
  • Less management time on repeat problemsKnowing what each person needs instead of guessing.
  • More output from existing employeesBetter production without adding headcount.
  • Middle performers who move upMore of your B players producing like your A players.
  • Less preventable turnoverSpotting struggle and disengagement before good people leave.
The 5D approach

Performance isn't one-dimensional.

You can have the right strategy, the right people and the right systems and still struggle to execute consistently.

Because performance isn't just about what someone knows how to do. It's also about how they show up, make decisions, respond to pressure and work with others. That's why we look at five dimensions of performance, not just the final result.

Five dimensions. One performance.

  1. 01

    Foundation

    Physical, mental and emotional readiness. The capacity to perform at your highest level.

    At workA manager who has slept five hours a night for a month still shows up, but patience and judgment are the first things to go.

  2. 02

    Connection

    Relationships, team dynamics and the support around you.

    At workAn executive who has stopped trusting a peer starts routing decisions around them, and the whole team slows down.

  3. 03

    Mental Game

    Decision quality under pressure, focus and composure.

    At workA rep who starts overthinking after two lost deals talks herself out of the third.

  4. 04

    Purpose

    Why you do this work, your long-term vision and legacy.

    At workA strong performer who no longer sees a future in the role starts coasting months before handing in notice.

  5. 05

    Execution

    Results delivered, quality of work and consistency.

    At workA founder who is busy all day while the one decision that matters waits another week.

In leadership teams

Decisions, ownership and how leaders operate

How decisions get made, who owns what, how leaders communicate, and the personal operating patterns that turn into organizational problems.

Executive & Leadership
In sales teams

The conditions behind each rep's best and worst stretches

Confidence, readiness, pressure and recovery, read next to each rep's actual numbers, so coaching fits the person.

Sales Teams

The five dimensions are the methodology behind both practices.

Real consulting work

What the work looks like inside a company.

Executive & Leadership

He came in with a team problem. Part of it was a founder problem.

The situation
Two founders of a fast-growing company, hands-on with every important decision. The team waited on them.
What we found
The team performed fine when his hard-charging partner was out. He had made himself the buffer between his partner and the team, and that role kept the company dependent on its founders.
What we did
Named the pattern, moved the partner conversation to data instead of opinion, and coached him to be direct without anger.
What changed in under two months
  • Had the direct conversation with his partner about how meetings are run
  • Changed next year's event schedule to stop burning both founders out
  • Committed to bringing the work to the full leadership team
Read the leadership case
Sales Team Performance

She went from sixth on her team to second.

We read her confidence, pressure and energy next to her actual sales, then coached to the conditions behind her best days.

Read the sales case
6thto2ndHer rank on the team in cash collected, September to October
20%to34%Close rate, September to October
$77.2Kto$113.1KCash collected, on 41 calls instead of 55
Verified resultsMonthly totals from the company's own sales records.
How 5D developed

Built through real work with real people.

  1. 01

    People in crisis

    Years coaching people through major personal transitions showed us the patterns behind decisions under pressure.

  2. 02

    Collegiate athletics

    Daily intelligence work with D1 and D2 college athletic teams, where performance is measured every game.

  3. 03

    Sales teams

    Closer-by-closer work on high-ticket teams, reading daily conditions next to individual sales data.

  4. 04

    Executive leadership

    Founders, CEOs and leadership teams working on decisions, ownership and how the company runs.

Founded by Mark Santiago.

Read the full story
Next step

Let's talk about your leadership team, your sales team, or both.

Tell us where performance is stuck. We'll tell you plainly what we'd look at first and whether we can help.

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Sales team question? Talk about your team.