Jimmy Hoogewind helps businesses build more predictable sales pipelines—while confronting the same uncertainty inside his own six-year-old business.
August 10, 2026
There is a particular kind of entrepreneurial irony in teaching companies how to create predictable revenue while running a business that still feels unpredictable yourself.
For Jimmy Hoogewind, that tension has become part of the reality of building Combustible. Six years into running his business as a solopreneur, he describes himself as being in “perpetual startup mode”—balancing client delivery, business development and the ongoing search for a more consistent pipeline.
His conversation with Humans of Fuzia, a global thought-leadership platform where entrepreneurs, coaches, executives and changemakers share the realities behind business growth, reveals a sales consultant less interested in polished formulas than in the messy human mechanics behind buying and selling.
That distinction matters in a sales environment increasingly shaped by AI and self-directed buyers. Gartner reported in March 2026 that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience. Yet the sales role is not disappearing; it is shifting toward moments where buyers need context, validation and confidence.
Hoogewind sees that human element as central to effective selling.
His challenge is finding enough qualified opportunities where a prospect’s needs genuinely intersect with his value proposition. Once he gets into the room, he says, his process tends to work. The harder part is creating enough opportunities to keep that process moving consistently.
That is where the entrepreneurial contradiction becomes useful.
The same founder who advises clients on predictable sales forecasting is experiencing the difficulty of creating that predictability for himself. Client delivery competes with prospecting. Relationships need nurturing. Introductions need to be requested. And when too many possible growth paths appear simultaneously, even knowing what to do can become overwhelming.
He describes that state as analysis paralysis: Where should I start? Who should I ask? Which direction should I pursue?
Rather than solving the problem with more activity, Hoogewind keeps returning to a simpler principle: understanding comes before prescription.
His philosophy is captured in the idea of “seek to understand before seeking to be understood.” For him, that applies beyond sales—to parenting, relationships and human connection itself. In a sales conversation, it means resisting the urge to prescribe a solution before understanding the person sitting across the table.
That is increasingly relevant as AI makes information and sales content easier to produce. The differentiator is becoming judgment: knowing what questions to ask, what assumptions to challenge and when not to rush toward an answer.
For other sales consultants and founders, Hoogewind’s experience offers a practical lesson: build a repeatable system for creating conversations, but do not confuse the system with the relationship. Pipeline mechanics create access; understanding creates trust.
His own approach to growth also begins with self-awareness. When discussing dedication, he returned to two questions he recently offered his college-bound son: What are you good at? What do you care about?
For Hoogewind, those questions are not career advice alone. They are the starting point for building work that can actually be sustained.
His definition of an honest entrepreneur follows the same logic. Honesty begins internally—with acknowledging limitations, accepting vulnerability and letting go of the need to be the smartest person in the room.
Execution Tip
Before your next sales conversation, write down three questions you need answered before you recommend anything. Enter the call with a rule: diagnose first, prescribe second.
The strongest sales systems may eventually use AI to automate more of the process. But Hoogewind’s story points to something technology cannot easily replace: the discipline to slow down long enough to understand another human being.
That may be where predictable growth begins—not with a better pitch, but with a better question.
Jimmy Hoogewind | LinkedIn
