Sales
Pipeline, sales team, forecast and managed growth. A sales team becomes a system when a new person reproduces the result in a known time through a clear program.
Common requests:One or two people bring in most of the revenue, A new salesperson takes an unpredictably long time to reach results, Deals are lost with the reason "too expensive"
Services in this area
3 services
01Sales · 01
Sales Management
A pipeline with stage criteria, a rhythm and a forecast you can trust, so sales rest on a process.
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02Sales · 02
Sales Audit
Exactly where deals get lost: response speed, qualification, follow-ups, reasons for loss and the forecast. We start with call recordings.
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03Sales · 03
Building a Sales Team
Roles, standards, an onboarding program and management. A sales team that doesn't depend on one person.
Learn moreWhat people come with
Does this sound familiar?
- One or two people bring in most of the revenue, and everyone is fine with it until the first vacation.Situation 01Revenue is either a system or luck in hiring.
- The forecast is based on gut feeling because the pipeline stages have no criteria.Situation 02Revenue is either a system or luck in hiring.
- A new salesperson takes an unpredictably long time to reach results, or never does.Situation 03Revenue is either a system or luck in hiring.
- Deals are lost with the reason "too expensive", and nobody checks what's behind it.Situation 04Revenue is either a system or luck in hiring.
The core idea of this area
Revenue is either a system or luck in hiring.
The self-assessment for this area checks repeatability: whether the result holds without a particular person, whether there are stage criteria and whether the forecast can be trusted.
- 01Repeatable sales
- 02People and roles
- 03Differentiation
- 04Management data
- 05Technology backbone
How we see it
A strong salesperson is an asset. Dependence on a strong salesperson is a liability.
The difference is whether their result can be reproduced. We move knowledge out of the heads of the best people into the setup: definitions, stage criteria, mandatory follow-ups, the structure of a conversation and reviews of lost deals. We don't lose the hero; we change their role.
When this area won't help
- If there are few inquiries, it's a demand task.
- If the product hasn't been validated by the market, salespeople will only expose the problem.
- A structural problem can't be fixed with a new commission plan.
Questions
Where does building a sales team start?
With three definitions: inquiry, qualified inquiry, deal. Until they exist, the pipeline is a collection of opinions, and the metrics measure the wrong things.
Do we need a script?
You need a conversation structure: mandatory questions and a mandatory outcome. A word-for-word script makes the conversation lifeless; no structure makes it random.
How do we take the process away from a star salesperson?
Not by asking them to write a manual. Three approaches work: listen to recordings and describe the process yourselves, give them a mentor role paid for the trainee's results, and split the functions by stage.
How long until the team becomes repeatable?
The key measure is how long a new person takes to reach 70% of the average result. If it's more than three months, there is effectively no training program.
Related articles and case analyses
A sales team that doesn't depend on one person
As long as results depend on one strong salesperson, you don't have a sales team. You have a person and a risk.
Check how much revenue would leave with one person.
The first meeting is free. That number is enough to know where to start.