We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sehba Khan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sehba below.

Sehba, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today undefined

100% starting my own business was the most “accidentally on-purpose” innovative thing I’ve done.

I say that because, like many folks, I didn’t launch a company with a TED Talk and a hoodie. I launched it with a laptop, a small baby in the background, and a deep desire to stop banging my head against the corporate ceiling. I realized pretty quickly that if I wanted to build something meaningful and flexible, I’d have to reimagine what leadership, growth, and client service could actually look like.

So I took 17+ years of building and scaling sales and marketing teams – from scrappy startups to buttoned-up multinationals – and flipped it into a fractional model that actually works. Not the smoke-and-mirrors kind, but real roll-up-your-sleeves, let’s-build-revenue-together kind of work.

Here’s the innovation part: I didn’t just repackage what I used to do full-time. I reengineered how small and mid-sized businesses access executive-level strategy without the bloated overhead. I walk in, align marketing and sales like a therapist with a CRM, fix what’s broken, and help teams grow faster, smarter, and with a lot less drama.

I didn’t invent an app, but I did create a business that makes revenue growth feel possible again for founders who were about to throw their pipeline out the window.

Sehba, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Sure, happy to! So, hi I’m Sehba Khan. I’m the sales and marketing strategist companies call when they’re ready to stop spinning their wheels and actually grow. Think of me as the glue between marketing and sales…but with strategy chops and zero tolerance for fluff.

How did I get here? Like many people who eventually start their own business, I spent years climbing the ladder, leading sales and marketing teams across industries like EdTech, SaaS, bio-pharama, and professional services. I’ve worked everywhere from scrappy startups to Fortune 100 giants. I’ve sold everything from educational courses to high-ticket software to 7 figure multi-year agreements. And after 17+ years of doing it for everyone else, I decided to do it on my own terms and help more companies along the way.

Now, through my consulting business, I work with growing companies that know they need strategic leadership but don’t necessarily need (or want) a full-time VP of Sales or CRO just yet. That’s where I come in.

Here’s what I do:

I help companies define and refine their go-to-market strategies

I untangle messy sales processes and rebuild them so they actually work

I align sales and marketing teams so they’re not side-eyeing each other across the Zoom screen

I coach founders and sales leaders to lead with confidence, close bigger deals, and create predictable revenue

And I make sure we’re doing it all in a way that’s scalable, sustainable, and grounded in real results.

What sets me apart? I’ve lived in both sales and marketing so I get the full picture, not just one side of the funnel. I’ve led teams of nearly 100 people, but I’ve also been the one manually logging leads at 10pm when the CRM goes haywire. I know strategy, but I know execution too, and that’s where I stand out.

What I’m most proud of? Two things:

That I’ve built a business rooted in authenticity, results, and real relationships.

That I’m modeling something different – for my kids, for other women, and for every leader who’s ever felt underestimated.

If there’s one thing I want people to know about me and my brand, it’s this: I don’t just talk about growth. I build it with my clients, beside my clients, and sometimes in spite of the chaos. So if you’re tired of hearing “just do more outbound” or “you need better content” without a real plan, let’s talk.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

This is the story of how I accidentally became the sales and marketing department…for three entire product lines.

Picture this: I’m in an operations role at the time. Not sales. Not marketing. Ops. You know – spreadsheet city, process improvement, herding cats (aka humans). But one day the company decided to roll back 3 product lines to individual cost centers that were managed nationally in the past. The salesperson at my cost center was unenthusiastic to say the least. She was completely overloaded and leadership needed someone to just cover these three product lines for a bit – you know, “until we figure something out.”

Spoiler alert: no one figured anything out. So I jumped in.

No formal sales training. No marketing budget. No roadmap. Just me, a laptop, and the drive to succeed. I started digging into what made each product actually matter to the customer, not just what we thought we were selling, but the real pain points we were solving. I restructured the messaging, created my own outreach sequences, revamped the onboarding materials, and started talking to customers like real human beings.

I got creative. I wrote my own email copy. Built my own decks. I even jumped on demo calls, taught myself how to close, and created post-sale follow-ups that actually made people want to stick around.

And then something wild happened: I grew those product lines by 150%. By myself. While still technically in an ops role. One minute, I was “just helping out.” Next minute, people from across the company were saying, “Wait, who is doing this?” All of a sudden, I wasn’t just in the room, I was leading the conversation.

That moment taught me something huge: You don’t need a perfect title or a fancy budget to drive growth. You just need a deep understanding of your customer, a relentless drive to figure things out, and a refusal to accept “that’s not your job” as a stopping point.

That was the start of something for me. Not just a successful fiscal, but the realization that strategy, execution, and creative grit is my zone. And I’ve been building in that zone ever since.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Hands down, people. Real people. The ones I meet, the relationships I nurture, the referrals that come from a “Hey, you have to talk to Sehba,” and the partnerships built on actual trust (not just LinkedIn likes).

My best clients didn’t find me through SEO or some AI-driven funnel. They came from conversations at events, over coffee, in Slack groups, through DMs that turned into strategy sessions. My business is built on connection, not clicks.

Because at the end of the day, no amount of automation can replace the power of a “You just get it” moment. That’s the stuff that lasts. That’s the stuff that grows.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehbakhan/