Sales & Customer Growth
In most small businesses, the sales process is the founder
It works, until the founder is the bottleneck and nothing can grow past their calendar. This session turns what they do instinctively into stages somebody else can follow — which is the only way sales scales beyond one person.
A process is what lets somebody else do what only you can do now.
Most owners sell well and cannot explain how. Deals live in their head, follow-up depends on memory, and every new salesperson is expected to absorb it by watching. That is why the first sales hire so often fails.
Writing down the stages does two things: it makes the pipeline visible, so you can see where deals actually stall, and it makes the job teachable.
What a working process contains
33 topics across 6 areas. Six parts.
The StagesName them, and define what moves a deal between them.6
Most small businesses need five or six, not fifteen. The test of a stage is that anybody can say whether a deal is in it.
- Enquiry received
- Qualified as worth pursuing
- Needs understood
- Proposal sent
- Negotiation
- Won or lost, and why
QualificationDeciding what not to chase.6
The most valuable discipline in small-business sales is declining work early. Every unqualified deal consumes the time of one you could have won.
- Do they have the problem?
- Can they afford it?
- Are they the decision maker?
- Is there a timeline?
- Can we actually deliver it well?
- Is it worth our capacity?
The ConversationDiscovery before pitching.6
- What are they trying to solve?
- What are they doing now?
- What is it costing them?
- What have they tried?
- Who else is involved in deciding?
- What would make this a yes?
The owners who sell best ask more than they say. That part is teachable.
Follow-UpWhere most small-business deals are lost.5
- When to follow up, and how often
- What to say each time so it is not a nag
- Adding something useful rather than asking again
- When to stop
- How to close a dead deal politely
Making It VisibleA pipeline you can see is a pipeline you can fix.5
- Every open deal, its stage and value
- Where deals stall most often
- Conversion between stages
- Expected revenue by month
- What to do about a thin pipeline before it becomes a thin month
A spreadsheet is enough to start. A CRM helps once more than one person is selling.
Handing It OverThe point of writing it down.5
- What a new salesperson needs to know
- What only you can still do
- What to hand over first
- How to review their pipeline without taking it over
- When to hire, and what the first hire should be
Questions that reveal the current state
- How many open deals do you have right now?
- What is each worth?
- Which stage do most of them stall at?
- How many enquiries became customers last quarter?
- What did you decline, and why?
- What happens to a deal if you are ill for a week?
What participants build
- Their own stages, named
- A qualification test they will actually apply
- A follow-up rhythm
- A simple pipeline sheet with their live deals in it
- One thing they will hand to somebody else
How the session runs
An owner who has built a sales team walks through their own stages and what each is for. Participants then map their own — most discover they have three stages and a lot of hope — and put their live deals into a pipeline in the room. The uncomfortable part is usually seeing how few there are.
What your students leave with
- Their sales process written as stages
- A qualification test that lets them decline work early
- A discovery approach that can be taught to somebody else
- A follow-up rhythm that is not dependent on memory
- A visible pipeline with their real deals in it
- A view on what to hand over first, and when to hire
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
A process is what lets somebody else do what only you can do now.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.