Exit readiness and pipeline quality
Buyers of services firms look hard at pipeline quality, not just revenue. What they check, what makes a pipeline credible and what to fix.
3 min read
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The CRO's first 30 days
A new CRO at a services firm should spend the first 30 days listening to deals, not rewriting the plan. What to look at and what to leave.
3 min readWriting a sales playbook people read
A sales playbook nobody opens is a document, not a playbook. Here's how to write one short enough to use, built around decisions sellers make every week.
3 min readSales and delivery handoffs that keep trust
How services firm leaders run the sales to delivery handoff so the client never feels the seam, and the promises made in the sale survive kickoff.
3 min readA culture of research
How a services firm leader builds a sales culture where research before outreach is the norm, from what gets inspected to what gets praised.
3 min readWhen to let a seller go
How a services sales leader decides when a struggling seller should go, using the work behind the numbers instead of waiting for a missed year.
3 min readStop measuring activity. Measure Stage 1.
Activity dashboards count effort, not pipeline. Here are the four Stage 1 measures that tell a services sales leader where next quarter is coming from.
3 min readMeasuring a seller's first 90 days
How to measure a new services seller in their first 90 days, when closed revenue is too far off to judge, using leading indicators that show real progress.
3 min readHow to size a pipeline gap honestly
How a services firm sizes the real gap between its revenue target and its pipeline, without padding stages or counting deals that aren't there.
3 min readData you need and data you don't
A services sales leader needs a short list of numbers that change decisions. Here's which data earns a place in the weekly review and which can go.
3 min readBuilding a sales stack for a small firm
The small set of tools a 20 to 100 person services firm needs to sell well, what to add in what order, and what to skip until it starts to hurt.
3 min readWhat services founders get wrong about outbound
Services founders built their firms on referrals, then run outbound like a software company. Here are the mistakes that stall it and how to fix them.
4 min readWhy most sales tech fails in services
The bulk of sales tools are built for high-volume software sales. Why they break inside services firms and what a services sales stack really needs.
3 min readTrust is the product
A services firm sells trust before it sells any work. How every note, meeting and proposal either builds that trust or spends it, and how to lead for it.
3 min readWhat buyers want from a services firm now
What senior buyers expect from a services firm today, from senior people in the room to smaller first phases, and what that means for how you sell.
3 min readSelling when budgets open up
When buyer budgets open up, every services firm shows up at once. How to win the release of pent-up spend without discounting or chasing every request.
3 min readSelling when the economy tightens
When budgets tighten, services buyers don't stop buying. They stop buying the wrong things. How firm leaders should adjust what they sell and to whom.
3 min readBoard reporting on pipeline
How services firm leaders should report pipeline to a board, with fewer stage totals and more honest evidence about which deals are real.
3 min read